Alienware, in partnership with Valve and GameStop, has announced the Alienware Steam Machine will launch on November 10 and will be available for an “early-access pre-order program” which will allow customers to receive it one month prior to its official launch on October 16.

The Alienware Steam Machine’s starting price will be at $449 and will offer an Intel Core i3 (4130T DC), nVidia GeForce GTX GPU w/2GB GDDR5, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB 7200RPM HDD, an 802.11 wireless card and a Steam Controller. Additional configurations includes a bump in RAM to 8GB, a 1TB HDD, and upgraded processors with an Intel Core i7 (4765T QC) available at the $749 price point.

The specs and price point of the Alienware Steam Machine remind us of the Alienware Alpha, which was the company’s first attempt at launching a Steam Machine-esque device while Valve was figuring out the best route to take with its SteamOS. We really enjoyed our time with the Alpha, although we thought those interested in the device should manage their expectations of it.

There are some slight differences between the Alpha and Steam Machine. The first one is the Steam Machine will have a faster hard drive, which was one of the major drawbacks Alpha owners had with the micro PC. The controller will be different as it’ll come with a Steam Controller instead of an Xbox 360 controller with a wireless adapter. The last is its operating system. The Alpha ran on AlienUI, which was a custom GUI for Windows 8 to make it easier to manipulate the computer through the use of a controller. The Steam Machine will run on SteamOS, which has yet to make its official debut as it’s still in its beta phase and currently has no release date.

Alienware will be hosting a Twitch stream today at 7pm ET to answer questions from fans regarding today's announcement. Head on over to Twitch.tv/alienware at that time if you're interested.