I am looking at buying a computer for gaming and I was wondering if the alienware alpha would be a good choice...

I am looking at buying a computer for gaming and I was wondering if the alienware alpha would be a good choice. If it is not, then what would be something that is under $600 that I would not have to build myself. PS for the console fags that are going to raid this, I already have a console and i am still looking for a pc.

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amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01DJ9XID4/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1465662890&sr=8-2&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=intel nuc skull canyon&dpPl=1&dpID=51w8+PRErXL&ref=plSrch
youtu.be/O3F5CGqqA_I
logicalincrements.com/
pcpartpicker.com/list/NJ3xFd
twitter.com/AnonBabble

NO

THIS IS WHAT YOU DO

WAIT FOR ZEN BY THE END OF THE YEAR

PICK UP A RX 480

THERE YOU'RE DONE

DO NOT BUY ALIENWARE SHIT OR ANY PREBUILT

YOU ARE SPENDING 200 BUCKS ON A PREMIUM FEE THAT COULD GO TOWARDS MAKING YOUR PC 100% MORE POWERFUL

>Zen
>AMD CPU, ever
nah

Build a fucking PC with the 480x. Do you even research the shitty GPU on that thing? Not only can't you upgrade it but it's a 750ti. Good luck getting 30fps at 720p. I was that steam machine faggot like you but unless they allow you stream games like PS now then don't buy that shit. There's no excuse to buy these in 2016. If they were $200 then maybe it wouldn't be a bad buy. But just build s PC and never talk about that God awful thing ever again.

>DUDE JUST KEEP WAITING FOREVER

If zen is good he gets a great cpu at a lower price

If it's bad he goes intel

He literally has nothing to lose

Alternatively he can go 480x + i5 cpu if he wants to buy one now.

I bought an x51 a few years ago. Got it very cheap from a friend, who was stopping his refurb business.

I was hopping from a 360 and wanted something comfortable, as most people do.

Hence wanting the option that is easy/ identifiable.

It's so far been a pain in the arse for one primary reason. Upgrading.

When you want to upgrade it, and you will, you will most likely need a new case.

Then you need to remove the components from the alien ware case, which is a pain in the arse.

You will need to purchase a new psu as I'm presuming this model, makes use of an external transformer.

The custom motherboards used are also odd, resulting in some issues when re housed in a new case, stemming primarily from the separate board used for the l.e.d lights.

It may seem difficult, but its not. Just do a bit of reading and searching, build your own mate.

>amd

AMD CPUs are always bad
They're horrendous for emulation and their single core performance is awful, to the point where high-end AMD CPUs are beaten by budget i3's in games that don't use more than 1/2 cores (which is still quite a few, even today).

just build one, even niggers can do it.
though wait for RX 480 benchmarks

zen isn't even out yet. The current one's out are bad for gaming yes.

>That image
Reminded me of some guy at some random forum. I was looking for opinion on CPUs and there was this guy, "I'm not an AMD fan but..."
>his username contains "radeon"
>avatar is AMD
>signature is huge gif promoting AMD
>his specs on signature
>athlon and amd gpu
Shit was ridiculous

I know you've only known Bulldozer based CPUs in your brief time in this world, but AMD weren't always consigned to the budget bin. There was a time once when Jim Keller put them on top of the world and forced Intel to drop their own 64bit efforts and adopt AMD64 which they continue to use to this day. Zen is his effort to do it again.

Something like amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01DJ9XID4/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1465662890&sr=8-2&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=intel nuc skull canyon&dpPl=1&dpID=51w8+PRErXL&ref=plSrch can run games at medium/low settings. And you're obviously going to blow your budget if you do it, but you can connect something like an Asus XG2 to use a full sized graphics card with it. I know it's not ideal though, I just thought it was cool.

It's been this way for more than a decade

OK user, $600 isn't huge budget but I am going to link you to a youtuber who recently put together a great build for $600. Dont buy windows, buy it on r/microsoftsoftwareswap.

youtu.be/O3F5CGqqA_I

Honestly I would absolutely wait for the RX 480 to drop, so follow this build and just wait a bit without a GPU, you won't regret it. Otherwise just get the R9 380 he recommended on there and it will be good to you, I still use my r9 280 and it has yet to let me down. Good luck user.

PC is not a single product you fagget. It's a mixture of parts from different manufacturers with different performance. Even a baby can build one at this point. If you're too dumb to do your research, here - logicalincrements.com/

>Asian CEO
>terrible drivers
I lost

>tfw my pc isn't this cute

Go to a pc store. Show this alienware specs, and ask for custom build

>buying a steam machine when everyone and their mother say it failed
>buying a steam machine when you know that Valve is godawful at support
>gaming on linux

The Alpha is the Windows version which actually has slightly worse hardware.

