Alienware Alpha My experience thus far..

[Spock]

I just bought an Alienware Alpha i3 base model this last Tuesday and thought I'd share how the experience is going so far.

First off I bought it because I game at work and needed something fairly portable. And at $399 its a very attractive option next to laptops running the same specs for twice or more the money.

If you're unfamiliar with the specs on the base model they are as follows:
CPU: i3 4130T
GPU: Modified GTX 860m which according to what I've read is running faster than the average 860m found in laptops.
RAM: 4GB
HDD: 500gb 5400RPM.
OS: Windows 8.1 64 bit with an available free upgrade to 10.

You can very easily upgrade pretty much everything except the GPU.. That's there to stay unfortunately. I would have liked if they would have made it a bit bigger and capable of accepting full desktop GPU's with a bigger power brick to support them.

I bought a 22 inch LED 1080p 60HZ Vizio HDTV for $50 off CL to use as a monitor.

I bought A logitech K520 wireless keyboard and mouse bundle for $29.99 from best buy.

All together I'd say its an excellent portable system. I opted for a TV over a monitor as I don't have an internet connection at work to play online so the slower refresh rate doesn't hurt me here and I have a monitor at home. And the built in speakers and HDMI input really cut down on how much I have to carry and hook up.The wireless keyboard and mouse have proven to be extremely nice as well in terms of portability. All in all I only have to plug the Alpha into the wall and plug the included HDMI into the console and TV and I'm ready to rock. The logitech wireless USB dongle is so small there is no need to remove it ever.

On the Alpha you can choose between Desktop Mode which is just like any other windows 8 Or 10 desktop. And console mode which is a modified version of Kodi/XBMC.

I prefer regular old desktop mode.. The console mode is nice if you dont have a keyboard and mouse or are looking for a console alternative for pc games. But I'm a PC gamer and pretty much always use KB & M. I rarely use a controller. I would have been happy if they would have either took $50 Or $60 off the price and left the included wireless Xbox 360 controller and receiver out.. Or included a lower end gaming keyboard and mouse instead.

I haven't made any upgrades yet. Performance wise it has done excellent for gaming.

I have been playing Metro Last Light Redux on high settings at 1080P and without overclocking the GPU I'm getting 85+ FPS at times when nothing is really going on but running around.. And 55-60+ fps when in really heavy action.. With lots of enemies, lights, smoke, etc..

When using MSI afterburner to moderately overclock the GPU..(core At 135 and mem at 194). I see a boost of around 10 fps in both situations. I've seen fps as high as 141 a few times. Which is far more than I expected to see on this little guy.

I've only had it a few days and That's really the only game I've spent any time in and paid any attention to frame rate. As it's currently the most graphic intensive game I have atm. Everything I've run has run flawlessly so far.. Gmod, Killing Floor, Civ V, Tropico 5, Portal 2, Fallout 3, Kerbal Space Program, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and a few more that I've played have done great with no hickups.

The first upgrades I plan to make are the HDD as it is brutally slow and the RAM.
The HDD for me has been the biggest annoyance.. The load times on startup and the load times in game are way longer than they should be. I plan to get a hybrid SSHD.. 1TB or higher.. Dont want to spend more money on less space with slightly better Performance. I feel the HDD is the most vital upgrade to make out of the box as it is that bad.

When I first started using it and got in game (any game).. I noticed it would occassionally stutter.. It would go from 60fps or higher in Metro and just come to a hault at 1 Or 2 fps for about 5 seconds then pickup and go again. It was doing this with all games. I updated the graphics driver and this helped the issue but it didnt fix it. The problem ended up being that by default the power mode is set to balanced and would occassionally starve the GPU Or CPU and this would cause the stutter. I switched it to high performance and haven't had an issue since.

If you're curious I haven't upgraded to Windows 10. As I don't like the privacy issues with it and due to the fact that this is a gaming machine I dont want to run into anymore issues than I have to with OS compatability than I have to. If I could I would go down to Windows 7 As I personally just hate Windows 8 and feel its just a dumbed down version of Windows made for Mobile devices. But that's just me.

All in all my experience with the Alienware Alpha has been great and has performed much better than expected for the low price. If you are in a similar situation and need portability.. I'd highly consider it. Its about the size of a Nintendo Wii maybe even a bit smaller. And less than half the price of most gaming laptops. If you dont need the portability then you may be better off building your own system as you could probably do just a little better for the money and you'd have the option of upgrading your GPU.

The Alpha has a rather small power brick which limits the power it gets. This leads to some higher end cpus not being able to perform at full speed. You can put any haswell 1150 cpu in it but it will only perform as much as the power bottleneck will let it. So that's another thing to consider. The power bottleneck from what I understand is intentional to reduce heat in the system. And from what I can tell it does an excellent job. I haven't monitored temps yet to be specific.. But the air venting out the back is far from overly warm. More like a light summer breeze lol. Its also extremely quiet. Under a load you can hear it when your setting next to it.. But you'd have a hard time distinguishing it from the wind outside when your across the room from it. So its not annoying to listen to.

Anyways that's about all so far. Ive had it less than a week as of now and am extremely impressed. Thought I'd share my experience for anyone else considering one of these or a Steam Machine. Or maybe for someone looking for a good mobile alternative like myself.

I'm not an extreme techy so you'll have to forgive me if I didn't meet your expectations or for getting something wrong. But I'm glad to answer any questions about it.

Also this is from someone that has strayed from Alienware products for a while As I've always felt they are about the worst company about selling their name rather than the hardware. Twice the money for half the performance.. But I think they have come excellent on the Alpha and feel it is far from that scenario.