Anyone ever actually see an Alienware IRL?

Having just finished buying what I consider an enthusiast build off of Newegg (680i.Q6600.8800GTX.etc.), and having my cart only come to about $1800-$1900, I thought it would be fun to check out Alienware.

I went to their site and headed over their ALX section, AKA the most overpriced shit I've ever seen. Seriously, just go look. The stock systems, pre-customization, are like 5gs, or at least the one I looked at was.

So I was wondering...who in their right mind would buy any of their shit, besides extremely rich people with spoiled children?

The question, finally, is, has anyone here ever actually seen an Alienware system IRL, and if so, what's the story behind it? Were you dumb enough to buy one? Was your friend? What's the 411?

Friend of mine has one. Their family isn't really...technologically inclined (as a matter of fact, they refuse to believe me when I say that GHz isn't everything when determining what to buy for a laptop for their daughter going to college soon). I never bothered to ask how much it cost, but I'm pretty sure it's a Pentium 4 EE in there back from like 2004 or whenever it came out.

Trombe said:

Friend of mine has one. Their family isn't really...technologically inclined (as a matter of fact, they refuse to believe me when I say that GHz isn't everything when determining what to buy for a laptop for their daughter going to college soon). I never bothered to ask how much it cost, but I'm pretty sure it's a Pentium 4 EE in there back from like 2004 or whenever it came out.

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Do0ders, jo0 need to tell him that jo0 have "MegaHurtz"!

Yes, I spelled like that on purpose...

I have one, I bought it in 2005 and at the time it wasnt any dearer than any other decent named Pc builder. I spent about £2700 for my rig and when I compared it to other manufacturers it was only dearer by about £100 or so, sure I could build alot cheaper but then you have hassles if different parts start to fail. I will admit that their return policy for bust parts is magic, as you will have a new part within a day or so, before shipping back the old part.

I have upgraded mine with a few new stuff and to this day it still pwns

I will also say this, I bought one as I just wanted one, but I will never buy another, I will stick to building them when I have time and money.

I think that AW gets a bad rep because of its the "in" thing to do and that maybe some of their reviews havent gone so well so they then get raped on forums and people generally think bad of them, but let me say that I for one do think their stuff is a tad overpriced but their service to me was leet, it was patchy at the start and we got over that hurdle and now they couldnt be any better. I just think ppl take the piss out of AW cuz other ppl do it and they follow like sheep, cuz going by my experience I cannot really fault them and as I said before, my pc only cost about £100 ( and 100 quid is fuk all in this day and age ) more than most other OEM's, so if you are going to fault AW for high prices, then at the time I bought my rig you would also have to fault every other highend OEM for prices.

And no I aint rich and nor do I have any spoiled kids, I just work for a living and am not a 19 year old schoolkid who thinks that all pc's should be $500 so that they can afford to buy one for school and gamez

P.S

if you think AW is overpriced, then go visit voodoo and Falcon Northwest and see who has the highest prices

Good point on the "P.S." part, but that goes the same.

According to an online money converter, you paid about $4820.39. That's a lot of money for a computer, I don't care what type of system you're building. I'd really hope their customer service and whatnot is top notch, because I'd expect nothing less than such a place. I can understand, however, that compared to other places the price was just a tad over, this only works out because you were looking (I guess?) to pay such a high price. Where as just about anyone would opt for something much cheaper.

I'm not trying to say anyone who buys or has an AW is dumb, but unless you have a gigantic wallet and have no financial issues (rent, car, school, etc.) whatsoever, you better have a really good reason for buying one when you can essentially build the same system yourself for nearly half the price.

BTW......pics for proof?

EDIT: So I just went back to AW and went on their "High-End" C2D selection and built a relatively similar system to my own new rig. On Newegg my order amounts to, like I said, about $1800-$1900. On AW my rig would run to $3000+. Right. Keep in mind, that's with possibly generic parts, such as heatsink, PSU, motherboard, etc. Whereas with Newegg (and doing some research to find hardware that fits my needs) I'm getting high quality hardware all around.

