So I'm moving away to university soon and will be needing a small PC for gaming. I physically cant haul around my main machine so a small machine is exactly what I need. It doesnt need to greatest specs as I mainly need it to play games such as League of legends but would also like it to be able to handle most games I throw at it fairly well. I havent looked around much but I've seen the Alienware Alpha which costs around £450 and would be perfect for what I need. I was just wondering if anyone knows of a cheaper alternative that would fulfil the same job or if they could give me any advice on the Alpha and if its worth buying.
Alienware Alpha worth it? Are there better alternatives for the same price?
- Thread starter K1996s
- Start date
Solution
EdwinAndrew
Honorable
- Nov 3, 2013
- 32
- 0
- 10,540
Yeah id have to agree with aj^^ the mini ITX rig is probably a better choice. Building it yourself will save you more money than buying because of labor and etc.
Calculagator
Admirable
- Nov 18, 2014
- 2,508
- 1
- 8,960
I think the Alpha is a great machine for the price if you need something small. It's pretty difficult to pack so much computer into such a small space if you build it yourself. Also, there have been good sales on the Alpha that make it cheaper than building yourself. Don't spend on RAM and hard drive upgrades from Dell: you can do those yourself and save money. I would also not spend a lot on the higher end CPUs.
James Mason
Titan
- Jan 2, 2014
- 13,553
- 7
- 74,965
Pretty tiny system that'll max league and play other games really well.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (£88.20 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H97I AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (£79.16 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£31.67 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.99 @ Dabs)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card (£139.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 110 Mini ITX Tower Case (£33.74 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic ECO 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£29.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £442.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-10 00:12 BST+0100
Building your own computer is easy. Building it takes 2-3 hours, and installing windows takes about 30mins to 45mins, and after that downloading and installing drivers takes another 30-45 mins. After all that, have it download windows updates at night, it may take a 2-4 passes to get them all.
Building a PC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIF43-0mDk4
Installing Windows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zAdwedmj1M
Protip for installing drivers safely, install them one at a time and restart the computer after each install to avoid breaking the OS, which can happen if you try to install them all at once.
OS: https://insider.windows.com/
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor (£88.20 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H97I AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (£79.16 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£31.67 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.99 @ Dabs)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card (£139.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 110 Mini ITX Tower Case (£33.74 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic ECO 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£29.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £442.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-10 00:12 BST+0100
Building your own computer is easy. Building it takes 2-3 hours, and installing windows takes about 30mins to 45mins, and after that downloading and installing drivers takes another 30-45 mins. After all that, have it download windows updates at night, it may take a 2-4 passes to get them all.
Building a PC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIF43-0mDk4
Installing Windows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zAdwedmj1M
Protip for installing drivers safely, install them one at a time and restart the computer after each install to avoid breaking the OS, which can happen if you try to install them all at once.
OS: https://insider.windows.com/
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