The best "PC" for sub 500$

[piccolo289]

The alienware alpha i3 is going for around 410$ on Amazon right now. That is the 4 gb ram version. A extra dimm of laptop ram should be around 20 bucks. That totals to 430$. If you need a keyboard and mouse, you can get a nice one for around 30 bucks on Amazon. So, for around 470$, you get a small form factor "PC" preinstalled with Windows 8 and a free Xbox 360 controller thrown in for good measure.

Now before you say that I can build a PC that is so much better for that cost. Find a tiny case, include the cost of windows 8.1, and the cost of a new 360 controller and dongle (wireless controller). In fact, that would be interesting to see.

(Inb4 celerons powered by an ati rage and a 250w psu)

[DatKid20]

(09-23-2015, 12:12 PM)piccolo289 Wrote: The alienware alpha i3 is going for around 410$ on Amazon right now. That is the 4 gb ram version. A extra dimm of laptop ram should be around 20 bucks. That totals to 430$. If you need a keyboard and mouse, you can get a nice one for around 30 bucks on Amazon. So, for around 470$, you get a small form factor "PC" preinstalled with Windows 8  and a free Xbox 360 controller thrown in for good measure.

Now before you say that I can build a PC that is so much better for that cost. Find a tiny case, include the cost of windows 8.1, and the cost of a new 360 controller and dongle (wireless controller). In fact, that would be interesting to see.

(Inb4 celerons powered by an ati rage and a 250w psu)

No case can even come close to the size of the Alienware Alpha unless it was custom made. Plus no standard desktop GPU could fit in there meaning you would have to use IGPU....ewww

[piccolo289]

Yeah I'm p sure the alpha uses a 860m or basically a slightly under clocked 750ti

[NaturalViolence]

It uses an overclocked 860m which performs about the same as a desktop 750 TI.

piccolo289 Wrote:Now before you say that I can build a PC that is so much better for that cost. Find a tiny case, include the cost of windows 8.1, and the cost of a new 360 controller and dongle (wireless controller). In fact, that would be interesting to see.

(Inb4 celerons powered by an ati rage and a 250w psu)

For me the question is not "can I do it?" but "why would I want to do it?".  I mean by your logic why would anyone buy this over a PS4/xbone if all that matters is cost/performance ratio and size?  Both of them are cheaper and faster and similar in size.  

>dual core low power edition cpu
>750 TI level gpu performance
>500GB HDD
>4GB of ram

I don't care how cheap and small it is.  You would have to pay me to use that.  I would rather get something bigger and/or more expensive to ensure better performance.  But that's just me.  But you're right if for some reason you have to buy something that small and it has to be under $500 then that is probably one of if not the best deal around.

[DatKid20]

(09-24-2015, 09:45 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: It uses an overclocked 860m which performs about the same as a desktop 750 TI.

piccolo289 Wrote:Now before you say that I can build a PC that is so much better for that cost. Find a tiny case, include the cost of windows 8.1, and the cost of a new 360 controller and dongle (wireless controller). In fact, that would be interesting to see.

(Inb4 celerons powered by an ati rage and a 250w psu)

For me the question is not "can I do it?" but "why would I want to do it?".  I mean by your logic why would anyone buy this over a PS4/xbone if all that matters is cost/performance ratio and size?  Both of them are cheaper and faster and similar in size.  

>dual core low power edition cpu
>750 TI level gpu performance
>500GB HDD
>4GB of ram

I don't care how cheap and small it is.  You would have to pay me to use that.  I would rather get something bigger and/or more expensive to ensure better performance.  But that's just me.  But you're right if for some reason you have to buy something that small and it has to be under $500 then that is probably one of if not the best deal around.

Considering how it's already been proven that a 750ti is equal to consoles I don't get why you're saying they're faster. Plus the 860m can be overclocked.

[piccolo289]

And I'm p sure you can add an extra dimm of 4 gb laptop ram for 20$ ( like I literally stated in op)

The HDD is kinda crappy but that won't be hard to change out later, everything in the PC is upgradeable except the gpu and the psu, and cooling as well

Not saying its worth upgrading the CPU, at that point you should just be building a new pc

[NaturalViolence]

DatKid20 Wrote:Considering how it's already been proven that a 750ti is equal to consoles I don't get why you're saying they're faster.

How and where was it proven?

The specs are publicly listed for the PS4 as being equivalent to an R7 265. Which roughly ties with a GTX 660 in benchmarks and is significantly faster than a 750 TI. And that's just a PC benchmark. In reality console games have a host of low level shader optimizations not possible on a PC which improve the effective performance of their GPU. So you would expect it to be closer to a GTX 670 in real performance.

DatKid20 Wrote:Plus the 860m can be overclocked.

Not by much. That case has very limited cooling and it's already factory overclocking to push it to near its limit.

[AnyOldName3]

With this generation, though, there's a lot less headroom given by extra optimisation, and DirectX 12 and Vulkan are supposed to give nearly that level of access on PC. They barely run faster than D3D11 and OGL in GPU-bound applications, though, which is why every benchmark listed anywhere is something showing a lot of draw calls. Most games can be made to run at 1080p@60 on a 750 Ti, but neither the XBone or PS4 have more than a handful of games that do that. The disparity is a lot smaller than you're suggesting.

[DatKid20]

(09-25-2015, 02:54 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote:

DatKid20 Wrote:Considering how it's already been proven that a 750ti is equal to consoles I don't get why you're saying they're faster.

How and where was it proven?

The specs are publicly listed for the PS4 as being equivalent to an R7 265.  Which roughly ties with a GTX 660 in benchmarks and is significantly faster than a 750 TI.  And that's just a PC benchmark.  In reality console games have a host of low level shader optimizations not possible on a PC which improve the effective performance of their GPU.  So you would expect it to be closer to a GTX 670 in real performance.

DatKid20 Wrote:Plus the 860m can be overclocked.

Not by much.  That case has very limited cooling and it's already factory overclocking to push it to near its limit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGf4SVWEw2g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raB8EucfQVM

Digital Foundry has been doing this all year. You're pretty late

[AnyOldName3]

I don't know, in the PC version, Snake's horse takes longer to get to the first big rock, so the consoles' horses are faster, so their GPUs must be, too. (/s for anyone taking this seriously. None of us are dumb enough to need this, though, right?)