I think that sort of proves my point. One especially interesting tidbit is that for my CPU selection, the jump from an E4400 to a Q6600 is $650 dollars. LOL? I'm pretty sure a Q6600 doesn't even cost that much to begin with, so how can the difference between the two parts even be that high? Oh, good thing though, they offer FINANCING! Only $20 a month until I finally pay my bill off in 32.5 months. :/

My friend when going to college decided instead of getting a gaming rig and a laptop for class he got a "mobile desktop replacement" but it probably weighs as much as any desktop...

That being said, alienware is a business like any other, and their target definitely isn't the average reader of this forum. I'd wager most people buying alienwares are happy with what they got.

malfeee said:

BTW......pics for proof?

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just head on over to www.alienwareniche.com and you will find many people who know I own a AW rig as do most of them

As I said, I bought it back then and have ripped it to bits many times to tweak it and upgrade it, but I will not buy another, saying that I will not buy another pre-built pc unless I really really need one right their and then like I did with my AW, as my previous pc to my AW was killed by faulty wall socket and I just decided that I would start afresh with the best at that moment in time, basically I have been there, done that and wont be doing it again

Also I dont think AW use any generic parts, they are all brand names, or they were, I cant say for sure now but their is no generic shit in my rig or anyone else AW that I know of.

malfeee said:

Having just finished buying what I consider an enthusiast build off of Newegg (680i.Q6600.8800GTX.etc.), and having my cart only come to about $1800-$1900, I thought it would be fun to check out Alienware.

I went to their site and headed over their ALX section, AKA the most overpriced shit I've ever seen. Seriously, just go look. The stock systems, pre-customization, are like 5gs, or at least the one I looked at was.

So I was wondering...who in their right mind would buy any of their shit, besides extremely rich people with spoiled children?

The question, finally, is, has anyone here ever actually seen an Alienware system IRL, and if so, what's the story behind it? Were you dumb enough to buy one? Was your friend? What's the 411?

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ALienware is obviously a rip to anyone with any build experience or time tocare, but at the same time some people just don't have the time, and enough money that this is an acceptable solution. I wish I was one of those people...

hahaha.



I mean my real question is why don't people build their own houses? There's a vast majority of resources online to help you build your own house, and you save 2/3rds of the cost. Depending on where you're at that's a savings of 40-60k, as much as 100k.

I'm just saying. The skills involved in building a house, might look daunting to one of us... but in reality are very simple skills/trades that there are some real boneheads doing everyday who are pros. It just seems that paying someone else to do it for you is worth it for people.

Just an example.

I don't know why AW is so expensive, but touching on the "build it yourself point", for me personally learning to build my own PC was a very rewarding thing. Before building my first rig the only hardware experience I had was installing memory and upgrading graphics cards. I learned how to build my first machine totally online at another tech forum, they key for me was asking alot of questions. It seems a little daunting at first when you find out about thermal paste and having to monitor system temperatures. If your thinking about buying a new computer, strongly consider building yourself, it really isn't that scary.

malfeee said:

Having just finished buying what I consider an enthusiast build off of Newegg (680i.Q6600.8800GTX.etc.), and having my cart only come to about $1800-$1900, I thought it would be fun to check out Alienware.

I went to their site and headed over their ALX section, AKA the most overpriced shit I've ever seen. Seriously, just go look. The stock systems, pre-customization, are like 5gs, or at least the one I looked at was.

So I was wondering...who in their right mind would buy any of their shit, besides extremely rich people with spoiled children?

The question, finally, is, has anyone here ever actually seen an Alienware system IRL, and if so, what's the story behind it? Were you dumb enough to buy one? Was your friend? What's the 411?

Click to expand...

I've seen plenty of them. I've never had a friend by them but Best Buy and Comp USA both have sold them out of their stores over the years, and working as a part time service technician at a Comp USSR about a year and a half ago I've seen a few of them coming back in for repairs. I've also seen some of the semi-newer ones come in for upgrades and software installation, stuff like that.

Moderate build quality, better than average component selection, mediocre software configuration and moderate bloatware. Not too bad overall, but not worth the price premium either. Getting parts from Alienware themselves is like pulling teeth at best.

