Steam Frame Price Lands at $1,059 With Alyx Included

Valve Finally Names a Price

Ten months after unveiling it, Valve has put a number on the Steam Frame. The standalone VR headset went on sale September 14, 2026 at $1,059 in the US and £889 in the UK for the 256GB kit, with a 1TB version at $1,299. Both kits include the Steam Frame Controllers, a Wi-Fi 6E wireless adapter for PC streaming, and a copy of Half-Life: Alyx. This is Valve's second in-house headset after the 2019 Index, and the first that works without a PC attached.

• Price: $1,059 / £889 for the 256GB kit; $1,299 for 1TB, controllers and adapter included in both
• Display: 2160 x 2160 LCD per eye, refresh rates from 72Hz to 144Hz
• Silicon: Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and a 21.6Wh battery
• Buying it: a randomized reservation list — sign-ups close Thursday, September 17 at 10:00 AM Pacific, with the first purchase emails going out September 18

What Makes This Different From the Index?

Two things, and they matter more than the spec bump. The Index was a tethered headset that needed a gaming PC and a pair of base stations bolted to your walls. The Frame is standalone — Snapdragon silicon, its own battery, inside-out tracking, no lighthouses. You can put it on and play without a PC in the building.

The second is the included Wi-Fi 6E adapter. Rather than assume your home network can carry a compressed VR stream without stuttering, Valve ships a dedicated dongle that talks to the headset directly. That is a quietly pragmatic decision — wireless PC-to-headset streaming has historically been the part that works beautifully in a review unit and badly in a real apartment building.

Valve has said the goal is to expand the VR market, pointing to the headset's light weight and the fact that it removes the PC requirement as the two things holding new players out. At $1,059 it is not an impulse buy, and Valve is not pretending otherwise; the pitch is that this is one purchase instead of a headset plus a machine to drive it.

How Do You Actually Buy a Steam Frame?

Not by clicking add-to-cart. Valve is running a randomized reservation list: you sign up during the window, and if your name comes up you get an email with a purchase link. Sign-ups close September 17 at 10:00 AM Pacific and the first emails go out September 18. If you want one in the first wave, the deadline is the thing to put in your calendar.

Storage is expandable via microSD on both models, which takes some of the sting out of choosing between the two tiers. The dual 2160 x 2160 LCDs and the 72–144Hz refresh range put it comfortably in the current generation of standalone hardware, and 16GB of LPDDR5X is generous for a device in this class.

What About the Steam Deck 2?

The obvious follow-up question, given the memory and component pricing pressure the whole industry is dealing with right now, is whether Valve's handheld roadmap is affected. Valve has said Steam Deck 2 plans have not really been impacted by the memory supply situation, though the company has acknowledged the Frame itself arrived later and costs more than early expectations suggested.

We covered the software groundwork for this launch back in July when the SteamVR Quick Access menu shipped ahead of the Frame, and Valve's broader hardware turn is something we looked at during the company's 30th anniversary. The Frame is the most ambitious piece of that turn so far: a headset that runs Steam games on its own and streams the rest from your PC, sold by a company that already owns the storefront. More hardware and release coverage in our gaming section.

Sources: Eurogamer — September 14, 2026; Road to VR — September 2026; Video Games Chronicle — September 15, 2026.