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i7 Alienware Alpha $374 at gamestop

K

kiuo

Member
Been thinking about getting a gaming laptop but this looks pretty cool for that price to play in the living room with friends and families.

Just wondering, what's the difference between this steam machine and the alpha? Can they both run steam and windows? Also how about emulators because I kinda want to revisit some old games so that I can couch play (bomberman, marioparty2, etc)
 
B

bomblord1

Banned
kiuo said:
Been thinking about getting a gaming laptop but this looks pretty cool for that price to play in the living room with friends and families.

Just wondering, what's the difference between this steam machine and the alpha? Can they both run steam and windows? Also how about emulators because I kinda want to revisit some old games so that I can couch play (bomberman, marioparty2, etc)
Click to expand...

It comes pre-installed with Steam OS. Regular version comes pre-installed with Windows. You're going to want to install Windows on it.
 
T

TheYanger

Member
Servbot24 said:
Is it just that yellow stripe that's blurry? Took me a while to stare at the image before I even noticed that.
Click to expand...

It's the texture filtering. In that image it's the yellow stripe, also the black floor gets really shitty looking. Also you have to pay to play the game online. The notion that a PS4 is a good replacement for a midrange PC to play overwatch specifically is laughable. Just booted it up on my 750ti machine. 70 fps on ultra no problem. This is no powerhouse PC in the op, but it's certainly better than either console.
 
A

ALLseeingEYE

Member
deadlast said:
This is what I was talking about
OriginalPng


Not sure how these things work, but it could be helpful.
http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/acce...8:901pdb6671:c&ven2=:&ven3=105103405962847392
Click to expand...

That thing is neat, but at that point, the price would be $520 US. I'd reccomend just building a proper PC instead, especially since the excessive extra GPU box would be bulky anyways.

I'd say, just go for something like this:
http://pcpartpicker.com/list/

It has:
i5-6600k (faster CPU, with faster individual cores)
RX 470 (Rock solid GPU, that will blow away what is in that machine)
8gb DDR4-2400 Ram
1TB HDD
500 Watt PSU

Total: $546.41

And at the end of the day, this PC would still be upgrade-able. Hell, you could easily toss a GTX 1060, 1070, or 1080 and make this a beastly system.
 
G

Gestault

Member
bomblord1 said:
It's a custom GPU so there really isn't an exact equivalent. What you are seeing is actually pretty specific.
Click to expand...

nVidia GeForce GTX GPU w/2GB GDDR5
Click to expand...

Ah yes, that one GPU manufactured by nVidia with 2 GB of the ram. Very useful.

Even without specifics on clock speeds or the chipset base, it would be a simple thing to show something like synthetic benchmark results.
 
D

dLMN8R

Member
I thought the new Alphas have faster GPUs? What's with this thing?

I bought the R1 Alpha over a year ago, this specific one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MA7AMKY/?tag=neogaf0e-20

I paid around $400 for it at the time. It has the 860M-ish GPU, which works decently well - enough to run the original Dishonored at 1080p and a perfect 60FPS - but it's certainly not fast enough to play most AAA games released this year.


I highly doubt this new model - with the same GPU but more ram and a faster CPU - would be able to run Dishonored 2 or other new games well at all.
 
Lister

Lister

Banned
dLMN8R said:
I thought the new Alphas have faster GPUs? What's with this thing?

I bought the R1 Alpha over a year ago, this specific one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MA7AMKY/?tag=neogaf0e-20

I paid around $400 for it at the time. It has the 860M-ish GPU, which works decently well - enough to run the original Dishonored at 1080p and a perfect 60FPS - but it's certainly not fast enough to play most AAA games released this year.


I highly doubt this new model - with the same GPU but more ram and a faster CPU - would be able to run Dishonored 2 or other new games well at all.
Click to expand...

Define "well".

Everyone here says it should play msot games at aorund PS4 settings and performance.

Is that "well"?
 
D

dLMN8R

Member
Lister said:
Define "well".