Back in college our "media lab" had a few Alienwares along with some top of the line Power Mac G5's, along with 30" Apple Cinema Displays all around. I never knew how they managed to justify all that overpriced hardware into the budget but they got used for 3D modeling, photoshopping, and video editing. They are very shiny but not a lot faster than the regular Dell Precision workstations in the other labs... I guess the art students needed machines with shinier cases than the engineers

Bleh. Yeah, I've seen 'em. Those horrendous green paintjobs almost make me wanna puke whenever I happen upon one.

I love it when I find someone calling me for support they paid for because I can actually show up and help 'em in person as opposed to long drawn out sessions on the phone with tech support. I don't mind making a few bucks off Alienware that way, I really don't.

By the time I leave, the customer is typically wondering "What did you do? It's never been that fast before, not even when it was brand new just <xxx> ago." I always get a giggle from that so I explain how these things are simply not set up for real performance from the factory. So much for boutique makers... I remember fixing a bunch of Falcon Northwest systems for some upper crust clientele because Falcon simply forgot to set the hard drives for DMA mode and the PIO mode was chokin' the shit outta these $6K boxes.

"The devil is in the details..." is more true than most would ever believe.

I don't think the "I needed a PC REAL FAST" bit is all that plausible. You have custom PC companies such as CyberPower or iBuyPower who build PCs that IMO are nearly accurate in their overall prices.

I also looked at some AWs online and concluded that their cases are...alright. From the front with the pretty lighting they look nice. However, from the side it looks almost cheap, but that's just my opinion. I will say that if your AW had the cables managed by them, it should look nice and neat inside. I'll give them that, they seem to know how to manage their insides.

EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:

if you think AW is overpriced, then go visit voodoo and Falcon Northwest and see who has the highest prices

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at lest with falcon you get some thing for you money then a crapy plastic and steel case
a lot of what you pay for a Mach V is the case paint job and testing + support you get

the Talons realy arnt to badly priced if you have to go with a pre-built there in the range of Dell XPS rigs but much better built and you get Falcons Support

remember Falcon Northwest was the FRIST to do the boutique builders
soo yea and there cases just look much nicer i like simple ones with out all the flashy ness
i do admit that the paint is flashy but it looks nicer then plastic

I personally think they're ugly. Is it me, or are electronics becoming uglier?

My friend got a $3000+ Alienware laptop. It had two high-end video cards with a slow 5400RPM HDD. I told him not to buy it. He didn't listen. He mostly plays WoW on it.

Within less than a year, something wrong happened to it. He got a new gaming desktop.

Malfee so I suppose you don't buy anything at the store right?

You grow all your own food, make your own clothes, furniture etc.

It must be good to be so talented.

The fact of the matter is everything you purchase is 3x more than it would cost to do it yourselves.

Maybe you are mad because you can't afford to spend the money to buy a pre-built machine?

I have built all my computers sans the first one, however the day it no longer is fun I will pay someone to build it for me.

My time is valuable and I can spend 12 hours parting out and building a computer, installing software, configuring it.... or I could go to work make 650 bucks and pay someone 500 to build one.

Umm..why am I suddenly the target of flaming? I never said anyone's dumb or that I'm amazing and intelligent. I just think it's kind of ridiculous to spend so much on a computer when there are several other options available to you that would cost much less. You can't deny that, can you?


I'm a teenager and I work part-time. Don't think I don't earn what I purchase. If you don't feel like researching/purchasing/building a PC on your own, that's cool. I just could never bring myself to choose Alienware as my vendor. They might be a quality seller, but they also expect you to shell out the big bucks.

Me and a couple of my buddies have a little LAN every wednesday and we try get new people in there and play and hangout, but they come down with some computer envy and usally never ocme back... or they comeback wanting a computer.

A guy that was in my A&P class was talking how he had an alienware so I told him to bring it up there. We benchmarked it and checkit out ok looking case, then pulled it open, and it crappy patriot ram ( Crappy in my eyes anyways ) and some cheap little motherboard and a mediocore video card. He came back in about a week and we ordered him a new system. This was maybe 3 years ago. He still games on the one we made him

I owned a first generation Area 51 laptop, ran me $2.8K when I got it over four years ago. The main reason I got it is because it was the only gaming laptop available at the time. It came with a Radion 9000 and an LCD that went to 1600x1200. This machine was far and beyond anything the competition had to offer. Since then everyone has jumped on the high end laptop bandwagon and my old workhorse has been shelved for an xps1710, but it lasted me 3 years and kept going strong to the end.

