Anything on here comparable to the Alienware Alpha??

[NobleStone]

Greetings,

I need a laptop or small form factor PC with a bit of oomph for gaming.

I was going to pull the trigger on an Alienware Alpha but heard reports its hot and noisy which put me off.

Any offering from PCS which might be comparable? Can be a bit bigger but not too much, an i5/i7 'T' CPU is fine along with something around GTX 960 GPU.

Budget up to £750.

Any ideas?

 

[Oussebon]

While it's not encouraged to give advice about competitor products (so ultimately you need to make your mind up on Dell offerings yourself) there are options from PCS for mini-ITX builds here: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-skylake-sff-gaming/

The Alienware PC you mentioned comes in a range of configurations. They seem to have Maxwell mobile GPUs. Mobile GPUs are much less powerful than their desktop counterparts - you can compare mobile GPUs with their desktop counterparts using 3dMark scores to get a fair idea of their relative power. e.g. a GTX 960M scores 5310 while a GTX 960 (desktop) scores 10340 is is about twice as powerful. a GTX 750ti scores higher than a GTX 960M. This would be the same process if you were considering a laptop vs a desktop for gaming and so the advice to compare GPUs there isn't dell-specific

-T CPUs are weaker than their regular counterparts, due to being downclocked to make them consume less power. Some benchmarks: http://tinyurl.com/h3ka5e6

It's also worth noting that PC Specialist PCs can be opened up and modified - so you could upgrade the graphics card or whatever if a few years. The components aren't soldered to the motherboard and the power supply connectors aren't proprietary.

A build weighing in close to your budget would be something like:

Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 130 CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-6400 (2.7GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® Z170I PRO GAMING: Mini-ITX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB HyperX FURY DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 960 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP (Special!!)
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
1[SUP]st[/SUP] DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 350W VS SERIES™ VS-350 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
INTEL STANDARD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT + WIRELESS 802.11 A/B/G/N/AC
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£89)
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 7 to 9 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £770.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-skylake-sff-gaming/a2UDXMz8a9/

Though personally I'd go with an i5 6500, a 450W PSU, and maybe a quieter CPU cooler. Though that obviously increases costs.