The new Alienware Alpha gaming system has officially started shipping to early adopters and is also available for sale, but it comes without SteamOS.
Alienware Alpha stirred lots of interest when it made its official debut, partly because it was supposed to be one of the first SteamOS commercial boxes.
Just a few days ago Dell officially announced that the Alienware Alpha was shipping to pre-order customers, while other interested buyers can now purchase it from select Walmart and Fry's locations, as well as order it online at Alienware.com and other select online partners such as Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, GameStop, and TigerDirect.
Some fans, however, may be disappointed to find out that the Alienware Alpha is really not shipping with SteamOS. Valve is running behind schedule, so the gaming rig is left with Windows 8.1 after all. This is not such a big surprise, as the pre-order page clearly noted that the Alpha would not ship with SteamOS, but some still hoped something would change by the time the device started shipping. The Alienware Alpha is still "SteamOS ready," but it will take a while longer.
For those unfamiliar with the device, the Alienware Alpha is a full PC gaming rig packed in a small box, with graphics powered by a custom-built card from NVIDIA based on the GeForce GTX 860M's Maxwell architecture.
Moreover, the Alpha further comes with a choice of fourth-gen Intel Haswell processors - Core i3, i5, or i7 - and RAM options ranging from 4GB to 8GB. As previously mentioned, the box runs Windows 8.1.
The Alienware Alpha also ships with an Xbox 360 wireless controller, but users can actually plug in any peripheral, including a keyboard and a mouse. Users can also choose to run the regular Windows 8.1 interface or plunge straight into Steam's Big Picture mode for some heavy gaming. In terms of size, the Alpha is just 2.5 inches tall and less than 8 inches wide, which means that users can easily set it up wherever without taking up too much space.
The base model of the Alienware Alpha comes with a $549 price tag, offering an Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB SATA drive. The highest-end model, meanwhile, rocks an Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 2TB of storage, but goes up to $899.