Back in the yesteryears of being ignorant with computers and prices, I got an Alienware for my mom really, just because she wanted top quality. Luckily we didn't waste $3000 on it. I can't say that it's the worst thing ever, but for the price it was just totally BS. It was something like $1800 for all 1 generation old parts.

Would I ever buy another? Absolutely not. I can't deny that most people who buy an Alienware are people who either are extremely ignorant with computers but want to look cool or rich people who have money to spend and they like the case. Over at another forum I belong to, there are tons of suckers that fall into buying them day after day. One guy has like, 5 of them now having wasted enough money to buy himself a car probably lol.

Xeth said:

Back in college our "media lab" had a few Alienwares along with some top of the line Power Mac G5's, along with 30" Apple Cinema Displays all around. I never knew how they managed to justify all that overpriced hardware into the budget but they got used for 3D modeling, photoshopping, and video editing. They are very shiny but not a lot faster than the regular Dell Precision workstations in the other labs... I guess the art students needed machines with shinier cases than the engineers

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Haha this is so true. I was looking in the Linux Engineering computer lab when i spotted those subtle Antec Dragon cases in plain grey. It was w/o question that they were hiding FX-51's - this is of course back in Fall '03.

Simply put there are better boutique builders than Alienware that will do a better job assembling the unit with better parts in some cases and almost always for less money. These machines will be more asthetically pleasing than Alienwares gimmicky alien-head cases and will certainly be of better design and quality.

In all fairness going with a boutique builder is a good idea if warranty and support are your thing and you do not have the knowledge required to assemble the PC yourself. There are some people who simply aren't good at building PCs, they do not wish to be good at it and they have no interest in developing the skills. I can understand and respect that.

On the other side of the coin, buying a boutique or other OEM built PC almost seems to be for suckers only. The fact is they charge far too much and you could get a much better machine for your money without even having to skimp on parts or quality within the same exact budget. Sometimes you can build a better rig yourself and still put money back into your wallet. To those of us that build our own PCs the concept of buying one pre-made is outrageous and it sounds like a terrible idea.

Building PC's isn't for everyone just like flying helicopters or driving big rigs isn't for everyone either.

I had two of them in the days before I built my own.
I didnt know nuthin'; I really still dont but I can do some things better than I used to.

I had a P4 rig with a Geforce Ti4600.....fast as hell. Giant Chieftec steel case (still use it)
I had a P4 with a Geforce 5700.....nice computer.(giant steel and plactic case, still use it)

It really boils down to what you are enthusiastic about and if you have the time/desire to build your own computers. I think I can do a pretty good job now and maybe even out-do some shops, but I've been tinkering with my current gaming rig for almost a year now amd I'm still not satisfied. You could say the same thing about cars or houses or fishing flies.

Alienware at least has my thanks for directing me to build my own. It was out of frustration in upgrading my first AW that I finally took the plunge.

Back 6 or 7 years ago there weren't many "custom" builders at all, now there are several that I would look at way before AW, but for some people they still supply a need (the need to give up alot of cash I guess) But warranty hassles and self-support can be a PITA, too. I'd still take the advice of you all over most of the CS advice I ever got from AW. [H] was/is a real great resource when you need advice and help with problems.

I had real issues with their customer service, thats what really soured me. They seem to care only about the sale and the 1 or 2 years you are warrantied, then you are just a smuck, until you buy another computer from them. They were never interested in helping upgrade, and in fact discourage it to a point.

Also, you can probably order all your parts and build the machine much faster than Alienware or anyone else can deliver one to you. I just thought I'd point that out.

Dan_D said:

On the other side of the coin, buying a boutique or other OEM built PC almost seems to be for suckers only.

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I am sorry but I have to disagree with that statement, out of all pc's sold worldwide, how many do you think is sold compared to how many is built by their new owners ? the pre-built faaaaaaar outweighs the homemade sector.

millions of people buy pc's ranging from the shittest to the best and because you know how to build a pc you regard them as suckers for buying a pre built rig ? c'mon you surely cant be that stupid ?

