Anyone here own Alienware?

[RoboBobo]

It's time for me to shop around for a desktop. I've heard that Alienware is specifically designed for heavy gaming but It just looks so damn sweet. So if anyone would care to share what you like or hate...spill it.

[Minja]

(whoops, closed the window and lost my reply :()

Anyways, I used to wish I had an Alienware. They look real nice and all, but cost an arm and a leg.

I ended up building my own, buying all my parts from TigerDirect in Canada. Ran me about $1400 cdn without peripherals.

Runs Crysis at a solid 42fps on high settings, Counter-Strike: Source at 250-299 fps on high settings, photoshop is damn fast and so is illustrator.

Q6600 Quad-Core 2.66ghz
eVGA 8800GT Superclocked
680i LT Mobo
4gb OCZ Reaper Ram (2x2gb)

Only problem is my optical drive sounds like chewbacca taking a shit, Phillips something-or-other. I didn't realize how much I took for granted with my old PC, sound being a biggie. Honestly, when I put my head down to the computer case on boot-up, sounds like i'm being sucked into a wind tunnel.

Totally worth it though :P (but if I could find an optical drive that was quiet and performed the same, I'd spend the money)

[RoboBobo]

Well yea the main reason is because I want all my art programs to run fast. I'm sick of waiting bajesus years for a Painter brush to finish a stroke lol. I wanted to get ZBrush too. Looks like a phenominal program that would eat up a phenominal amount of ram.

[Jtho]

You really don't need an enthusiast gamer rig to run painter and zbrush well. You especially don't need an Alienware for, well, anything.

Alienwares are overpriced gilded computers for people who have more money than time. Any responsible user who has a legitimate need for that kind of horsepower should really be building their own system, or at the very least staying away from the sellers that want to charge an extra $1000 for building your computer with a gaudy case covered with branding and lots of LEDs.

[RoboBobo]

Well said. That's why I'm probably going to go back to my trustworthy Dell;)

[Elwell]

It's time for me to shop around for a desktop. I've heard that Alienware is specifically designed for heavy gaming but It just looks so damn sweet.
If you want to pay a premium for nice hardware design, at least get a mac and get a well designed OS along with it.

[Fuzzba11]

Another vote for building your own, you'll pay half the price you would for a similarly spec'd Alienware. Newegg.com is your friend, I'd also recommend browsing ocforums.com for build advice. If you've got a computer savvy friend ask them to help out!

What's your budget?

[RoboBobo]

Well I'm not looking to build my own. I've always liked Dell and I just want something thats pretty damn fast. My comp will pretty much have my art programs and music and thats it. What I ultimately want to do is stock up on all the major 3D programs too...something that won't crash, that's the key;)

[krpolak]

RoboBobo,

Dell precision T5400 is your friend. I use it for, both 2d and 3d. Price might be not so friendly though ;-/

Regards,

K.Polak

[Straight Edge Ryan]

I've got one (graduation present) and yeah, they'll run damn near everything, and I haven't had any problems with it thus far. Problem is once you place your order with Alienware, they have to build the rig before they ship it. So payment, processing, building, systems checks, etc. will be anywhere from 10 days to a month before it ships out to you, and being an impatient person as I am, that was a while to wait

Another down side is you won't be able to tell many people you have one without getting "way to waste your money douchebag! you should have just built one yourself dumbass! blah blah bkasdfhjkdh" tirades haha

Oh, also, it'd help if I knew what types of games you wanna play

[Brashen]

For Heavens sake stay away from MACs.... I don't give if a crap what people say about their OS it's a piece of *********************. Anyways Alienware would be overkill for anybody right now but if you're looking for top of the line check out BlackBird 002 from HP and Voodoo....Its beautifull. too bad they only ship in the states!!

[Grumbledook]

alienware are ugly and overpriced

macs are kinda nice looking and overpriced

you can get the same kinda spec as alienware from more traditional companies for less money

want a nice case look at lian li

[Seedling]

Two of my coworkers bought some sort of Alienware laptops and had to send them back in immediately for problems. My husband has a full-sized Alienware, and it has lasted longer than his previous computer, which he built himself. He has been happy with the Alienware, but he says if you have the time and the know-how, build-it-yourself is the better way to go. And he suggests this resource if you are up for the challenge:

http://www.rabb1t.com/

Me, though; I'm terrified of mucking about with computer innards, so I would buy mine pre-assembled.

There is no need to sneer at people who don't make your particular computer choices. There is no one right rig for everyone.

[madhatter106]

Well said. That's why I'm probably going to go back to my trustworthy Dell;)

Kinda funny, since Alienware was acquired by Dell some time ago.

I'd echo the sentiments of others here - it would probably be cheaper to build your own, via parts on Newegg and other sources...

[Gory]

1 month to get your computer from Alienware? Holy crap.

Since it sounds like you don't want to build your own, I would (secondhand) recommend http://www.digitalstormonline.com/ for your PC building needs. I have no personal experience with them, but I hear they are *very* well built with ridiculously good cabling. I don't know how long the turn around time on one of their PCs is though, it could very well be the same as Alienware's.

Again I would recommend patience with your computer. Unless you're in a huge rush I personally feel it's totally worth it to wait for the Intel Core i7 chipset to come out this fall.

They come standard in Quad-core but the really outstanding part about them is the computer can turn off cores that are not in use and automatically overclocking cores that are working. That way you're not sacrificing anything by getting a lower clocked quad core over a higher clocked dual core.

It really looks to be a great CPU.

