It would be useful for external GPU too is my hope

not going to happen. It is absolutely too late. You don't change hardware spec after the hardware has entered mass production...

引用自 State Farm Rep：

I use an M4 Mac Mini for my cheeky server setup. Thunderbolt is very important for the reason that I can connect an external raid bay.

So to steam: your machine can do more than just play video games? Then add thunderbolt to the machine. It isn't too late. It wouldn't cost that much. Or at least make it an option. The machine is running ARCH LINUX it is perfect for that use case and it would make my Mac Mini obsolete.

And I would 100% upgrade if they did something like that. I just need that thunderbolt.
Hell if they add thunderbolt, I will buy all three new products.

You clearly have no idea what goes into such a revision. YES it would cost more because that would not only require a full mother board revision with more R&D time but also require a motherboard chipset added as they are maxing out the I/O die currently.

Also using a Mac as a server is the biggest waste of money I have heard of in recent history.

引用自 State Farm Rep：

And I would 100% upgrade if they did something like that. I just need that thunderbolt.
Hell if they add thunderbolt, I will buy all three new products.

It would cost them extra money. Likely many millions of $$$ to add such a port to millions of units. Redesign alone would be too expensive at this point.

Valve wants to sell games and not hardware. They are already concerned that some small companies may buy Steam Machines for their offices where no Steam Games would be purchased.

When the machine will be out, more PC builders will likely give you an option for pre-installed SteamOS instead of Windows. With thunderbolt port if you wish.

Buy an expansion card and mod the Steam Machine yourself.

does anyone understand that thunderbolt is just USB C 40gb???.....steam machine will have 20gb ports....

引用自 Revelrous Flame：

It would be useful for external GPU too is my hope

That would be good.

Computers are getting smaller and smaller and more compact, between AMD's onboard graphics continuing to push boundaries, and with RISC-V coming into use and threatening to completely replace ARM. I imagine small single-board systems and small cube PCs with optional eGPU enclosures will become more popular in the future.

I've always preferred Mid-tower cases at the largest, but GPUs and CPU coolers are just too damn big, now.

引用自 smokerob79：

does anyone understand that thunderbolt is just USB C 40gb???.....steam machine will have 20gb ports....

Do you understand that you have that backwards. USB4 is a subset of Thunderbolt 4; not the other way around. Thunderbolt is not "just USB-C 40Gb" as it is essentially external PCIe which can run the USB protocol on top of that PCIe interface. USB-C can not do the opposite.

EDIT: Also, from the specs provided to the media that attended the hardware event they noted the USB-C port on the Steam Machine as being USB-C 3.2 Gen2 which is 10Gbps, not 20Gbps. USB-C 3.2 Gen2x2 is 20Gbps and I've not seen any media outlet that attended and reported on specs denote the USB-C port for the Steam Machine being USB-C 3.2 Gen2x2.