Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Dell/Alienware Introduce Linux Gaming PC

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #11
    Originally posted by kenjitamura View Post
    A minimum $600 price point for a linux gaming machine doesn't look all that appealing to me atm. I think, and hope, the Valve Steambox could deliver good performance at a more attractive price point.

    Valve has said the box they want to manufacture themselves is their $300 model right? With our current pricing of parts I think we're already really close to that being an affordable and viable build for most linux gamers now. Wouldn't something like that look somewhat like this?



    Total: $370

    This kind of build is already possible at a price point of ~$370 so either Valve would sell it at a loss, prices could drop $70 by Q4, or just buying and manufacturing in bulk would shave it off.

    Anyway, it is really awesome to see an OEM offering linux on a higher end rig, even if I find the attractiveness of such a machine with the current selection of linux games questionable.
    If I was building that computer for sale, it would go at least 600$ I need to make a profit too. But I could build a gaming rig for less than that though. Minimum would be about 400$ at retail price. I just don't see how to get a good gaming experience out of a PC at less than that.

    Comment


    • #12
      Originally posted by iniudan View Post
      For $40 the case + PSU combo would be complete crap, fucking thing will most likely fry the other component when it fail, since the thing will most like have no decent voltage regulation and poor efficiency with a combo at such price, put that $40 on a seasonic 300W bronze TFX12V, which is actually one of the cheapest (which I admit is odd considering their usual offering) small form PSU you can buy with actual voltage regulation and efficiency certification for SFF, save on electricity instead, put 20 more and you got a gold efficiency certified one instead, don't know anyone else actually offering gold certified SFF PSU. Case do whatever you want.

      Also $50 is a celeron price range not pentium, if you want to put down low price, pay 25$ more and get a 35W pentium instead, will have similar performance then your $50 55W celeron for lesser electricity bill.
      pentium? Really? Thats a brand I havent heard thrown around for a long time.

      Comment


      • #13
        Originally posted by duby229 View Post
        pentium? Really? Thats a brand I havent heard thrown around for a long time.
        It was the guy I was replying to that mentioned it, for personal use myself I wouldn't go lower then i3 for any use I would make of Intel CPU I can think off, but Pentium are fine for most home user and most white collar actually, basically you get similar performance then an i3 except without hyper treading and the low end integrated video of that intel generation (2500 in the case of ivy bridge, while the core series get 4000), and since most end user don't do task that hyper treading provide much performance increase, i3 wouldn't be worth it, if they plan to include a discrete GPU. But would actually suggest going for an i3 and get no discrete GPU for most (since most wouldn't be playing video game. =p Wouldn't also go for a discrete GPU lower then an AMD 7750 or a Nvidia 650, lower then that I would point toward an AMD APU if they still need GPU performance while still been cheap has possible)
        Last edited by iniudan; 05 April 2013, 11:43 PM.

        Comment


        • #14
          Originally posted by iniudan View Post
          For $40 the case + PSU combo would be complete crap, fucking thing will most likely fry the other component when it fail, since the thing will most like have no decent voltage regulation and poor efficiency with a combo at such price, put that $40 on a seasonic 300W bronze TFX12V, which is actually one of the cheapest (which I admit is odd considering their usual offering) small form PSU you can buy with actual voltage regulation and efficiency certification for SFF, save on electricity instead, put 20 more and you got a gold efficiency certified one instead, don't know anyone else actually offering gold certified SFF PSU. Case do whatever you want.

          Also $50 is a celeron price range not pentium, if you want to put down low price, pay 25$ more and get a 35W pentium instead, will have similar performance then your $50 55W celeron for lesser electricity bill.
          Yeah, I agree for $40 the PSU + case would be crap. So $40 for PSU and then ~$25-30 for the case bumps it ~$400, and that seems like a reasonably reliable product to market. And while I was tossing together that build more than once a concern about power efficiency crossed my mind because a low power console gaming device would be way more appealing. So I could also see it being much better to go with that $80 pentium like you said. Though I don't really think the $50 celeron would consume all that much more power than the pentium.

          So, it bumps a good build to a price of $400-430. Which I still think would be a reasonable build to be marketing as a living room console. And it follows the same mindset as when the Playstation and Xbox were sold at a loss because what the gaming company really wants is market penetration to recover sales with software. I'm not sure the steambox would even be able to hope to rival the Xbox 720 or Playstation 4 without a very appealing price point for the hardware. And I also still think a large company like Valve could cut costs with mass/bulk manufacturing.