[Rusty]

I agree about Alienware being a bit to overboard for the task you can definitely get good gains with an upgrade. I recently upgraded at a total cost of around $750 NZD, stuff i got was:
- 2.4 ghz Core 2 Quad
- Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX (overclocked the sucker far beyond factory)
- Motherboard
- Power supply
- 2 gb ram ( up to 4 gb plus older ram)

Runs as fast as computer diarrhea can get now :) Photoshop,Painter no sweat, even runs Crysis on high settings at a good framerate.

...Jase

[IanE]

www.anandtech.com

If you're not going to game, get a Mac.

If you are going to game and design, build it your own and buy from newegg.com, or you could always hire me :)

[aspenboy]

Or buy a mac for work and xbox/ps3 for gaming ;)

[Baron Impossible]

I was looking at Macs recently but I couldn't justify the price, especially since I'd need to buy all my s/w again. For 70% of the price of a Mac pro I can get an 8 core monster with twice the power, four times the memory and five times the storage.

[RoboBobo]

Well Macs are made to look pretty. I've worked PC's and Macs and I like them both. Hmmmmm we'll see.

[Pavel Sokov]

(whoops, closed the window and lost my reply :()

Anyways, I used to wish I had an Alienware. They look real nice and all, but cost an arm and a leg.

I ended up building my own, buying all my parts from TigerDirect in Canada. Ran me about $1400 cdn without peripherals.

Runs Crysis at a solid 42fps on high settings, Counter-Strike: Source at 250-299 fps on high settings, photoshop is damn fast and so is illustrator.

Q6600 Quad-Core 2.66ghz
eVGA 8800GT Superclocked
680i LT Mobo
4gb OCZ Reaper Ram (2x2gb)

Only problem is my optical drive sounds like chewbacca taking a shit, Phillips something-or-other. I didn't realize how much I took for granted with my old PC, sound being a biggie. Honestly, when I put my head down to the computer case on boot-up, sounds like i'm being sucked into a wind tunnel.

Totally worth it though :P (but if I could find an optical drive that was quiet and performed the same, I'd spend the money)


yea, no point in alienware. I spend 1760 bucks, a friend went to china to build me a pc, and its similar to urs, runs crysis at around 40-60 fps too.

Q6600 Quad-Core 2.40ghz (you do know that your cpu is 2.40 and not .66, right? )
2 XFX 8800GT Oc'd in SLI
XFX 680i Mobo
2gb OCZ Reaper Ram (2x1gb)
Sound Blaster Extreme sound card
Razer copperhead mouse


almost identical computers, mine has a bit more stuff though. I am running all this on a wacom 21x, which cost way too much. and has scratches all over it already,it haunts me.

[MiniGoth]

Alienware hasn't been 'Alienware' in years - it's a Dell that you pay extra for.

My Alienware is a bit over ten years old, and can STILL run new programs. Damn, I miss that company...

[ethan karnopp]

Personally I would say just read up on tech forums, newegg, etc. and build your own PC. If you are smart and know what you are doing you could build a machine comparable to alienware for less than 1200. If you are a gamer, a good graphics card is a must but don't build your machine around one, they get outdated so fast anyway. Personally the best cheap way to go for some really good speed, invest in one of the higher-end nvidia cards (i'm not brand biased but they seem to be more reasonably priced for performance), look into running RAID, and use no less than 4 gigs. That's basic shit but you wanna pay attention to BUS speeds and such too because if you have the best components, it won't matter when your motherboard has a bottleneck. Anyway my brother-in-law has an alienware laptop, so it's kind of hard for me to say anything about their desktops. If you have the money, go for it, if you don't look into building your own or maybe buying a prebuilt rig from Dell and souping it up a bit, I helped run a cybercafe, and thats what we did for a cost-effective solution and it worked great.

[Mirana]

Just had my more techy/gamer-minded bro over here to help me pick parts on my next box, and excepting the couple of drives we're taking from the old box...everything was about $700. The rest of the money is going to an upgraded monitor.

Be smart about what you're picking up and why. Don't over-buy just because it sounds like it's the coolest. Do your research.

[RoboBobo]

I'm not a pc gamer one bit, I just wanted the machine for processing power but from the sound of it they just AINT WORTH IT. Macs are good but I still love pc's. I know people that have Gateways and they work great too. I do want a good one that's at least 200 gigs. Kind of an insurance space ya know. What do you guys usually run as far as space?

[ethan karnopp]

I'm not a pc gamer one bit, I just wanted the machine for processing power but from the sound of it they just AINT WORTH IT. Macs are good but I still love pc's. I know people that have Gateways and they work great too. I do want a good one that's at least 200 gigs. Kind of an insurance space ya know. What do you guys usually run as far as space?

If you aren't (and don't plan to be a pc gamer) then disregard alienwares. As far as storage, extra space is nice, but be careful. A lot of people get 320 gb hard drives at 5400 rpm which kind of halters performance, 7200 rpm should be baseline imo. Also you might want to look into an external hard drive if storage is an issue.

[RoboBobo]

I got an external hard drive (it saved me;) but the 7200 rpm is a good tip;)

[Mirana]

I'm not a pc gamer one bit, I just wanted the machine for processing power [...] What do you guys usually run as far as space?

Mm, I had 80GB and it was plenty...but I'm not a gamer, don't download massive quanties of music or movies, and have restricted the sizing of my art files. I just picked up 1TB for shits and giggles...but once I'm not restricting my art file sizes it'll start to add up with comic pages (not FILL, of course...but I tend to drag my heels on updating shit so it needs to last). And games...dammit I want to play again.

It sucks that you don't want to learn to build your own (or have a friend to do it) 'cause its so cost-effective. Then you can pick out any pretty LED-lighted case you wanted. :P

[Dave_]

a 320gig 7200 RPM HD (internal) is about 45 euro's, so basicly nothing.