Long term gaming on Linux is our only option. It allows you to have a larger budget for hardware, avoids the massive problems with Windows 10, and gives you more performance vs Windows 10 in apples to apples comparisons and 10-20fps advantage vs Windows DX11.

Look up a website called Logical Increments, it's a good PC building website, as it tells you all the parts you need for different budgets ranging from $300 to $3000.

PCPartPicker is good as well, as it only gives you parts that are compatible with others. For example, when you select a CPU you want, only compatible motherboards will be available. Same goes for RAM, Coolers, Cases, etc. It also tells you the cheapest place to buy them, and if there's any sales or anything going on.

For building the actual PC itself, if you're unsure how to do it, check out a YouTube channel called CareyHolzman. I went from zero knowledge about PC's to being able to build one by myself.

>Logicalincrements

>ever using that shit site

I can tell your 12.

Here's the Windows DX11 vs Linux OpenGL results.

Should also mention that the Vulkan numbers are before the recent update that added optimizations for Vulkan.

It's a good starting point and gives you a nice idea of the hardware in your budget. I'd agree that you shouldn't copy their builds part for part, but for someone who knows nothing about PC's it's a pretty good starting point.

I will exit gaming when w10 takes over

He's right it isn't.

You shouldn't be lazy and use that site when you can do your own research and put together shit using the best deals. That's half the fun

If steam ever goes the Netflix route then these things might be worth buying.

>1939
>buying AYYLMAOware

AMD CPUs will always be behind Intel. There is no contesting that. Intel is at least four generations ahead of AMD when it comes to core performance and package efficiency.

AMD can't even make their own fabrication process. They had Glofo license fabrications from Samsung to produce their Zens on a "14 nm" process, and even that's not a true 14 nm lithography since the total physical size of the gates are actually between 22-26 nm.

AMD admits that their single threaded performance won't be up to par with Haswell, let alone Kaby Lake which is two generations ahead of Haswell. At best, their top-tier 8-core Summit Ridge CPU can only compete with a 6-core lower-end Broadwell-E i7-6850K in multi-threaded performance and will likely be priced accordingly.

Summit Ridge and AM4 will also be limited to dual channel memory and an FSB that will only support up to 20 PCIe Gen3 lanes to the CPU. AMD's L2$ and L3$ performance will likely not be any better since they're recycling their L2$ design from Puma/Jaguar, which had greater latency in accessing and writing to than Intel's Silvermont (a.k.a the shitty Atom CPUs found in tablets). Their L3$ won't be much better than Steamroller, which was so slow when accessing that they had to half the size of the L3$ for Raven Ridge/Excavator because their cache indexing process is bollocks in terms of efficiency and reducing cache misses. It was so bad that accessing memory was faster than accessing L3$, an issue that AMD has not been able to address since Zambezi.

Their FSB is HyperTransport, which is a design that predate the original Phenoms on the K10 design. They can't just pile on additional PCIe lanes like Intel was able to do with the LGA-2011/v3 sockets because there is a limit where latency across lanes becomes slower than the SB once more lanes are being put to use.

AMD is fucked. Just admit it.

>your

That's actually what I think the push for Linux gaming is really all about. The one previous attempt I remember at a streaming-only game service where the games ran on a remote server and were then streamed to the end user went under in part because of Microsoft going after them for violating the Windows licensing agreement by spinning up new installs every time someone started a game.

If a game is on Linux though all of those licensing problems for virtualization go away. Then the only concern you have is with Nvidia's binary driver attempting to block virtualization of the GPU through pass-through, but that might be why Valve has been investing in the open source driver stack.

Why? Gaming on Linux is better today than at any time in the past. Just because you switch to Linux is no reason to stop playing games.

OP here you go
pcpartpicker.com/list/NJ3xFd
Add $200-$250 for an RX 480, I couldn't put it on because it's not out yet

>1939
>asking for a corridor to danzig

Gaming on Linux means that you're limited in the number of games you can play (inb4 WINE), limited in the number of hardware that those games can support, and limited in the number of support you can find once something goes wrong with the installation or running the game.

That's why you should have a dual-OS installation. Run Windows for gaymen and Linux for everything else.

>reading comprehension

I can tell you're not very smart.

linux is sub optimal right now

I still can play on console when W10 comes and tries to fuck me in the ass but they are also very sub optimal, those shitboxes

TLDR I don't like eating shit and rather exit my hobby than riding the degeneracy out until the crash comes

the industry has tested my patience enough already over the years with all the bullshit that is floating around

even if I will hate every minute of it, I will rather start golfing when the time comes and w7 is dead than play a video game ever again

That's all still true, but without using Linux for gaming before desktop Windows is EOL we're going to face a very rough transition period. The only way for Linux to get better for gaming is to use it for gaming before it becomes the only option.

