Thinking of buying an Alienware Computer

[Strix]

Ok, is this system worth $2,000? Anyone have any experience with Alienware?

Area-51® 750i

Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q9650 3.0GHz 12MB Cache 1333MHz FSB

Alienware P2 Chassis Upgrades: Alienware® Approved Liquid Cooling

Power Supply: Alienware® 750 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply

Graphics Processor: Single 1,792 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 295

Memory: 4GB« Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 x 2048MB

Motherboard: Alienware® Approved NVIDIA® nForce 750i SLI Motherboard

Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium (64-bit Edition) with Service Pack 1 plus Free Windows 7 Upgrade Option

System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 500GB SATA 3Gb/s 7,200RPM 16MB Cache

Optical Drives : Single Drive Configuration - 20X Dual-Layer Burner (DVD±RW)

Enthusiast Essentials: Single High Performance Gigabit Ethernet Ports

Sound Card: High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio

Additional Monitors: 20" Dell UltraSharp™ 2009W - 1680 x 1050 (5ms) Widescreen Flat Panel

Also comes with Windows Office 2007

Thanks for any feedback

[Barrister]

I predict many people will tell you it's overpriced because you don't really need SLI, or a core 2 quad.  I then predict people telling you to "build it yourself".

I'm not sure if it's worth it.  I would personally never buy an Alienware because their cases are designed to appeal to 15 year old boys.  You do know it's owned by Dell right (some people seem to have a problem with Dell).

The one thing I would do is if you're spending that kind of money I would get a much bigger screen.  Like 24", 30" if you can swing it.  I think that'll give more "bang for the buck" than anything else.

[Grey Fox]

No, you are paying more for a case. If you really dont want to build it yourself, go to a local store.

[Iormlund]

The only two reasons for buying a brand computer are:

• It's a laptop.
• You are a business, and need the 24h warranty.

Anyone else is better off by picking a list of components obtained from the resident nerd and either building it or (if you were the kind of guy unable to program a VHS recorder back in the day) having the aforementioned nerd or the store guy do it.

[Barrister]

[Iormlund]

Right, I forgot to add that the only reason for buying a system with Fully Buffered RAM is to cram tons of it in a workstation and do things like 3d rendering 24/7.
Well that, or because you like paying more for an Apple logo.

[Caliga]

Beeb, it was an easy prediction because it's an obvious thing to tell him.

[Ed Anger]

Languish is utterly predictable.

[Seen]

Why would anyone pay that amount of money for not getting the latest generation cpu/mobo/mem?

Although this sounds cool: "Alienware® Approved Liquid Cooling". Does it come in orange?

edit: O, build it yourself

[Neil]

I would personally never buy an Alienware because their cases are designed to appeal to 15 year old boys. 

And this is key.  Too much lit-up nonsense.

[Barrister]

I would go for a Dell XPS desktop instead.  Same company, same components, much more understated case.

[DisturbedPervert]

The one thing I would do is if you're spending that kind of money I would get a much bigger screen.  Like 24", 30" if you can swing it.  I think that'll give more "bang for the buck" than anything else.

Yes, this hardware is wasted because there aren't any games yet that can utilize it.  You might as well get a larger monitor and play at max fps in 1920 x 1200 or 2560x1600 instead of max fps in 1680 x 1050.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Yes. Dell bought Alienware a few years ago.  Really all it is is a brandname, and you pay dearly for the logo and the fucked up case. 

If you don't want to build it yourself you could order a regular Dell.  Spend the extra money on video card and monitor.  And pizza. You could order a lot of pizza on the wasted cash for Alienware.

[Scipio]

Not enough RAM.

[Faeelin]

Eh, I got a computer with 3x as much Ram and a TB hard drive, w/ a 3.2 GHZ processor for a hundred more.