Hardware Alienware Question

[Ethevion]

That just makes you seem lazy, uninformed, and that you have too much money for your own good. No offence, that's just how I see everyone who wants an Alienware. Or Beats. Or a Macbook.

I've never cared what people think of me.

You're willing to pay like a 200% markup for a convenience like that?
Lordy. Its not THAT difficult to troubleshoot yourself.

I'm too busy to do these things myself. My parts for my PC were sitting on my basement floor for a good week and a half before I finally had enough time to go and build it.

You could try a prebuilt that's actually got gaming parts in it other than a boutique like Alienware. Like Dell, who owns Alienware, but charges a good chunk less for the same parts in a different case and name?

Or Lenovo, etc.

I'll do some more research.

 

[PityOnU]

Don't let everyone who is talking shit here put you down.

The X51 is a pretty sweet little rig, and can also double as an HTPC. As others have said, there is a pretty large markup on their models, but if the service is something you could use and you are a busy person (read: working adult), then maybe it's worth the cost.

You figure that just putting a PC together and getting it up and running would take about a day. If you're on $40,000 a year, that's $20 an hour, so 8x$20 or $160 in opportunity cost just to put the thing together. That's not including the time it takes to research and buy the parts, troubleshoot if one of the damn parts is broken (happens a decent amount of the time, even with high end parts), and repair it in the future. It becomes less and less appealing as your base salary increases.

 

[Ethevion]

Thank you, someone who understands me!

Just checked out Dell and the best desktop they have has an i7 39## (forgot the number), 16 GB RAM, GTX 660, and a 2 TB HDD. I'll definitely keep these in mind when buying a new PC. Hopefully they have options to change the graphics card.

 

[Fishaman P]

Tom's Hardware (or maybe it was Maximum PC) recently built a high-end PC with a tiny PSU.
Off the top if my head, it was an overclocked i7 3770K, a GTX 680, an SSD, and an HDD all running off 450W.

EDIT: It was probably an i7 3930. Personally I'd go for Haswell over Ivy Bridge E, but that's just me.

 

[Rydian]

Don't let everyone who is talking shit here put you down.

The X51 is a pretty sweet little rig, and can also double as an HTPC. As others have said, there is a pretty large markup on their models, but if the service is something you could use and you are a busy person (read: working adult), then maybe it's worth the cost.

You figure that just putting a PC together and getting it up and running would take about a day. If you're on $40,000 a year, that's $20 an hour, so 8x$20 or $160 in opportunity cost just to put the thing together. That's not including the time it takes to research and buy the parts, troubleshoot if one of the damn parts is broken (happens a decent amount of the time, even with high end parts), and repair it in the future. It becomes less and less appealing as your base salary increases.

But it's not like Alienware is the only company that does prebuilts and provides a warranty/service...

Hell, I built my PC myself, and sent my my GPU for an RMA when it died, using the same sort of process you'd use for the PC in general. The difference there being I sent back just the GPU and thus still had the computer for use (bow to my Geforce 6200 A-LE, BOW TO IT) while it was away.

 

[Thanatos Telos]

But it's not like Alienware is the only company that does prebuilts and provides a warranty/service...

Hell, I built my PC myself, and sent my my GPU for an RMA when it died, using the same sort of process you'd use for the PC in general. The difference there being I sent back just the GPU and thus still had the computer for use (bow to my Geforce 6200 A-LE, BOW TO IT) while it was away.

Same, but bow to my Radeon HD 4650, BOW TO IT.

 

[Rydian]

The 6200 A-LE is from ~2004, just saying that's what I had around during the wait.

 

[CompassNorth]

That's interesting. I thought it would need at least 650 Watts, but it looks like I was wrong

You only need 650 watts to do dual SLI/Crossfire.

No, but my next PC will be an Alienware. I'm tired of problems popping up on a self built PC, especially since I'm no expert and have a hard time troubleshooting things. Calling the companies for warranties takes forever too. My buddy got one of those mini Alienware PCs and it had a problem with the HDD. After he called them and went through troubleshooting with them, they went to his house the next day to repair it. I wouldn't mind that kind of service.

What sort of problems does your computer run into?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

The Alienware X51 desktop has a bunch of high end parts like a GTX 670 and an i7-4770. What I noticed though, is that it has a 330 Watt power supply. Is that PSU enough for a high end gaming PC?

It's probably just enough for the hardware that's in it, but don't expect to be doing much upgrading without replacing it. Exactly how much room there is for upgrades is hard to say.

 

[Ethevion]

What sort of problems does your computer run into?

My processor is faulty, it crashes in GW2 on stock settings. I get the physical memory dump BSOD randomly every couple of days. Sometimes my PC just freezes. Very rarely it decides to go pretty slow too.

 

[PityOnU]

But it's not like Alienware is the only company that does prebuilts and provides a warranty/service...

True, but Dell does have some pretty damn good terms, especially on the Alienware gear. The University I'm at uses them almost exclusively exactly for that reason.

As you said, though, they aren't the only PC vendor to offer a good warranty. Shop around! (The X51 looks cool, though).

Hell, I built my PC myself, and sent my my GPU for an RMA when it died, using the same sort of process you'd use for the PC in general. The difference there being I sent back just the GPU and thus still had the computer for use (bow to my Geforce 6200 A-LE, BOW TO IT) while it was away.

True, but you had to identify what the problem was first. Whereas in the case of the Alienware you could have just sent the whole damn thing back and they'd figure out what's wrong and fix it.

I'm not saying it's worth it for everyone, but for people who are really busy and have the money to spare, it makes sense. Like buying a brand new car.

 

[Ethevion]

smea from the irc suggested Origin PCs. I checked them out and they save me some money compared to Alienware. They're definitely a contender here.

 

[Kirito-kun]

Alienware? ALIENWARE? no... no... NOOOOOO! Stay away! Far away! Do not even consider buying one! They're really overpriced.