Linux did recently pass the 2200 games mark on Steam still rapidly closing in on MacOS in terms of game support, and the number of Nvidia-only games has been rapidly decreasing in the face of the quality of the open-source AMD drivers. As for support it can still be difficult to get good communication from developers as they're often nervous about having excuses picked apart by the extremely technically savvy Linux community, but that same community is often better able to provide answers and solutions.

Just buy a USB3.1 adapter card, a USB3.1 external SSD (that can support speeds faster than SATA3, not the "USB3.1 compatible" bullshit Chinese crap that tops out at 197 MB/s write), and install your Windows 10 on that. Install Linux on a regular SATA drive that's encrypted. If you don't feel like having that cancer attached to your computer when you're booting Linux, just unplug the device and go on about your business without the specter of Microshit pooing in your loo.

complete noob here, whats the difference between a AMD card that has an 'X' behind the number?
like the difference between a 390 and a 390x?

maybe I just start dating women and forget about video games and linux

probably just like GTX 423 and GTX 423 TI

The non-x version is usually lower clocked and/or partly cut down in its hardware. To put it simply X means faster.

With the new 400 series they may be dropping that as so far we only know about the RX 480 and its not clear if RX means R10 as compared to the old R9 series or if they're moving the position of the X and simply putting it on all cards now.

The X means that it's the same GPU, but with all cores enabled. It's part of the binning process, since not all silicon comes out perfect after going under the laser and it's a waste to toss wafer that are still perfectly functional, but require higher-than-acceptable voltages in order to work all parts of the GPU. AMD does something sensible (for once) and label their GPUs with the same number if they're using the same silicon.
The R9 2/390 is a partially disabled R9 2/390X
The 380 a disabled 380X
The Fury a disabled Fury X (although some from ASUS are unlockable to the full Fury X specification)

Nvidia does the same, but they label their cards differently and inconsistently.
A 1070 is a partially disabled 1080, as the 970 was for the 980.
But the 980 Ti is a partially disabled Titan X, like the 780 Ti before it was a partially disabled Titan Black.
I think one of the earlier Ti cards from Fermi was a fully-enabled GPU over its non Ti version.

hmm, so do I buy a current AMD card or wait for the 480 to come out.
so its the same like the K in an intel processor that means overclocked?

oh neat. thanks for the in depth explanation as to how it comes about.

Don't buy a pc for gaming at all. It is currently the most neglected platform, and all the big titles are confirmed to not come to it. We don't need any more ITS NOT FUCKING FAIR BROS posts,especially since 8th gen is the resurgence of Japanese games, none of which will come to PC.

Nice meme.

That's up to you, but the 480 seems likely to deliver 970-980 level performance for the cost of a 960 or performance similar to the Fury Nano for half the cost. With the current AMD hardware one thing to consider is that only the Fury cards and the 380 series hardware is GCN 1.2 as AMD's marketing department has kind of shit the bed in their labeling.

This is a wafer

>so its the same like the K in an intel processor that means overclocked
All GPUs are overclockable. Hell, all Intels are overclockable if you know how to tweak the BCLK (although good luck getting past 110 multiplier). The CPU counterpart would be how Intel Pentium and Celerons are Core i3s with L3$ disabled and certain features turned off due to unacceptably high voltage requirements, or how Core i5s are binned Core i7s with HT turned off that do not work well with specified voltages or full L3$ performance.

The FX and APUs on AMD's side are all based on the same silicon, but with different parts disabled. FX-43XX have two Piledriver modules disabled, FX-63XX only has one, and the FX-83/9XXX have all four modules enabled. Amazingly, their L3$ sizes and access are left alone, if only because the lower end FX CPUs would be unbearably buggy and slow otherwise.
A6s are A10s with one Steamroller module disabled and some GPU cores turned off for TDP/voltage requirements, A8s are A10s with some GPU cores disabled, and Athlons X4 are A10s with all GPU cores and pathways disabled.

I own an Alienware Alpha myself, and I have to say, I like it quite a bit. It's super compact, runs games at an okay framerate at 1920x1200, and doesn't require set up/takedown.

Then again, I'm also a very old man, who has kind of grown out of gaming. That's why it's perfect for me.

You know what I meant

480 comes out this month, so wait for the benchmarks

>waiting
Spoiler: it's a 980/390X-tier card that draws slightly less power than a 1070/960.

That still sounds too good to be true
I'm not selling my 390 until I see it for myself. There's always some idiot on ebay who will massively overpay anyway

>That still sounds too good to be true
That's actually really pathetic for AMD. They claimed that Polaris 10 was more efficient than Maxwell, but if you do the math, the performance per watt of the card is not even on par with the least efficient Maxwell GPU, the GM200. The 480 should be pulling closer to the 980 Ti's performance if that were the case, but AMD's is clearly not as competent as Nvidia, who have managed to stretch their lead over AMD in efficiency per watt with Pascal.

Hey faggot, build your shit instead.

logicalincrements.com/