As for bulding pc's, well today its basically idiot proof and just one big lego kit and unless you are careless or have faulty parts then you WILL end up with a working rig at the end of it if you take your time and follow the instructions.

Me personally, I have built/repaired pc's into the hundreds, at times I am sick of the sight of them and really cannot be arsed building them when I was off work, when you work with pc's and I am sure this will ring true with many people here that work repairing/building rigs that when it comes to the weekend or whatever you simply dont want to be messing about for hours building a pc, thats how it was for me as it seemed I was forever inside rigs and at that time I admit I did enjoy what I was doing, no thats not true, I very much enjoyed it, but as time goes on you get sick of it and spend less and less time messing with stuff that previously would take up most of your free time if not all of your free time.

As I said, building a pc isnt some sort of secret and that people who can build them have some sort of uber power and are a class above everyone else, because in this day and age it is childs play to build a pc, but not everyone has the time, not everyone wants to sit and learn how to build a rig and not everyone wants to test and test for hours on end when they have a life to be getting on with just to get a pc up and running and most people that I know love their warranties and would rather have 1 warranty so that if something however small and trivial happened to the pc, the warranty covers everything inside that pc, no messing about with different manufacturers/retailers etc just because something broke. People nowadays want simplicity and 1 stop shop where they can buy a rig, take the rig home, hook it up and be on the internet within 5-10 minutes and if anything goes wrong they just want to take it back to the same place that they bought it from regardless of which component is busted.

The reason I bought my AW was at the time I was thinking about getting/building the best rig available that I could afford. At the time I was only just thinking about it, my other 3 or 4 rigs were all developing problems which at the time I didnt know it was due to a faulty wall socket that was slowly but surely killing stuff in all of those rigs and everytime I put the plug in and out it made the problem that little touch worse as wires from inside the socket were coming out of their fixtures. Anyway I was forever buying nw components and replacing the fuked ones, the amount of stuff I went threw was beyond stupid all because I never once thought to check the wall socket as roughly 6 months previous I had a rewiring and to me if their was a problem the breakers should kick in and shutdown that bad part of the circuit which it did not so i thought the electric was ok.

Now my best rig at the time was the main one that kept getting fuked as it was the one that was on and used more than the others and what made my mind up to just go out and buy a new rig, a pre-built one was that for a couple of months previous I was replacing components in 3 or 4 pc's and after my best rig at the time took a shit I totally rebuilt it with a new mobo and a replaced 6800gt and within 2 hours of rebuilding it it died, now I built it downstairs and downstairs everything was fine, voltages, temps everything was perfect, I took it upstairs and within about 30-40 minutes the mobo took a shit and I think as I cannot remember now but I think the 6800gt also got fuked up, anyway I was so pissed off that I decided that I wanted a pc that was the best that was available at that time, so I looked at the best rig makers in the UK and out of the few that I saw I went ahead and bought an Aurora 7500 which at that time the x2 4800 and 7800gtx's were only like 1 week old, so I bought that and the price was about £100 or so dearer than other oem's, big deal, £100 is a night out in a pub nowadays, anyway I wanted a pc that was prebuilt and had a warranty so that I didnt have to fuk about like I had previously with all the different components that were getting fuked up due to dodgy wall socket.

I needed a pc and I needed one pretty quick as once my main pc at the time fuked up hours after it being built again I had nothing to use except an old pentium 100 or 133 which is still in a cupboard somewhere and that shit was pain, I never used the others as basically all the power units were fuked, although working they were all damaged and some wires coming from the psu's just didnt carry power anymore, I only found this out after the electrician came and checked the socket and got shocked and then said that indeed the socket is faulty, I checked the psu's after that and found that everyone of them was faulty but still working to some degree, the bottom of one of my cpu's had a scorch mark on it although it was also still working, I found that out after the event to.

Basically thats the reason I bought my AW, I had had enough rma'in newish parts and buying other parts that I got sick of it and also at that time I was working building and repairing rigs so I had had enough of them to last a lifetime, basically when the wall socket started to fuk up, all or most of the rigs were damaged all in one go to some degree and were slowly getting worse but you couldnt tell they were damaged, I only knew that they were damaged when components started to fail but by that time it was too late as the damage had already been done, so its not like it all happened one after another and I could of taken some steps to prevent it from destroying the guts of 4 rigs.

