Alienware's Alpha Gaming Console: What is it?

[N.Broekhuijsen]

Everybody wants a piece of the living room pie.

Alienware's Alpha Gaming Console: What is it? : Read more

 

[whiteodian]

It's the Steam machine! They probably have to get rid of the inventory due to Valve's postponement. Looks cool. Not a terrible price, but $499 would have been a better starting point.

 

[antilycus]

steam really kicked themselves in the face by offering streaming from 1 PC to any other PC in the house. I could run AMD X4 w/ no GPU and stream the highest graphic game to my living room from my computer. I do it now and it works great.

 

[Doug Lord]

"In terms of raw performance we cannot really compare these devices. The Xbox One and Playstation 4 will certainly be more powerful"

Actually I doubt it. Intel crushes AMD and the chips in Xbone and PS4 are pretty low end. And the GPUS they use are like 3-4 generations old. A 750ti probably has 2x the power.

 

[Doug Lord]

Ok I'm a bit off. 750ti is 1.73 gflops vs PS4 at 1.84. PS4 probably has less OS overhead then Windows and can be programmed closer to the metal. An I3 is probably not much different than Jaguar. But a 4 core hypertheaded i5 would crush it on Watchdogs.

 

[Blazer1985]

Since no one knows which gpu is in the box it is kinda hard to judge if the ps4 and the xbone are more powerful.

 

[MrGulio]

Since no one knows which gpu is in the box it is kinda hard to judge if the ps4 and the xbone are more powerful.

I don't think reviewing specs will give you a 1 to 1 comparison between this machine and a console.

 

[BranFlake5]

steam really kicked themselves in the face by offering streaming from 1 PC to any other PC in the house. I could run AMD X4 w/ no GPU and stream the highest graphic game to my living room from my computer. I do it now and it works great.

How does this negatively affect Steam?

 

[coolitic]

This was obviously the steam machine.

 

[helper800]

Since no one knows which gpu is in the box it is kinda hard to judge if the ps4 and the xbone are more powerful.

Not to rain on any parades or anything but after having seen what came with the alienware x51 mini tower that my friend has, the gpu on something even smaller and more inexpensive is probably going to be more inline with some of the weak to mid level mobile gpus (performance wise) from nvidia. This is just my speculation though so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[somebodyspecial]

"In terms of raw performance we cannot really compare these devices. The Xbox One and Playstation 4 will certainly be more powerful"

Is this April Fools? You certainly can compare the boxes. Will the new box here be able to run REAL 1080 or not like consoles. IF the answer is YES to full blown 1080p and no up-scaling crap EVER then I'd say mission accomplished. A custom maxwell is interesting also. There isn't much point in a 750 IMHO so I think they'll aim higher. That might be bottom rung, but you'll definitely want more to kill consoles for good (if android doesn't beat them to the punch anyway).

"So who should be looking at this console? Folks who want access to PC-exclusive titles without the hassle of a gaming PC."

Spoken like a console lover. What hassle is my gaming pc? Steam and now even gog will update patches for you, so not quite sure what the hassle is (and I have no trouble doing it on my own). Is it a terrible hassle that I can upgrade to anything I want? Is it a hassle that I can load 3-4 Operatings systems if desired (more even)? Is it a hassle to have a box that can do ANYTHING? ROFL. I don't understand how this box is any different than any other PC in any regard. Which to me proves my point, PC's are not a hassle any more than RROD 12 times in a year for xbox360 was. OR day one patches etc. It's all the same especially today with consoles being internet connected which means now consoles get BETA's too...LOL. Years ago the game had to work out of the box. Not so today.

 

[doomtomb]

Only 1 HDMI output. Man this thing only can be used a console. I don't think it will sell unless the price is right.

 

[tobalaz]

As someone with a Maxwell based GPU in their gaming rig, all I can say is good choice for low heat and minimum power draw with silky smooth 1080p graphics. Its perfect for a HTPC or streaming type box and still has enough horsepower to actually play local games if you bump up the CPU to an i5.
I kinda sorta want one, but Win8 kills it for me.
No offense MS, but I was ready to throw a new laptop out a window within an hour just because of the god awful Metro interface and Metro apps that wouldn't function correctly with a track pad, and my experience was so bad I'm not willing to try ANYTHING with an 8 attached to the OS.

 

[somebodyspecial]

As someone with a Maxwell based GPU in their gaming rig, all I can say is good choice for low heat and minimum power draw with silky smooth 1080p graphics. Its perfect for a HTPC or streaming type box and still has enough horsepower to actually play local games if you bump up the CPU to an i5.
I kinda sorta want one, but Win8 kills it for me.
No offense MS, but I was ready to throw a new laptop out a window within an hour just because of the god awful Metro interface and Metro apps that wouldn't function correctly with a track pad, and my experience was so bad I'm not willing to try ANYTHING with an 8 attached to the OS.

Nothing stopping you from whacking it and putting on 7 I'd guess I'm with you on win8, I'll whack whatever seconds after it gets in the door and slap on win7. Or just build my own htpc/tv game rig I guess if I find out you can do that to something like this unit they're talking here. They do mention a CUSTOM maxwell, so might need special drivers and can't just load up NV's own drivers (which might stick you on win8). But we'll have to wait to see how flexible this thing is in the OS regard

 

[jasonelmore]

Ok I'm a bit off. 750ti is 1.73 gflops vs PS4 at 1.84. PS4 probably has less OS overhead then Windows and can be programmed closer to the metal. An I3 is probably not much different than Jaguar. But a 4 core hypertheaded i5 would crush it on Watchdogs.

a i3 core is twice if not, three times as fast as a jaguar core. Big L3 cache and waaay better single threaded performance.

Ok I'm a bit off. 750ti is 1.73 gflops vs PS4 at 1.84. PS4 probably has less OS overhead then Windows and can be programmed closer to the metal. An I3 is probably not much different than Jaguar. But a 4 core hypertheaded i5 would crush it on Watchdogs.