Alternative to Alienware Alpha

[times_champion]

I currently do most of my gaming on a PS4, and I have a desktop PC upstairs which is about 3 years old now. I am thinking about getting a new PC for work stuff and some light gaming on strategy games etc so I was thinking about a laptop. After looking around though, it seems that I could sell my PS4 and get a £580 I5 Alienware Alpha which would outperform the PS4 as well asplaying emulators on my TV and being able to be portable enough to take upstairs and use with a monitor for word processing etc.

I have also seen people online saying the Alpha is a rip-off however and it's better to build an alternative. I'm not that concerned about having something he same size as the Alpha, but any PC I buy would have to have the following:

Small enough and portable enough to fit under to and take into a different room with minimum effort (max twice the size of Xbox one?
Powerful enough to play multiformat games at better settings than PS4
8gb ram + 1tb HDD
Under £550 without monitor but including Windows

If I can't find any decent alternatives for desktop or laptop then I'll happily buy an Alpha, but I thought I would check out the alternatives first.

 

[stulid]

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus H81M-K Intel Core i5 DIY Micro ATX Motherboard, CPU & RAM Bundle £228.97
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte Radeon R9 280 WindForce 3X OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express G (GX-143-GI) £109.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £77.99
1 x Silverstone Grandia GD09 Home Theatre Server Case - Black (SST-GD09B) £49.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £49.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £37.99
Total : £564.53 (includes shipping : £8.00).




is that the sort of case style you are looking for? or a small Matx tower,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus H81M-K Intel Core i5 DIY Micro ATX Motherboard, CPU & RAM Bundle £228.97
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte Radeon R9 280 WindForce 3X OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express G (GX-143-GI) £109.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £77.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £49.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £37.99
1 x Zalman T1 Plus Mini-Tower USB 3.0 - Black £19.99
Total : £539.03 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 

[times_champion]

Thanks, would this spec outperform the Alpha/PS4? Is it pretty small? Also I'm not sure about B grade parts, is there any alternative?

 

[Danny75]

Thanks, would this spec outperform the Alpha/PS4?

A desktop rig like that will comfortably beat the PS4/Alpha.

A desktop i5 is faster than the Alpha's lower-power laptop i5T. The Alpha's video card is unnamed but is said to be based around the laptop 850M card. Let's say it was an 860M at best (unlikely as I see no reason why it would then remain unnamed but anyway). That would be equivalent to a dialed down 750Ti. So as long as you got a 750Ti or better you'd undoubtedly have superior graphics performance as well.

Also I'm not sure about B grade parts, is there any alternative?

AMD:

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming Edition OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £169.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £83.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £77.99
1 x Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £52.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £43.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £38.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £37.99
1 x Aerocool GT Black Edition Mid tower - Black £23.99
1 x LG 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM GH24NSC0.AUAA10B £13.99
Total : £553.51 (includes shipping : £8.00).




Intel/Nvidia:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus H81M-K Intel Core i5 DIY Micro ATX Motherboard, CPU & RAM Bundle £228.97
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 750Ti SC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (02G-P4-3753-KR) £115.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £77.99
1 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0500-KR) £38.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £37.99
1 x Aerocool GT Black Edition Mid tower - Black £23.99
1 x LG 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM GH24NSC0.AUAA10B £13.99
Total : £547.51 (includes shipping : £8.00).




I've used an EVGA Bronze PSU to stay close to budget but would recommend spending a bit extra for the SuperFlower Gold 550w with 5 years warranty, especially as its currently £10 cheaper than usual.

 

[DaleTheWhale]

Theres the Antec 550w gold as well, 5 quid cheaper than the SF.

Edit, didnt see the TWO for the SF PSU.

 

[times_champion]

Thanks guys. Yeah, the Alpha GPU is based on the 860m apparently. The only issue is that the case looks pretty big. I will have to look at the dimensions, but it seems more like a smaller tower than a console size? Is there any way of getting all this into a smaller case, as I say around double the size of the Xbox One ideally?

 

[stulid]

Can you find a case that fits your requirements and that will be better than us guessing.