How-to Easily Upgrade the Alienware Alpha

It's pretty dangerous to handle hardware without being grounded. That static can fry your components.

For those who want to Build a Steam Machine, with the exact same specs as the Alienware Alpha. You might consider this :

http://steamos.altervista.org/alpha_vs_myrig_index.htm

Will cost you less than the Alpha. And have the exact same specs.

Geez, just buy a micro ATX case and motherboard and you have the exact same thing. But then you can add your own memory, cpu, gpu and it would be cheaper, fully upgradable, and more powerful than this junk. It's like for the laziest consumers that buy Lunchables rather just buying their own cheese and crackers. Well there is always a market for lazy consumers.

It's basically a laptop. I wonder why people ever purchased laptops specifically for gaming...but this is a laptop plugged into your TV. Consoles might have weaker hardware, but it was custom. I'd wait for AMD to make 20nm or smaller APUs before this vision is a reality. Otherwise just build Steam Machines with GTX 970s. At it's price that card may very well kill consoles if someone packages a system right. I don't mean outright, but it could lead to outpricing consoles and making them obsolete, especially if an OS is consumerized enough to be a powerful entertainment device, but also useful like an iPad with apps.

So wait. You CANT replace the GPU?

I would love to see someone mod this and water cool and OC the GPU on it. I bet you could push some serious power out of the mobile GPU with some proper cooling.

it's an interesting platform, if we consider you can upgrade it, maybe even personalized it a little, that's far superior compared to standard consoles, as long as the softwares they put in it keeps up and remains compatible, even if you have to spend more money you'd be able to obtain a considerable superior result in many ways, not sure if this will work out, but I think it deserves a shot

@streamline LOL

OH MY GOD, they soldered the GPU to the motherboard? So it's a brick a year later when the GPU dies. Great idea, Alienware.

And I thought their $4000 laptops were bad. I guess this is better though, since it's a $550 brick.

It seems like a pretty good price for the hardware. I don't think you could build an equivalent PC for much less than this if you count the OS and controller. I'm not sure of the quality of the 860m since it was built for moblie. I play Shadow of Mordor on my 760 with everything turned up to max, including the Ultra textures. So I'd guess it'd be pretty good...

It really seems like a nice piece of kit. I don't see what people are complaining about.

What power is the on board GPU in this thing?

@El_Zaggy @Daian For anyone willing to spend the money that would actually be an awesome idea! They'd be able to use Steams new streaming tech to use the power of their custom system in the living room, while offering multi tasking capabilities bordering ridiculous levels! Though that would be far too costly for me.

Its so small its cute. I would buy it if I wasn't consumed by how bad dell products are. their service is horrible, their computers are usually comes with adapters that are very expensive to buy.

This Alienware Alpha is just one of (hopefully) several new micro pc's that will be coming onto the market in the near future. I consider it a gateway drug to the hard stuff for current console owners not sure of what they're getting into. My first pc was a $400 HP Pavilion. It was a piece of crap that I bought because it was cheap. After the games I wanted to play dropped to 15 fps I realized I needed a good video card. Once I opened that case and started upgrading components I was hooked on the hard stuff. That was 20 years and 5 or 6 builds ago. Long live the open-source hardware pc!

Needs an upgradeable GPU!

Alienware alpha? I've never heard anyone call a computer that

Alienware? I'll pass

Even PC gaming enthusiasts should be happy that they're trying to reach out to the general consumers with easy PC (heh) gaming hardware. This eases the entry barrier to PCs and their success can mean better PC gaming support in the future.

One thing i'd worry about is the heat and temperature control with the tiny box.

Can I swapped out the 2.5" HDD for a SSD? Will it fit a 250GB Samsung EVO?

$600 and you can't change the GPU? Why buy this when you could could build a fully up-gradable tower?

@jellyman68 @Talavaj There is nearly 4000 games on steam, only about 12~ percent of those support game pads, let's not ignore how the fact that game supports a gamepad does not mean that playing with it will be a particularly enjoyable experience.

This is especially true with games that are inherently designed around mouse+keyboard control scheme, which you know are mostly the unique PC games that are worth playing.

And those that play better with a gamepad are usually the bad console ports that you would get superior experience from if played on a proper console anyway.

Lots of peasants hating this :P

Finally a compact PC that is accessible to the general public for gaming. Its about freaking time. I was getting tired of the massive ugly behemoths that have become the norm in PC gaming. Props to Alienware and great pricing to.

forgot to screw the processor heatsink back onto the board.