The Glade 4.0

Anyone seen the new, smaller-sized offering. Reviews seem good so far- 100! in Performance from PCMag, and a 9 from IGN

I'm actually pretty tempted, it looks like a very nice, solid, compact little machine.

Starting stats are i3-2120/4/GT 545 (GDDR5) for $699, or i5-2320/6/GTX 555 for $899. (Other configurations at Dell)

Comparing to Tom's graphics cards hierarchy, that puts it about 5 tiers from the top in terms of graphics card power, and it's supposed to be a quiet machine as well.

I'm actually tempted. I don't really want to go for a huge, water cooled, over-specced system, but I'd be interested in having a solid, mid-line desktop around again.

_________________
Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Pretty cool. I had an Alienware back in the day, one of the big ones, and it did the job well for me. I like the new direction of smaller and more practical though.

I'm assuming you could still build something comparable yourself for a bit less, but probably not much less and you save the hassle if you're not into doing your own builds.

_________________
“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Yeah, I guess it comes down to your personal feelings:
Do you not want to build your own?
Is it important to you that your computer case is aesthetically pleasing?
Do you want to eventually replace or upgrade components?
Do you have a specific space requirement for which you need the small case?

Alienware is overpriced. That said, this doesn't look as overpriced as most Alienware rigs. Keep in mind though, if you need to customize on the Dell site, their customization prices tend to be a bit unrealistic. (i.e. to *upgrade* from 2x2GB 1333's to 1x2GB and 1x4GB 1333's is 50 bucks, when you can go to retail and pick up two 4GB 1600's for that price. Or even better, on the Alienware Aurora they charge you $150 to overclock your i7 from a 3.9 to a 4.1 GHz.)

It appears like these PCs are based off the standard Dell compact case. I had one of those a couple years back, bought by a client for my work on their project. They leave little to no room for expansion or customization (i.e. have to take out the HDD cage to get at other components, have to use low-profile RAM because of the space issues, only room for one more PCI card, etc...) I actually like Dells (if you're looking for a pre-built system), but I will never buy anything based off of their infernal compact case again. Also of note with that particular PC - I had to replace the PSU alone three times over five years. And oh yeah, it was a proprietary power supply (so as to fit in the small case), therefore I had to order through Dell.

Componentwise, the only thing that sticks out like a sore thumb is the power supply. The base model PSU is a 240W, which would be pushing it for the hardware already in there. Plus if I'm reading it right, it's an external power supply, so you'd have a cord hooked up to a little box hooked up to a cord hooked up to your PC. (Depending on your perspective, this might be a good thing since they are "cheating" to fit more equipment in the case, or it might be a bad thing because you have this extra thing taking up room)

Also it doesn't have an SSD. I know that's not mandatory for a mid-range desktop, but I picked one up recently, and now I've got both feet on the SSD bandwagon.

The only market niche I can see this filling is someone who wants to branch out of the console scene, buys the cheapest model, sets the PC up in a prominent spot for the looks, and casually plays games on it for a couple years until it dies.

God only knows who would spend the cash on the top-end one.

_________________

Vlad, did you look at the reviews? It's a completely different case design than the Dell small form factors (I had one of those for a while too). And it's made to be upgradable, within limits. Both of the reviews cite that it's the first mini PC that looks like it would be really easy to work inside (ie, it's designed to be easily opened and tinkered with).

It doesn't have an SSD, but it will take any 3.5" drive, or you can take out the 3.5 and mount two 2.5" drives (it comes with two connectors).

It definitely only has one PCI slot- but how many people actually use more than one? Maybe I'm just unusual, but I've had 3 empty PCI slots in my computer for quite some time.

The video card is a normal desktop card, albeit a short form factor, but can be up to 150 watts. That rules out some of the top end cards, but the GTX 555 that it ships with is top-mid range card, and it should continue to support that range of graphics cards. And judging by the benchmarks, it's no slouch in what it can play now.

Am I just that out of touch that it's a really low end computer for gaming? Or is there just that much of a divide between casual gaming and bleeding edge?

