These Chromebooks will support Steam for Chrome OS at launch

Google has been working on bringing Steam support to Chromebooks for some time now. In late December, a merged commit on Chromium Gerrit revealed that Steam for Chrome OS was just around the corner. While that has yet to happen, we now know which Chromebooks will be the first in line to support Steam games.

As spotted by 9to5Google, in a code change posted over at Chromium Gerrit, Google has released an initial list of Chromebooks that will support Steam at launch. The list has six models, consisting mostly of ASUS and Acer Chromebooks.

• Volta – Acer Chromebook 514 (CB514-1H)
• Volet – Acer Chromebook 515
• Voxel – Acer Chromebook Spin 713 (CP713-3W)
• Delbin – ASUS Chromebook Flip CX5 (CX5500)
• Drobit – ASUS Chromebook CX9 (CX9400)
• Elemi – HP Pro c640 G2 Chromebook
• Lindar – Unknown/unreleased Chromebook from Lenovo

Moreover, Google has laid out minimum hardware requirements that Chromebooks must meet to run Steam games. Your Chromebook must have an Intel 11th Gen i5 or i7 processor and at least 7GB of RAM. That means most entry-level and affordable models will miss out.

9to5Google reports that they have also seen evidence that Google tested Steam on 10th Gen Intel Core and AMD chips. Nvidia seems to be closely associated with the Steam development, with Nvidia employees submitting multiple code changes to the Chromium Gerrit. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Nvidia has already made its intentions quite clear about taking the gaming on Chrome OS to the next level with its collaboration with MediaTek.

Google is also reportedly working with several OEMs to bring a new class of gaming Chromebooks to the market. These Chromebooks are said to be equipped with RGB keyboards and might pack Intel’s 12th Gen Alder Lake processors.

While still don’t know when Steam for Chrome OS is coming, there are several workarounds to run the service on your Chromebook right now. If you’re interested, check out our step-by-step guide on how to get Steam games up and running on your Chromebook.

With RGB Chromebooks reportedly on the way and official Steam support just around the corner, Google looks serious about making Chrome OS a viable option for gaming. However, it remains to be seen how all this plays out in the end.

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