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Alienware Alpha first impressions and benchmarks

Pooya

Member
.

Is the AMD R9 M470X GPU even better than a Nvidia GTX 860m?

I'm looking at some sites and it's more or less similar. still 2GB VRAM though! That base model just has a slightly better CPU over R1 and cost a lot more, it's awful deal. It's not polaris unlike the model number suggests, it's a rebadge.

R2 starts at 800, don't look at the base model ever. And that's too expensive.

You definitely can build something far more powerful yourself at that price point with RX480 coming soon. This wasn't the case when R1 launched and can be had for 400 controller included which would be 50 bucks by itself.
 
I'm looking at some sites and it's more or less similar. still 2GB VRAM though! That base model just has a slightly better CPU over R1 and cost a lot more, it's awful deal. It's not polaris unlike the model number suggests, it's a rebadge.

R2 starts at 800, don't look at the base model ever. And that's too expensive.

You definitely can build something far more powerful yourself at that price point with RX480 coming soon. This wasn't the case when R1 launched and can be had for 400 controller included which would be 50 bucks by itself.

Really sucks that you have to spend $800 to get a model that can use the graphics amplifier thing. They really seem to have missed the mark this year. :(
 

Malakai

Member
So no matter what I change for power useage on the Alpha, it will go into sleep mode if unused for more then a few minutes. I somehow think this must be related to Alienware Command Center and the power useage stuff on there. Even though I have gone in and changed it to stay awake for longer periods of time. I ran into a similar issue before with trying to disable the login screen at wakeup and finally realized that it was Alienware Command Center settings I had to change.

Should I even bother with Alienware Command Center? I think I may just try an uninstall it to see if that helps at all. I don't plan on changing the LED colors or anything else on the Alpha that Command Center Handles.

I was having this same issue with my Alienware Alpha. It is an Windows 10 issues. There is an hidden setting in the power settings. Go to this link and scroll down to "System Unattended Sleep Timeout" and follow the instructions. In short, the default value of Unattended Sleep Timeout is set to 2 minutes which is hidden from the user and this setting will override whatever you set the the time to go to sleep. I hope this helps.
 
Given that this is the de facto OP for this machine, I guess this is where I should post my experience.

Grabbed the "Steam Machine" version of this from Fry's two weeks ago for a steal ($250 for the i7 version) and I'm completely impressed what this little box can do, even if mine was the R1 iteration. SteamOS was a dog on this thing though so I wiped the machine clean and installed Windows 10. I wish there was a quicker/faster way to boot directly into Steam Big Picture mode, however.

I have it running pretty much every single game on my Steam library on decent settings at 720p and they all work lovely, the only outlier being The Witcher III. It works brilliantly as an emulation box, both Retroarch and Dolphin flying on this thing.

Any recommendations for controllers? It comes packed with the Steam Controller which is okay for modern games, but I'm looking for something more standard. New Xbone Bluetooth controller maybe? How do those work?
 
Given that this is the de facto OP for this machine, I guess this is where I should post my experience.

Grabbed the "Steam Machine" version of this from Fry's two weeks ago for a steal ($250 for the i7 version) and I'm completely impressed what this little box can do, even if mine was the R1 iteration. SteamOS was a dog on this thing though so I wiped the machine clean and installed Windows 10. I wish there was a quicker/faster way to boot directly into Steam Big Picture mode, however.

I have it running pretty much every single game on my Steam library on decent settings at 720p and they all work lovely, the only outlier being The Witcher III. It works brilliantly as an emulation box, both Retroarch and Dolphin flying on this thing.

Any recommendations for controllers? It comes packed with the Steam Controller which is okay for modern games, but I'm looking for something more standard. New Xbone Bluetooth controller maybe? How do those work?

$250?!?!? Holy shit dude. I would have bought that in a heartbeat.
 

dangeROSS

Member
Nice, that sounds like it was a great deal.
Not sure how much ram yours came with, but throwing some more in there can be helpful too.


A new version of Hivemind was recently released: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us...team-r2-console&languageCode=en&categoryId=AP

It worked pretty well on Windows 10 for me.
I am using the steam controller and a standard 360 controller and have been happy with them. I think a wireless receiver exists for Xbone controllers now too. Haven't tried those.
 