Also some parts were old and I thought that maybe some of the parts had died due to my overclocking and also for being a touch old and strained too hard by me, I had surge protectors and power breakers on said wall socket and every single one of them failed to cut the power and even the breaker in the breaker box failed to cut out, up until I actually suspected the socket, I didnt even think of the electricity as being the culprit.

Anyway, thats the reason I bought my rig, I had enough bullshit with replacing and re-building and I just wanted a fast good rig with a warranty that would cover me for any eventuallity and I for one am very happy with my purchase. My rig today although upgraded can put newer rigs to shame and I for one also like the old stye predator case that I have, whether its plastic or metal I dont care as everyone who sees it in real life are always impressed by it, a case doesnt have to be metal to be nice.

I have ripped my AW to bits and put in a new mobo, but took it back out for a new rig, I upgraded the video cards from sli 7800gtx's to a 8800gtx, added a ageia ppu and a few other stuff and to this day it is still smoking

I chose AW because their is basically 0 boutique builders in the Uk when I bought my rig, I could of ordered from the states but I would of ended up paying more to get it shipped over if I had bought a rig from FNW or similar.

Just to add, the top rig in my sig is the AW, although it has ben rebuilt many times by me, the other 3 rigs are also built by me, my AW is the only pre-built rig that I own.

Sorry for the long post but thats my story about why I bought my rig.

P.S

The person who speaks about patriot ram, Although not in my AW rig, I have some Patriot ram in another rig and for its price it is a real good deal as it has leet timings and has never caused me any problems and it overclocks decently, well my sticks do, but the main point is, AW give you an option for ram or they did when I bought my rig, Patriot or Corsair was on offer, so the person who had the patriot in their rig, they chose that type of ram, now remember that, they CHOSE, not AW forcing upon them

EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:

I am sorry but I have to disagree with that statement, out of all pc's sold worldwide, how many do you think is sold compared to how many is built by their new owners ? the pre-built faaaaaaar outweighs the homemade sector.

millions of people buy pc's ranging from the shittest to the best and because you know how to build a pc you regard them as suckers for buying a pre built rig ? c'mon you surely cant be that stupid ?

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You didn't read the entire post did you? You clearly took that the wrong way. If you look at the prices charged by Alienware and the other boutique builders vs. what you can build it for yourself, it sure looks like it's for suckers on paper doesn't it? You also seemed to have missed several KEY points in my post that should tell you that I can see both sides of the coin and while looking at dollars alone, the boutique PC's are a rip off (and they absolutely are) I do also say that building PC's isn't for everyone. I definitely see a reason for it and I do know that the quality, and the unit that you will get from a boutique builder is more than likely going to kick the shit out of any Dell or off the shelf PC while being just as good and sometimes better than what most people could build.

Here I have highlighted the things you obviously missed:

Dan_D said:

Simply put there are better boutique builders than Alienware that will do a better job assembling the unit with better parts in some cases and almost always for less money. These machines will be more asthetically pleasing than Alienwares gimmicky alien-head cases and will certainly be of better design and quality.

In all fairness going with a boutique builder is a good idea if warranty and support are your thing and you do not have the knowledge required to assemble the PC yourself. There are some people who simply aren't good at building PCs, they do not wish to be good at it and they have no interest in developing the skills. I can understand and respect that.

On the other side of the coin, buying a boutique or other OEM built PC almost seems to be for suckers only. The fact is they charge far too much and you could get a much better machine for your money without even having to skimp on parts or quality within the same exact budget. Sometimes you can build a better rig yourself and still put money back into your wallet. To those of us that build our own PCs the concept of buying one pre-made is outrageous and it sounds like a terrible idea.

Building PC's isn't for everyone just like flying helicopters or driving big rigs isn't for everyone either.

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I addressed this topic on two fronts, Cost, and buyers/users not being able to build their own and not wanting to learn. So please, actually read the post carefully and all the way through while applying some reading comprehension before breaking out your flame thrower.