_________________
Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

You're not out of touch. I would consider this a mid-range gaming PC for today's games. It's not low-end. My 9 year old PC at home with the AGP v1 video card, the missing side panel, and the box fan blowing into the case (which barely lets me run through Orgrimmar on low settings) is a low-end gaming PC.

I looked at the PCMag review, couldn't get to the IGN one from work since it's a "Games" site.

The GTX 545 / 555 slightly worries me from the driver support standpoint (since they are OEM off-models), but if it's really a watered down 550/560 like Google tells me then it's probably the best thing the PC has going for it, gaming-wise.

Looking at the pictures here, it looks like it is not the clamshell case of my past Dell nightmares. It looks like everything is in removable cages, but it still looks like a giant PITA to work with. (I guess that'll be a flaw of any mini case?) I just don't understand how the thing is "tinker-friendly" like they imply in that review. Since you can't significantly upgrade most of the components, what's the purpose in tinkering? Yes, it's got an Intel 1155 socket and you can upgrade the CPU someday, but that applies to just about any new PC.

I'm just saying once you buy it, you're pretty much set and stuck with it as-is, performance-wise. You don't have support for the two best upgrade paths for a gaming PC - the most economical way (overclocking), and the most-bang-for-your-buck way (new video card). If the mini case is a real advantage for you, then go for it. If that's not the dealbreaker, why not go with something in a bigger case with a standard ATX motherboard? At least then you could upgrade the bottlenecks (in this instance: power supply and airflow) someday for relatively small cash investments.

Yes, I would personally be ashamed to own a desktop with an Alienware logo on it, but I'm willing to look past that. Even with a relatively objective view, I can't see this being a good purchase (for me). If I were living in a crowded dorm room, a gaming laptop would probably be a better choice. If I were in some sort of hospital, maybe a children's hospital, where we had to bring it from room to room, I'd still probably go gaming laptop, with a docking station in each room (so I could swap keyboards once they get all infected or whatever). Maybe if I were setting up a public kids recreation room like at an airport or at a restaurant, and I could lock it down in a cage, and if I only had 700 bucks worth of funding every couple years?

I'm not trying to put this PC down. I figured you were trying to get opinions of other folks around here, and this is mine.

_________________

I very much appreciate the opinion- it was quite helpful. I was just trying to nail down the details (your second post explained very well), and see if I was missing something or if it was just a difference of perspective.

I'm in no way sold, it was just a tempting, small, package that looked like it sacrificed much less than a lot of similar systems (Mac Mini, for example) since it used full desktop components (mostly).

I'm mainly looking for a media center PC, that can double down for some casual gaming. Compared to what I'm using now (a 2006 Dell XPS 410 with a 2.4 C2D, 3 gigs of ram, and an HD 4350 video card), this thing should scream.

But I appreciate the perspective on the limitations imposed by the case- quite honestly, however, I know I won't be overclocking, so that just leaves the video card upgradability- I think I'll look around more and see how truly upgradable the thing is.

_________________
Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Just a warning, performance graphics cards these days are built so that a family of four could live comfortably inside, with a spare room for the mother in law to visit.

Yeah, I've noticed that. A lot of them won't fit comfortably in my "full sized" XPS 410 box now.

But then, with what I'm playing rarely needs a performance graphics card either, so...

_________________
Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I recently built a bad-motherf**ker machine for my mother-in-law, I put it in a massive cooler master high airflow full tower. The graphics card (that cost more than the awesome processor) left about enough room to get a piece of paper between it and the front of the case.

Damn, that machine rocked.

<3 the HAF cases

_________________

With mine, I got the SmartResponse option for an SSD; it's a smaller one at 60GB but sicne it's a cache for the 2TB drive I don't have to worry about it. Load speed on my favorite games, and even on the programs that load at boot up, is fantastic. I guess in theory you can go up to 64 GB with it (you can even use a bigger SSD, but the space over 64 GB will, as I understand it, be partitioned as a different drive) but they only had 60 available and I doubt 4 GB would have mattered much.

Probably not quite as fast on the boot up as a dedicated boot drive would be, but on the other hand it helps the commonly-used applications.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."