Xi3 Corporation, a subsidiary of ISYS Technologies and owner of Xi3® patented architecture, has announced its latest Piston that will debut this Holiday season. With a base price of $1,000, XI3 Piston will feature a 3.2 GHz AMD quad-core processor with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD—but no dedicated graphics card.

“Clearly, the computer/video gaming market is huge, both in the personal computer and traditional console markets,” Xi3 chief executive officer Jason Sullivan said in a statement. “That being said, we believe there is a crying need for a machine that captures the best of both worlds, with the upgradeability of computer gaming rigs and the design and form factor of consoles. We believe our Piston Consoles do exactly that — deliver the beauty and small size of consoles with the upgradeability of computers.”

Coming on the higher range, two versions are available at $1,339.99 and $1749.99, where you get 256GB and 512GB of storage, respectively. The good news about customers who want preorder is that if they preorder before March 18, they will get $100 off on the above prices. Plus, there comes a guarantee that those gamers will receive it before the end of 2013.

Xi3’s Piston model made waves at CES 2013 in January by its association with Valve’s “Steam Box” project, while there is actually no connection between the two. Apparently, Valve is still working on its own Steam Box. With this, there comes a whole new category of Steam Boxes, and the Piston is the first in that category.