There are still problems with the whole concept, of course. “If you want to switch over you’re more than welcome to.” Not all perfect “The system is SteamOS-ready, so if you go out and download the beta today and install it, it’s already validated and will play just fine,” said Watkins. The Roccat living room gaming prototype-ostensibly designed for Steam Machines-I used with the Alienware Alpha.Īnd if you’re dead-set on a SteamOS-enabled Alienware machine, but don’t want to wait? You can always install SteamOS on the device later. You wouldn’t have to worry about throwing this in your entertainment center and leaving it. The case got a bit warm on the back-right side, especially toward the top, but it wasn’t scorching-hot. Heat is pumped out the back, as you might expect.

(The fact that Alienware tapped Nvidia for a custom chip based on the super-efficient Maxwell architecture no doubt helped keep the size and sound down.) We’ll test more when we get a review unit, but this thing is way quieter than any fan-controlled PC, and it’s probably quieter than your next-gen consoles. It’s hard to hear anything on the E3 show floor over the noise of a million explosions and grunting soldiers, but even with my head up close to Alpha I could barely discern a whisper. The entire UI is built around being navigable using a gamepad alone.Īnd it’s dead quiet. You can even mess with common Windows settings-it’s helpful to be able to calibrate your display without having to reach for a keyboard and mouse. It’s almost exactly the same scrolling-sideways interface Valve uses (and, for that matter, favored on traditional consoles like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4), except that the options you scroll through all pertain to common Windows functionality rather than navigating your Steam library. It’s tedious.Īlienware Alpha boots to a custom user interface slapped on top of Windows 8.1-a custom user interface that looks suspiciously like Steam’s controller-friendly Big Picture mode, which is the heart of SteamOS. The inelegance of using a mouse and keyboard-based interface on a television ten feet away is one of the main problems with current “move your PC to the living room” solutions-trying to navigate miniscule application icons and illegible text from afar, or messing with the resolution. The Alpha console uses a heavily modified version of Windows, of course. “We always want to bring versatility to our customers and give them the ability to make their own choices.” Diving into the Alpha’s gamepad-friendly interface “We’ve always planned on going forward with a Windows project,” Watkins continued.

A Windows-based machine lets you play any games you want, rather than hoping there’s a Linux port or needing a second machine to stream games from. Still, Alienware wanted to give consumers as many options as possible, and a Windows machine was a natural fit.

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