Alienware releases small Alpha PC Gaming Console

froggyboy604

froggyboy604

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Manager
Full GL Member
Credits
22,282
Mature Board Viewing
Unlock full profile styling
ifbf5k.jpg


Alienware has unveiled the Alpha gaming console. Due to launch during the 2014 holiday season, the $549 device will bridge the gap between PC and gaming consoles.

But don't call it a Steam Box...at least not yet. Since SteamOS is delayed until sometime in 2015, the Alpha will ship with Windows 8.1, but can be upgraded to Valve's operating system when it becomes available. For now, the Alpha will rely on a custom Alienware Alpha Console-mode UI. The interface will enable gamers to interact with the console using only a controller, including launching Steam Big Picture Mode and accessing media. Alienware's also added the ability to change the system's LED lighting -- an Alienware trademark. In place of the uniquely-designed Steam controller, the Alpha will ship with a Xbox 360 controller.

The Alpha's base model will feature a Haswell dual-core Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM an a 500GB hard drive. The system will employ a custom-built Nvidia “Maxwell” based GPU with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM. Consumers looking for more power can configure the Alpha with either Core i5 or Core i7 processors, with up to 8GB of RAM and up to a 2TB hard drive. Pricing has yet to be announced for the more powerful configurations.
Port-wise, gamers can expect a pair of USB 3.0, two USB 2.0, HDMI-out, HDMI-in, Gigabyte Ethernet and Optical Audio out. The Alpha also features Dual-band Wireless-AC 2x2 with Bluetooth 4.0.

Read More

This look like a pretty good Gaming PC which is the size of a console. The $549 price is also pretty good compared to similar computers made by other brands like CyberpowerPC, iBuyPower, etc which sell for about the same price.

I think this Console PC is better than the Xbox One.
 
This sounds great, Alienware you used to be a great gaming PC, I heard that went a little down in quality since Dell bought it.
 
I think Alienware's price is expensive for their full tower gaming desktops, but the quality of their gaming computer should be better than Dell because Alienware usually uses Gaming video cards like the Nvidia GTX 780, Intel i7 CPU, High Speed RAM, and a better power supply than most Dell computers which uses slower parts, so they can sell Dell PCs at cheaper prices.
 
Now your talking right up my alley. I would much rather have Windows then Linux running on my system. There are thousands of games that run on Windows and maybe a 100+ that run on Linux. I do not think that the Steam Boxes are going to sell well with Linux on them. Who the heck wants to pay $600+ for a PC to run indie games?

Greg
 
Alienware or not.. I built my gaming rig at a fraction of the cost of its counter-part Alienware. You are basically just paying for the name, and for the 'know-how' of building the pc for you. It's not hard to build a gaming rig from scratch. Granted, its a lot of parts and a lot of knowledge but in reality, its not that friggen hard... especially if you can build a 4,000$ gaming rig with only 750$.
 
I think building a Gaming PC is the best value for the money.

But, some people may rather pay more for a pre-built PC because it comes with a 1 year warranty, tech support, and they can exchange a broken PC at a store to get another one if it breaks before the warranty expires.
 
I don't really like pre-built PC's. They are definitely more expensive for when you build one yourself. Also, the i3 seems disturbing. I'm used to play with quite a good processor, but I think i3 is low for a standard version. It's a good thing it can be upgraded though.

The box itself seems very small. Isn't it true a small motherboard has less performance? Also there is only a little room for cooling. With a custom videocard running non stop (since it's a special gaming "console") the box will be hot as ****.

Just my couple of cents. I'll read something more about it later.
 
I seen a few videos on YouTube of people playing newer PC Games like Battlefield 4 with an Intel i3 CPU, and $100-200 video card, and their frame rates and quality in the video are pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_MPb7Rinq0

Most likely the back, and bottom of the case will have a lot of cooling vents, and fast spinning fans to suck in more cool air. A lot of PC parts these days like CPUs, and video cards generate a lot less heat than in 2000-2002 because they are designed better to use less electricity, and be more energy efficient like modern LED and flourscent lightbulbs which use less electricity, and produce less heat than older style lightbulbs which run hooter.

A lot of games these days are also can run faster on a slower CPU because the game uses the video card's processor to load the graphics to the screen.

It's going to be released during the holiday of 2014, so new i3 CPU would have better performance than current i3 if Alienware choices to use a newer i3 CPU.

I bet this PC Console would have the same performance as some Gaming laptops and its smaller X51 compact towerGaming PC made by Alienware.
 
All this rig talk makes me want to build one now, I do agree froggy it will have a lot of cooling fans. just hoping they aren't too loud.
 
Im glad these "PC Consoles" are becoming a thing. My computer isn't used for much more than gaming,  and that console would have been much cheaper than this build. My only issue with most of these consoles is SteamOS. Steam just came out on Linux not long ago and the games market for the linux based system is small. 

As for this one running Windows 8, I'll keep a closer look at it. Might even pick one up for myself. 
 
Allan said:
All this rig talk makes me want to build one now, I do agree froggy it will have a lot of cooling fans. just hoping they aren't too loud.
Click to expand...
If Alienware finds a way to fit a 90-120mm CPU cooler fan into the case, the computer may run pretty quietly because bigger fans don't need to spin as fast to suck up enough air to cool it, and the bigger heat sink can passively cool the CPU when it is not doing much processing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqMnb9sOZMQ

There are also low profile video cards with coolers which can fit into smaller computer cases, so I think this computer uses a low profile video card which has a small cooler which runs fast enough to cool it.

I read on overclocking forums that CPUs, and video cards can run even when they get very hot from overclocking the CPU, RAM, and video card, so if you don't do much or any overclocking, this computer should run for many hours of gaming without over heating and crashing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top