Just to add, I now run my rigs off of a couple UPS's and I would advise anyone who doesnt to do so as soon as possible as surge protectors and breakers wont save shit in the event of dodgy electricty, as they didnt for me, I am in the process of upgrading my main UPS to an online/true ups instead of line interactive one, but they cost a couple of grand here and although I am using the line interactive ones just now and never had any problems, I would prefer in the longrun to run my rigs from an online ups instead.

I did read your entire post , if i took it the wrong way then mybad, I know what you mean, but now that I know you didnt mean it the way that I took it then hooah.

i also agree with you when you say that for the cost then sure you are getting ripped off, but it depends on if the person paying for it sees it that way, I know as do yourself that you can build an exact same rig as a boutique makes for basically half the price and it does look like its for suckers, but some people are quite happy doing so, I will admit once my interest free year was up and I had to cough up for my rig that I felt a little sick then, but I knew it was coming and had enough to pay it or I would of ended up paying basically £5000+ which wasnt going to happen.

Also dan, I wasnt flaming you, I was just saying with the way that I took your post that I disagreed with that particular part, but now that you have so kindly pointed out to me that you were mearly making an overall observation about cost etc, It was no way intended as a flame, thats why I said what I did as I couldnt understand you saying for real that all people who buy oem rigs are suckers, that was the only part that I disagreed with but as we know now it was meant the way that I took it.

my friend has a Alienware laptop thats pretty seksy...way over priced but it runs anything thrown at it, has 2 7950's sli'd up and 2gigs of ram. battery dosn't las that long...

not worth the 4kish whatever he paid for it though thats for sure

EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:

Just to add, I now run my rigs off of a couple UPS's and I would advise anyone who doesnt to do so as soon as possible as surge protectors and breakers wont save shit in the event of dodgy electricty, as they didnt for me, I am in the process of upgrading my main UPS to an online/true ups instead of line interactive one, but they cost a couple of grand here and although I am using the line interactive ones just now and never had any problems, I would prefer in the longrun to run my rigs from an online ups instead.

I did read your entire post , if i took it the wrong way then mybad, I know what you mean, but now that I know you didnt mean it the way that I took it then hooah.

i also agree with you when you say that for the cost then sure you are getting ripped off, but it depends on if the person paying for it sees it that way, I know as do yourself that you can build an exact same rig as a boutique makes for basically half the price and it does look like its for suckers, but some people are quite happy doing so, I will admit once my interest free year was up and I had to cough up for my rig that I felt a little sick then, but I knew it was coming and had enough to pay it or I would of ended up paying basically £5000+ which wasnt going to happen.

Also dan, I wasnt flaming you, I was just saying with the way that I took your post that I disagreed with that particular part, but now that you have so kindly pointed out to me that you were mearly making an overall observation about cost etc, It was no way intended as a flame, thats why I said what I did as I couldnt understand you saying for real that all people who buy oem rigs are suckers, that was the only part that I disagreed with but as we know now it was meant the way that I took it.

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No problem.

I know it's a matter of how the buyer feels. I can certainly build an AR-15 or AK-47 cheaper than I can buy them. I chose to buy them and customize them myself because I don't want to screw with building them. I just don't have the desire to go through that experience. So the extra cost is worth it to me. Same as I could build a Cobra replica car, or I could buy one already done as a turn-key setup for 4x the price. Personally, I want instant gratification and buying vs. building is usually more appealing to me. Just not in the realm of computer hardware.

Had one waaay back in 2001 when I had no idea how to build a computer, i had an Alienware desktop (Athlon, GeForce 4? ) for around 2k and it ran all the games i needed it to do. It actually ran damn great and was sleek since it had the old school case, not the monstrous flashy crap they have now. It never gave me a problem in hardware wise and played all the games at great FPS.

Eventually.. the enthusiast bug bit me and I then upgraded to a p4 2.8ghz, and ati 9000 pro. World changed after I replaced most of the parts inside the computer and upgraded since then to a x2 3800+/ 7800 gt build. Now it bit me again to a q6600 build

Overall, it was a good stepping point into the foray of the computer world. But I would never purchase a boutique/retailed computer after they've taken quite a fair dip in terms of value.