          Comment


          • #15
            Tch, I thought that was US$600 for an Alienware gaming notebook. Would have imported it immediately if that were the case.

            Comment


            • #16
              Originally posted by iniudan View Post
              It was the guy I was replying to that mentioned it, for personal use myself I wouldn't go lower then i3 for any use I would make of Intel CPU I can think off, but Pentium are fine for most home user and most white collar actually, basically you get similar performance then an i3 except without hyper treading and the low end integrated video of that intel generation (2500 in the case of ivy bridge, while the core series get 4000), and since most end user don't do task that hyper treading provide much performance increase, i3 wouldn't be worth it, if they plan to include a discrete GPU.
              The HD2500 core is more than enough to handle any typical non-gaming graphics load in Linux and even Windows, so there's really no need to spend good money going for an i3.

              Plus a gamer would already install a dedicated card by the way. I'm seen people play Crysis and Modern Warfare with a Pentium + GTX 570. CPU bottlenecks the system but game is still perfectly playable.

              Comment


              • #17
                Yeah, I actually bought one of these a couple months ago. If I knew they were going to have an Ubuntu version now, I would have waited. As mentioned earlier, to buy the components separately would not have been much cheaper than when I bought mine. You're paying some extra for the small form factor. Plus, most cases that size only support half height cards, whereas the x51 can take full size cards. Anyway, I enjoy my purchase.

                Comment


                • #18
                  Originally posted by kenjitamura View Post
                  A minimum $600 price point for a linux gaming machine doesn't look all that appealing to me atm. I think, and hope, the Valve Steambox could deliver good performance at a more attractive price point.

                  Valve has said the box they want to manufacture themselves is their $300 model right? With our current pricing of parts I think we're already really close to that being an affordable and viable build for most linux gamers now. Wouldn't something like that look somewhat like this?
                  A GT 640 has DDR3 (lol), to do gaming, you'd need at least a GTX 660.

                  "Also $50 is a celeron price range not pentium, if you want to put down low price, pay 25$ more and get a 35W pentium instead, will have similar performance then your $50 55W celeron for lesser electricity bill."

                  TDPs? Who reads them today? We're talking about $25 only, not everyone runs their computer 24/7. Just like the "80+ Gold/Platinum will make you save money on the long term" joke.

                  Comment


                  • #19
                    From what I hear Valve have no plans to include any sort of optical drive, so you can cut that Blu-ray player out of the mix. Other partners may include one, but Gabe has said that is one of the things they are cutting out to keep the box smaller, cooler and cheaper to build and run.

                    My guess is they are also assuming most people will already have a stand-alone player or other solution for disc movies in their living room, so it would be a bit of a waste to add an extra one in a gaming device that will be getting its games and system updates from the internet. Another odd thing I heard him say though was that the Steambox should have no troubles with running services like Netflix; I wonder if they are working with them on getting a proper Linux port as well.

                    As far as these new Alienware options, one has to wonder just how much input Dell has into how that brand is managed now. Dell is one of those companies I will never willingly do business with after all the problems I have seen with their systems and customer service over the years while fixing and upgrading computers for friends and family.

                    Comment


                    • #20
                      Originally posted by Calinou View Post
                      A GT 640 has DDR3 (lol), to do gaming, you'd need at least a GTX 660.

                      "Also $50 is a celeron price range not pentium, if you want to put down low price, pay 25$ more and get a 35W pentium instead, will have similar performance then your $50 55W celeron for lesser electricity bill."

                      TDPs? Who reads them today? We're talking about $25 only, not everyone runs their computer 24/7. Just like the "80+ Gold/Platinum will make you save money on the long term" joke.
                      If you want to waste your power on heat production (which is what the TPD and the PSU efficiency represent) and cooling it down (which usually involve making noise), that fine with me.


                      Originally posted by Sonadow View Post
                      The HD2500 core is more than enough to handle any typical non-gaming graphics load in Linux and even Windows, so there's really no need to spend good money going for an i3.

                      Plus a gamer would already install a dedicated card by the way. I'm seen people play Crysis and Modern Warfare with a Pentium + GTX 570. CPU bottlenecks the system but game is still perfectly playable.
                      I had already mentioned that I suggested Pentium over i3 if had a discrete GPU. Has for the HD2500, knew it was enough on Linux, but since I was considering most user, I had to go with the side I am less sure about it ability to handle it while still offering a good user experience, Windows.
                      Last edited by iniudan; 06 April 2013, 07:51 AM.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X