Gadgetory

hey how's it going guys this is Dave - D and this is my video on the Alienware alpha r2 so this is our second generation alpha the first generation was a pretty decent device it took the desktop experience put it into a small form-factor but this year's version is quite a bit improved let's take a look alright inside the box you get the Alpha itself and a lumen or keyboard and mouse and the AC adapter it starts at six hundred dollars but the configuration I have here is their top spec it's running a quad-core skylake i7 eight gigs of ram a terabyte of storage and a desktop-class gtx 960 and this configuration goes for nine hundred and fifty dollars just a quick word about the keyboard and the mouse they're both ok I wouldn't rely on them for competitive gameplay or anything but they're good enough to kind of get you started on the system the exterior of the Alfa hasn't changed it looks pretty much like last year's Alfa or there C machine it's a black polycarbonate build with the Alienware triangle design up top the shell is plastic but it's densely packed and it feels pretty solid there's two LED sections that you can customize the alien head over here lights up and this little triangle area also lights up both of them are RGB and they're controlled by the Alienware software it's pretty easy to customize a look for ports we have four USB threes two in the front two in the back and HDMI 2.0 in and out so this lets you do pass-through of other devices it also has a thorough net optical audio out and there's a USB 2 port underneath so this is where you can put your dongle for a wireless mouse or a keyboard but the Alpha has bluetooth so you may not even need to use this now it's missing analog audio jacks so if you need sound and you probably do you'll either have to use a USB headset or to use the jacks on the back of your display either way will work the other thing that's missing is Thunderbolt 3 it bugs me at first because if you have a thunderbolt read drive or a thunderbolt 3 display you can't use them but if you're looking for an external graphics connection you can still do it but you're using the Alienware graphics amp so the amp has been around for a while it's essentially an external GPU that is cheaper and slightly better performing than the Razer core right now but it's bit bigger and it only works with Alienware devices but for $200 this thing gives you incredible upgrade potential and quote-unquote future proofing if you want to use that term so if you want to bump up performance to do 4k gaming have your VR stuff whatever you want you can pop in any current Nvidia or AMD card and I'll get like 90 to 95% of that cards desktop performance is pretty close now keep in mind you need to have the alpha with the GTX 960 to connect to the amp the base model with the AMD card can't do it and the amplifier connects to the alpha using this port on the Left uses a six-foot cable so you can place the amp further away if you want to get inside the Alpha it's just four screws you remove the cage and you get access to the two and a half inch drive bay you can swap this one out for an SSD if you want and you can flip it over and there's actually room for a second storage drive this is new for the second general fho it's an empty PCIe slot and it brings a lot of extra functionality to the alpha if you want to record gameplay edit videos or if you just want more storage space having a second internal drive is really nice you also have access to the single channel RAM slot here so I'm running eight gigs but you can replace it with a 16 gig stick if you want the CPU and GPU are soldered on and cannot be upgraded the fans are pretty quiet when it's on idle it's audible but it won't bother you at Full Tilt it's not crazy loud but you'll want to have some speakers or headphones when you're using it thermally it's well cooled those blower style fans do a good job there's no throttling and nothing runs at uncomfortable temperatures gaming performance is good remember it uses a desktop-class GTX 960 not the 960 m that we often see in laptops but the legit desktop version so lightweight titles run really easily on this csgo and super hot won't even break a sweat on this thing at max graphics 1080p something a little heavier like overwatch still runs really nicely on ultra and even epic graphics at 1080p it'll maintain 60 frames per second or higher and in general moderately demanding 3d titles run really smooth now heavy titles it depends on the game but stuff like Far Cry and witcher 3 you can run it at 60 frames per second at 1080p but you'll need to drop down the graphic setting to around Villar on the built-in gtx 960 isn't really viable the spec sheets don't lie you do need a gtx 970 or better if you connect the Alienware graphics amp performance is going to be way better as long as you're running an appropriate card it depends on the card you're putting in but if you drop in a 970 or better VR becomes super smooth and if you drop a GTX 1080 in their 4k gaming becomes a thing so something else to note this entire video was edited using premiere on the Alpha I record in 4k and editing this video was super smooth even with only 8 gigs of RAM that second internal drive and of course the GTX 960 are really nice for video editing the AC adapter is 180 watts it's not too big but if you plan on traveling back and forth with an alpha maybe pick up a second adapter so you can leave one in both places that we don't bring the adapter with you so if you spec it out right the Alienware alpha can be anything it's simple enough to be someone's first PC it can play games and even do VR if you're using the amp it can also be a small media center for your living room so you can just plug it up and start watching movies or you can download hive mind from Alienware which is like a media hub for all of your games and stuff and you can customize it and you can launch all the games and apps with a controller while you're sitting on the couch is kind of cool you can also use it as a console like gaming system so if you connect a wireless controller you basically have a console killer and you can also run it as a portable work PC so if you have two locations that have a monitor and a keyboard so let's say work and home or if your student into your dorm and your parents house it's super easy to transport this thing back and forth and every time you plug it up you're getting the full desktop experience and that's really its strength you got all the functionality of a desktop with a gtx 960 in a box the size of a Nintendo Wii now it's not going to be as cheap as building a mini ITX system but the Alpha is way smaller and super easy to transport so because of the portability and the strong performance of this thing it's a very versatile device you can play games on it you can do work on it you can edit videos on it basically you have the strength of a desktop PC in a very small package now having a super powerful computer that's also really small obviously isn't everyone's dream but if you've been looking for a gaming laptop because you want portable performance also take a look at the Alpha it might be a good fit that's the end of this video hope you guys liked it thumbs if you liked it subs if you loved it it's been nice I'll see you guys next time