I'm using Kodi as a frontend. I have 2 scripts/"apps" that load Steam in Big Picture and Launchbox/Big Box, respectively. They have their own icons on the Kodi dashboard, etc.
 

tim.mbp

Member
Any recommendations for controllers? It comes packed with the Steam Controller which is okay for modern games, but I'm looking for something more standard. New Xbone Bluetooth controller maybe? How do those work?

Xbox One S controller works fine for me over Bluetooth in my R1. Can also be plugged in via USB. If you want local multiplayer with you need the wireless adapter though.
 
Thanks, I'll check Hivemind out. If I'm not mistaken it's just a custom version of Kodi, right? Don't like that it creates a separate user for "Console Mode" though. It's soooo annoying that Microsoft doesn't just let you use a joypad to navigate through the Start Menu, with Tablet Mode it seems like it would be a natural progression. I remember using an app called Xbstart a long time ago to do this but that doesn't exist anymore. Bummer.

Not sure how much ram yours came with, but throwing some more in there can be helpful too.
It's got 8GB and a 1TB 7200 RPM drive, which I'll be sticking with for a while until I can get a deal on an SSD. It boots slower than I'd like but once it's booted into Windows it's all good. Thinking about throwing another 8GB in there but I haven't looked if Dell put one 8GB or two 4GB sticks in the machine.

Xbox One S controller works fine for me over Bluetooth in my R1. Can also be plugged in via USB. If you want local multiplayer with you need the wireless adapter though.

Neat, I'll look into that. For now a spare DualShock for with the DS4Windows app works pretty well. So you can't connect more than 1 controller via Bluetooth?
 

dangeROSS

Member
Thanks, I'll check Hivemind out. If I'm not mistaken it's just a custom version of Kodi, right? Don't like that it creates a separate user for "Console Mode" though. It's soooo annoying that Microsoft doesn't just let you use a joypad to navigate through the Start Menu, with Tablet Mode it seems like it would be a natural progression. I remember using an app called Xbstart a long time ago to do this but that doesn't exist anymore. Bummer.


It's got 8GB and a 1TB 7200 RPM drive, which I'll be sticking with for a while until I can get a deal on an SSD. It boots slower than I'd like but once it's booted into Windows it's all good. Thinking about throwing another 8GB in there but I haven't looked if Dell put one 8GB or two 4GB sticks in the machine.


I tried out Hivemind and I did like it, but I am just so used to the Alpha being a normal desktop computer at this point that I ended up uninstalling it. I also use it for everyday computer stuff so it just didn't fit for me right now. But if you want to boot it up straight for gaming/Video and It seemed to have some neat features though and ran fine. I may give it another shot at some point. Yea the other user account thing was kind of odd though.

Wow, well the deal you go for your system was pretty freaking great then. I wish I had Fry's near me. Recently upgraded the ram in my i3 to 12 GB and it seems to play games a bit smoother now. But with your i7 and faster hard drive I bet you pretty good at this point.

I tried to do a bit of research beforehand about getting new ram to add to my current setup. And questioned whether or not mixing and matching ram from different manufactures causes issues or not. So far using ram from two different manufacturers hasn't give me issues. As long as the type and specs are the same.
 
What kind of games can you be expected to run on that model? Do it's specs hurt it much? And what's its normal price?

I wonder how many they'll have. And is that just on the website?

The video card is the equivalent of a GTX 750 Ti which would be OK for current gen stuff but 2GB will be a hinderance. CPU dependent games will give you issues with that i3 as well.
 

BFIB

Member
What kind of games can you be expected to run on that model? Do it's specs hurt it much? And what's its normal price?

I wonder how many they'll have. And is that just on the website?
For a little more out of pocket you can likely get better parts on BF deals to build your own.
 
I bought my Alienware last Black Friday:

Alienware Alpha
Windows 10 Home 64bit
Intel® Core™ i3-4170T Processor Dual-Core (3MB Cache, up to 3.2 GHz)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX GPU 2GB GDDR5
4GB DDR3L 1600MHz Memory
500 GB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s

The promotion broke down as follows:

$549.99
Order Level Promotion: -$200.00
Shipping & Handling: $0.00
Sales Tax: $24.27
Subtotal Amount: $374.26
Rebate Reward: -$45

Final total: $329.26

The first thing I did was upgrade the RAM to 16gb and overclocked it.

I absolutely love the thing. I mostly run emulators on it and it's a beast.

I guess the most impressive now-gen game I am running is the Killer Instinct reboot. It runs great in 1080p.