Gaiden133 said:

Had one waaay back in 2001 when I had no idea how to build a computer, i had an Alienware desktop (Athlon, GeForce 4? ) for around 2k and it ran all the games i needed it to do. It actually ran damn great and was sleek since it had the old school case, not the monstrous flashy crap they have now. It never gave me a problem in hardware wise and played all the games at great FPS.

Eventually.. the enthusiast bug bit me and I then upgraded to a p4 2.8ghz, and ati 9000 pro. World changed after I replaced most of the parts inside the computer and upgraded since then to a x2 3800+/ 7800 gt build. Now it bit me again to a q6600 build

Overall, it was a good stepping point into the foray of the computer world. But I would never purchase a boutique/retailed computer after they've taken quite a fair dip in terms of value.

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They really have. They used to be quite a bit less expensive than they are now. Alienware has also dropped in terms of quality as far as I am concerned. Now they have bloatware on their machines and they are simply way overpriced compared to their competition.

Have had one friend own one waaay back in the day.
He owned it from probably <6 months then sold it for a small profit and built his own and got so much more. The case back then we thought was cool, but quickly learned it did nothing and found cases that actually helped us with what we needed.

Some of these groups get exclusive rights to things before launch dates. I know alienware had SLI before it was actually out. I know couple with there 6600's in sli or what ever card that is now crappy.. they're stuck with them to. I wouldn't sell a 4k machine.. ever.

Dan_D said:

They really have. They used to be quite a bit less expensive than they are now. Alienware has also dropped in terms of quality as far as I am concerned. Now they have bloatware on their machines and they are simply way overpriced compared to their competition.

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Dan how do you feel about Falcons Talon systems these days?

Reagent said:

Malfee so I suppose you don't buy anything at the store right?

You grow all your own food, make your own clothes, furniture etc.

It must be good to be so talented.

The fact of the matter is everything you purchase is 3x more than it would cost to do it yourselves.

Maybe you are mad because you can't afford to spend the money to buy a pre-built machine?

I have built all my computers sans the first one, however the day it no longer is fun I will pay someone to build it for me.

My time is valuable and I can spend 12 hours parting out and building a computer, installing software, configuring it.... or I could go to work make 650 bucks and pay someone 500 to build one.

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Yeah, except building a PC generally takes half an hour tops minus any problems...

and you could simply keep your 650 dollars, cause you can just build it after work.

Food on the other hand, requires an intense long term amount of labor, for very small return.

Bad example.

Teknikallysekure said:

Yeah, except building a PC generally takes half an hour tops minus any problems...

and you could simply keep your 650 dollars, cause you can just build it after work.

Food on the other hand, requires an intense long term amount of labor, for very small return.

Bad example.

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Not to get an argument, but just "building" consist more than putting the parts into the box.
You must research what you want, verify that is what you think is best for you, then order the parts or maybe actually go to a B&M store and find things.

All that is counted into the time it takes to build a system, so much more than just a half hours works.
Many OEM dealers do some of that works for you, research the parts (they have part details), many do the testing to make sure there are no problems, and they order the parts.
Time is very valuable to many and some order OEM because they do not have the time.

Elios said:

Dan how do you feel about Falcons Talon systems these days?

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Well I haven't looked at any in such a long time I can't really say. Falcon has always built nice PCs in general. I'm sure they still do, but I doubt they are a great value.

I have an Alienware PC which will be 6 years old in November. It has run well and never had a problem. It is one of their old tower cases before they switched to the "alien head" shaped cases. This machine was bought during Alienware's rise in popularity when there were few other boutiques around. I think my machine is evidence they DID build quality computers. I would not buy from them now.

My present PC is a falcon Mach V. It is almost 3 years old. Very well built and running well. I would buy from them again, but their prices have really sky-rocketed. If money is not a factor, then buy from Falcon NW.

Dan_D said:

Well I haven't looked at any in such a long time I can't really say. Falcon has always built nice PCs in general. I'm sure they still do, but I doubt they are a great value.

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Indeed. Even back then, they were a higher premium price compared to Alienware. Now as time goes on, their prices only seem to go higher but their machines are definitely better than AW. Granted, you also pay for the name and their custom cases.

It's weird though, for me and my friends, "Yeah I built my own desktop" holds more wow-factor and respect than saying "Yeah, I have an Alienware". You'd figure it'd be the other way around.