Alienware is a terrible company to buy from, and I would attempt to talk any person out of it.
The term "customer support" is an oxymoron when Alienware is involved: they don't support their customers. Once they have your money, they couldn't give fuck all about what happens to you or your system. Their reps are all terrible to deal with. I know that seems an odd statement because it typically varies from call to call, but in all my time under their 'support' I never once spoke to a decent person. And there are countless horror stories out there to confirm it--if you bother to research it which sadly I did not.
Honestly, purchasing a laptop from them is singularly the worst thing I have ever bought. I don't even have to think--it is right there on the front of my mind. The honeymoon was oh-so-sweet when it finally arrived in that big black box. But it was short lived as it began to break down in nearly every conceivable way over just the first year.
Just one experience that best exemplifies how things went: my laptop's GPU began overheating roughly less than one week short of the warranty expiration. Literally a few more days and I would have been completely out of luck. It took much of that time to get it diagnosed/troubleshooted and confirm with them that it was certainly a hardware issue, and I ended up having to argue once the warranty did expire that because it was a preexisting issue that they should still cover it. Finally they conceded this and agreed to replace it.
Their RMA process was to take our credit card information, then have me send in the defective card, then they would send the replacement. Instead, we ended up getting billed for it...twice. A brand new GPU from Alienware at that point was about $400. We came this close to a mortgage check bouncing, as well as missing other payments because of this, and accruing shitloads of overdraft fees. We had to fight with Alienware 'support' to get them to renege the charges. Probably hours were spent in total from being on hold. It was absolutely nerve racking to say the least.
Or the fact that when I bought the laptop, they stuck me with an already obsolete motherboard version that didn't support video card upgrades. I paid $2500 for that laptop (in 2005) and it didn't support any upgrade to the most essential component of a gaming system. Apparently, they only realized somewhere later on that "oh, there might be a difference in power requirements" and to do so required a brand new power supply _and_ motherboard. At the customer's own expense--of course. They completely shifted the burden onto everybody else.
I could go on and on about things like the scorch marks on the case from where my hand rests when using it. Or the time I the hinge up and broke, and a replacement that would have cost $70 was given to me free by a kind internet stranger completely unaffiliated with Alienware. Or the fact that the battery stopped holding a charge within that first year. Or the fact that apparently super expensive "boutique" computers don't seem to qualify us for any better driver/software support than some ASUS laptop from Walmart (they never bothered to produce anything once Vista came out).
Just heed my warning: do whatever you want, but if you buy from Alienware it may end up being literally the worst decision you've ever made in purchasing a computer.