So What Kind of Rig Does Valve Use to Make Games?

valveAs we know, Valve makes PC games. Some rather sweet PC games. So, you know how when you sign on to Steam, and you always get bugged by that survey asking what kind of rig you have? Well, Valve’s got their own that they use to develop with, and they are quite beastly. Do any of you have comparable PC’s?

* EVGA 780i SLI FTW Intel Motherboard
* Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz Quad-Core Processor
* 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 1066MHz ram
(Crucial Ballistix, Kingston ValueRam)
* 1 x NVidia GTX280 1GB – OR – ATI 4870 1GB graphics card
* 1 x 250GB 7200RPM SATA HD
(Seagate, Western Digital)
* 1 x 500GB 7200RPM SATA HD
(Seagate, Western Digital)
* Antec Sonata III desktop case
* Zalman CPU Cooler
* 850W Antec power supply
* 1 x Dell 3008FPW-HC 30″ LCD – OR – 2 x Dell 2001FP 20.1″ LCD monitors
* Windows XP 32bit

And if you think that’s good, wait until you see what they’re upgrading to…

* EVGA X58 3X SLI Intel Motherboard
* Intel Corei7 940 2.93GHz Quad-Core Processor
* 12GB PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz ram
(Crucial Ballistix, Kingston ValueRam)
* 1 x NVidia GTX285 1GB – OR – ATI 4870 1GB graphics card
* 1 x 250GB 7200RPM SATA HD
* (Seagate, Western Digital) 1 x 500GB 7200RPM SATA HD
* (Seagate, Western Digital) Lian Li P60-F Case
* Intel CPU Cooler
* 850W Antec power supply
* 1 x Dell 3008FPW-HC 30″ LCD – OR – 2 x Dell 2001FP 20.1″ LCD monitors
* Windows Vista 64bit

That’s pretty beefy, if I do say so myself. So who’s got the most comparable setup? Also, I can has?

Source- Steam

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I write about samurai girls and space marines. Writer for Smooth Few Films. Rooster Teeth Freelancer. Author of Red vs. Blue, The Ultimate Fan Guide, out NOW!

13 thoughts on “So What Kind of Rig Does Valve Use to Make Games?”

  2. I think you misunderstood… this is what they use to make the games. Not the requirements for anything.

    The Steam survey that I mentioned in the post, which I think you’re unfamiliar with, exists so they can target the average PC that millions of users have, to make sure it’s accessible to as many people as possible.

    So, Valve posted their own specs, because people were curious what they use to build the games.

  3. So many numbers… brain… melting… Seriously, I’ll agree with Anthony. Console 4eva. They have the HUGE advantage of none of this graphics card for £200 only for it to be outdated in a week bullshit. All I know is that My PC is able to run Oblivion and The Orange Box. I’m happy. I don’t understand what the point of these supercomputers are. Designers, yes, new hardware is essential. But for the average PC gamer? All they seem to talk about is Half Life or CSS and they run on Source! Valve use that so everyone can play the games!

  4. Oh I understood,lol. Its just all of that is Greek to me. None of it means anything.

    My point was that I don’t know what all that stuff is, so I stay away from it.

    And upgrading the PC is expensive.

    But thats awesome that they try to find out what people have. More PC companies should do that.

    EA….

  5. Well, the for graphics, they should totally have SLI and more ram. And real physics/graphics jobs are done with IBM’s rigs with CELL, which are anything but normal PC’s.

  6. Amazingly, the initial specs look pretty much like what we use here at work (3d cad), just substitute the obscenely expensive NVidia card for a different obscenely expensive NVidia card. The upgrade specs though…Damn.

  7. oh my god.
    I just had a Nerdgasm.
    Building and designing your PC is one of the cool things of having one. Unlike console where you have one setting, i can design my pc to do what i want it to. But i have to agree, Consoles are nice because you dont have to upgrade every half a year

  8. Game development obviously takes more power than game playing, but that’s just a little excessive, especially for the source engine. There’s not much difference between the GTX280 and 285, though; I’d go straight to a 295. And hey, if they need to have this much power, maybe we can hope that they’re developing a new engine to develop games past HL2:E3 with.

  9. Jeez 12GB of ram…i cannot even imagine that. That’s three times what i have running Vista64! I have a 22 in Samsung and 850 watt power supply, but the similarities stop there.

    I guess at least my video card was on that top 10 list you posted a while back. I have an Intel Core 2 Duo 3.00 GHz and a 320 GB Seagate hard drive.

  10. I think I only hav 2 of the same there. The rest I don`t know because of all the squiggly stuff written in there.

    I think valve should make their own Combuters. that will be great.

  11. Is it bad that the first thing I noticed was the 7,200 RPM hard drives? For how much money they’re spending on those ridiculously amazing machines, those hard drives are terrible. Anybody have any idea why they didn’t bother to upgrade them AT ALL? Doesn’t make any sense to me =/

    Other than that, I liek… very much…

  12. 😮 My computer could’ve kept up with the first one, but the second one just killed my computer and raped it’s dead body.

  13. I bought my Machine in September of 2007.

    * DualCore Intel Core 2 Duo E6850, 3 Ghz
    * Asus Maximus Formula Mobo
    * 2GB DDR2-800 RAM
    * NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS(640 MB)
    * Focusrite Saffire LE audio interface (Muuuusic!)
    * Event SP8 Studio Monitors (i.e. $1500 Speakers… audio hacks!)

    Gotta ask my business partner what exactly our studio machine as outfitted with. I just know it was running 8GB of DDR3 1333 xD

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