The one thing I would like most is to throw an SSD in there. But what I am going to do is holdout until they update the line with Pascal, and just buy a new unit and slip an SSD into that one.
 

dLMN8R

Member
The HDD in the Alpha absolutely killed performance for me. Once I updated it to an SSD it was like overhauling it as a brand new computer.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
What kind of games can you be expected to run on that model? Do it's specs hurt it much? And what's its normal price?

I wonder how many they'll have. And is that just on the website?

That's a great price even if you only ever use that as a htpc. But a 750ti should play older games really nicely too.

Current price in the UK is £550, or $673.
 

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
The video card is the equivalent of a GTX 750 Ti which would be OK for current gen stuff but 2GB will be a hinderance. CPU dependent games will give you issues with that i3 as well.
Is that equivalent to the Nvidia GT 750M? Also, my GPU has 2GB anyway.

Anyone done any review of that model and tried out some games from various times? I'm sure a machine like that would be plenty for most of the games I have. Though I have an i7 so I'd be weary of the huge drop. I would be curious about Doom 2016 though.

That's a great price even if you only ever use that as a htpc. But a 750ti should play older games really nicely too.

Current price in the UK is £550, or $673.
If I happen to be home and if I happen to have that much money to spend, I will definitely try for one.
 
I don't want to build my own. But I'm sure you're right.

For the price you pay its a very capable gaming PC. I've had the base i3 model for a year now, upgraded the ram & ssd like others have said and the thing runs great. I don't expect to play BF1 maxed out, but its handled the type of games I like with zero issues. Overwatch a lot lately.

I also uninstalled Alienwares UI. I'm still relatively new to PC gaming so idk what a lot of the major benefits were of it but I thought it was awful & just slowed down a lot for me.

If you want a cheap portable gaming PC $300 ain't bad at all for this as long as you use it enough to get your money's worth. My gf and I love it.
 

dLMN8R

Member
What'/s the best software to clone the hdd to the ssd?

You're in luck - it took me a while to research the best way but eventually found the following which worked perfectly:

1) I purchased an internal 3.5" SSD
2) I bought this adapter to temporarily connect that internal SSD via USB
3) I used Macrium Reflect (just the free version) to clone the internal drive to the SSD
4) I swapped out the drives by following Alienware's own simple instructions to open the case


After swapping the drives, it just booted up as if nothing changed. Except everything felt 10x faster.
 
You're in luck - it took me a while to research the best way but eventually found the following which worked perfectly:

1) I purchased an internal 3.5" SSD
2) I bought this adapter to temporarily connect that internal SSD via USB
3) I used Macrium Reflect (just the free version) to clone the internal drive to the SSD
4) I swapped out the drives by following Alienware's own simple instructions to open the case


After swapping the drives, it just booted up as if nothing changed. Except everything felt 10x faster.

Thanks! Gonna grab an SSD during Black Friday and hook this up.
 
You're in luck - it took me a while to research the best way but eventually found the following which worked perfectly:

1) I purchased an internal 3.5" SSD
2) I bought this adapter to temporarily connect that internal SSD via USB
3) I used Macrium Reflect (just the free version) to clone the internal drive to the SSD
4) I swapped out the drives by following Alienware's own simple instructions to open the case


After swapping the drives, it just booted up as if nothing changed. Except everything felt 10x faster.

I just did exactly this and worked like a charm. Thanks!
 

asdad123

Member
Just bought one of these with the i5 quad core, 500gb ssd, and 16gb ram for $300 on craigslist. It's the R1 model but I was just looking some a htpc. Might actually play some games on this thing now!
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
I wish there was a quicker/faster way to boot directly into Steam Big Picture mode, however.

This post is a few months old now, but in case anybody else has the same concern, you can force Steam to boot into BPM by making a shortcut to Steam.exe and appending -tenfoot to the target line. Throw said shortcut into your startup folder (Win+R and shell:startup on Win8 or above) if you'd like to have Steam automatically load upon login.
 

GSG Flash

Nobody ruins my family vacation but me...and maybe the boy!
Does anyone else use their Alpha as a HTPC?

I have mine connected to my Pioneer AVR and have this weird issue where after an hour or more into whatever movie I'm watching, the video starts cutting out(it starts blinking) and it seems like the connection between the PC and the AVR starts cutting out as well. The only way to fix it is by either turning off the AVR and turning it back on or by switching the input on the AVR and then switching it back again.

Not sure if anyone else has seen this.

Edit: Swapping the HDMI cable may have fixed it... Fingers crossed!
 
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