First off, a little bit of
history about Valve's Steam service and the its upcoming custom OS, SteamOS.
Steam is a DRM based, online gaming service/store. It sells games, both indie
and AAA, and usually has some crazy discounts on games year round. Steam is the
creation of Valve, the studio behind the Half-Life and Portal games, as well as
the massively popular Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2. Steam is the definitive
online gaming service with the biggest library and user base.
SteamOS is a proprietary
OS made by Valve to run a customized version of Steam on Steam Machine. It's
open-sourced, meaning it can be easily modded by anybody who's interested,
adding features not originally available. Steam Machines are a group of PCs
that aim to be as user friendly as consoles, albeit with different hardware.
They'll be running on SteamOS, have games that are playable on a Steam
controller and are meant to directly compete with consoles for inclusion in
your living room. The biggest draw for them is they are pretty much PCs in
every regard, meaning you can easily swap components in and out and customize
them to your heart's content.
Now here's the part where
the Alienware Alpha comes in. It was originally announced with all the other
Steam Machines but when Valve decided to delay both Steam Machines and SteamOS
to a 2015 launch, Alienware decided to carry on by itself. It ditched SteamOS
and the Steam controller and instead now runs Windows 8.1 and comes with an
Xbox 360 controller.
It'll come in a four different
configurations, ranging in price from US$549 to US$899. The components vary
(for example, some models use Intel Core i5 chips, some use i7) but a few
things remain constant. All of the Alpha models will be running Windows 8.1 and
be using custom NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860Ms that's been overclocked.
One thing that should be
noted however is that Alienware opted to use the notebook version of the GeForce
GTX 860 (hence the M at the end), not the more powerful desktop equivalent.
While we don't have a hands on of it yet, it seems that it'll quickly be left
in the dust as recent games require more and more power. This will be a major
issue as the graphics module in the Alpha can't be
replaced. You can replace the processor, you can change the HDD and you can
even add in more RAM but you can't get a new graphics card (it's soldered into
the motherboard). At the end of the day, processor and RAM upgrades can only
take you so far. Also, despite being a full fledged PC (it has a custom UI for
navigation but users can opt for the generic Windows style navigation if they
want), the Alpha won't come with a keyboard or mouse included.
There's still no word from Alienware on
whether the Alienware Alpha will see a release here. With Sitex coming up
(Alienware has an event that very morning) it's feasible that Alienware might
divulge more details, or even have some versions of the Alpha all geared up and
ready to go on sale at Sitex.
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