Everyone here says it should play msot games at aorund PS4 settings and performance.

Is that "well"?
Click to expand...

I haven't tried many, but one specific example is Gears of War 4. Super well-optimized by all accounts, yet my current Alienware Alpha couldn't handle it at all. Certainly not even close to my Xbox One.
 
Lister

Lister

Banned
dLMN8R said:
Well yeah, in the first video he turned down all the settings. The second video looks better than I remember though.
Click to expand...

It still looks good, and I doubt the Xbox one is doing significantly better. It might be doign a bti better, but not significantly so.

This is the weirdest myth going around, that somehow PC hardware get worse or is outdated sooner than console hardware. That's just not the case.

Also notice he's playing single player at 60 FPS vs the Xbox one's 30 FPS. So he could probably bring those settings up a bit.
 
T

Trouble

Banned
Lister said:
It's a bit better than the 750ti. So better thana PS4 and Xbone, not as good as anythign modern. Would be cool to see a new model with a 1050ti or 1060.
Click to expand...

With all the laptops with 10 series GPUs coming out, I have to believe Alienware has an update in the pipeline.
 
D

DerpButter

Member
I've had one for a for a few months that I came away with for about 150 since I had a lot of trade in credit from my WiiU/3ds. I reformatted mine to windows 10 to have a bigger game selection, but the hardware alone makes for a nice:

1. Media Center/Plex Client - with enough cpu to muscle through odd codecs, 4k netflix/youtube, etc (HDMI 1.0 so 4k output is limited to 24/30hz).

2. Emulation box - when combined with XB1 controllers, the XB1 wireless adapter and Retroarch (which auto-configs controller profiles for different systems/multiple players, and has a really nice, TV-friendly UI with super crisp CRT filters). Dolphin also does pretty well, though I haven't tried syncing wiimotes via the bluetooth. There is way more power and broader support for different systems for a quad core x86 than there would be for say a raspberry pi or android.

3. Party machine - for playing whatever low-fi indie 2-4p game of the week is big on steam and older games/emulation as mentioned.

4. "Backup" mid range gaming PC - for LANs or guests. It can definitely handle source games and Overwatch 1080p @ medium/high 60fps (will need some kind of usb connection for headsets/etc, only has optical and hdmi audio out).

5. Steam Streaming client - if you already have a more powerful PC in the house (wireless AC/Gigabit, and more than enough cpu/gpu to handle decoding).

It's incredibly quiet, and never feels hot even under strain. Just a super versatile, living room focused PC with a weaker GPU. There's a really nice cushioned carrying case ($30) if you get it chock full of emulators/and steam indies and want to take it to a friends place for couch multiplayer .
 
D

Drahcir

Member
This might be exactly what I'm looking for, but I'm not sure. I've been looking for a dedicated and affordable PC gaming machine because I switched to a Mac for my daily computer and sold my old PC years ago. I have a stack of old PC games I want to revisit such as the Stalker games and others. Would I be able to install and play them if I install Windows on this machine? I'd like to also be able to get available PC versions of some new PS4 or XB1 games as well. Is this machine right for me at that price range?
 
Lister

Lister

Banned
Drahcir said:
This might be exactly what I'm looking for, but I'm not sure. I've been looking for a dedicated and affordable PC gaming machine because I switched to a Mac for my daily computer and sold my old PC years ago. I have a stack of old PC games I want to revisit such as the Stalker games and others. Would I be able to install and play them if I install Windows on this machine? I'd like to also be able to get available PC versions of some new PS4 or XB1 games as well. Is this machine right for me at that price range?
Click to expand...

Those games will deifnitley run just fine, and newer games are likely to run about as good as on a PS4 or Xbone.

If that's ok with you, knowing you won't be able to upgrade that GPU so that if/when you want somethign more powerful you're looking at an entirely new machine, it's deifnitely a nice little PC gaming machine. Tiny footprint, super quiet and capable. It should have you coevred in older games for sure.
 
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