Desktops forum: Guys! Alienware $2,604 or Build My Own PC

please make shure you read all it all chains up together:

I have a lot of experience with Desktops, and seriously man with the price of this alienware, you could get twice as more power, alienware rips you off man seriously you dont know how much, and if you are going to buy the alienware for the design, there are so mahy cool led light cases ou there that look as good.

And if you build your own computer you just have to buy the parts from newegg, thats what i did www.newegg.com, just look for the parts, and if you dont know what to choose and which parts you have to buy, go to the nearest vendor, he will tell you what parts you need to buy, and then ask him if he can build it for ya, and there are plenty of sites that will help you do it. But for god sakes dont buy an alienware, especially at 2600 dollars, its not worth it, remember. you can get a custom made one twice as powerful!

And the vendors will suggest you parts.

Look, heres the proof, i have built my custom desktop with these specs: and the final price was around 800 dollars, no joke.

Processor: Intel Core2 Quad Processor Q9550

Graphic Card Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 1gb ram

Hard Drive: 2 500GB hardrives

Monitor: dell 22 inch monitor HD

Keyboard: Flat key keyboard

Mouse: razer diamondback

RAM: 8gb

So that is already a gaming beast, but you want more, so it will probably cost you 1300 dollars, and keep in mind that the first time you buy it it will be very expensive, but then one year later, your little alienware that was once almighty, will be a piece of SH**t, trust me. but if you cutom make your own you will be able to upgrade it any time, like if the graphic card is no longer powerful enough, just buy a new card, you dont have to buy an alienware again! And that saves A LOT!!

my sources: EXPERIENCE

Wish you the best of luck

feel free to email me if you have any questions, its faster than forums: nicolas.prieur1995@gmail(dot)com replace (dot) by .

dont get my age wrong, i am 14! But i have built dozens upon dozens of computers for families and small companies near me.

Tom Hardware and CNET do that from time to time.

Do not be afraid it is so easy if you take your time.

If you are in games a lot you might want to go Windows if you are willing to learn further there is many way to make diffent OS coexist together from dual boot to virtual altough because you want to do games like crysis you will not be able to make it on a virtual environment.

From what we read from your post you are doing business with your PC why not keep your present PC for business only and concentrate on your next PC for maybe both game and business, altough if you do only business with your old you will end up to save money as no downtime until your ready to transfer all your data to the new PC.

My first built was from online review and comparaison betwen different setpup of PC.

No OS is perfect at everything unless all the required program that you need and comfortable with could run on it, time is money in your case I suppose.

So my best suggestion is to built the new PC during the old one keep earning money and give you the time to see it coming together in your mind prior to start that great project of building your "first rig"

And get a motherboard that is quality at first as if your motherboard suck your PC will have a weak fondation to buid on it and you will end up with a certain disapointment.

And use another processor architecture and another OS.

If you are going for a gaming rig, building one for yourself is the way to go, Alienware is waay overpriced. Besides, you can save a lot of money by cutting back on power you don't need (assuming you don't do processor intensive things like photoshopping large images or running other highly multithreaded processes, the core i7 is overkill). Without the monitor, you can build one that can run Crysis well for around $1000. The only thing with building a computer is that you have to know how to pick the parts- dont just get cheap stuff, read reviews, and post possible builds either on CNet forums or other sites like Tom's Hardware or The Tech Report.
Example:
CPU: Phenom II 955 Black Edition- $200
Motherboard: Gigabyte MA790GP-UD4H- $140
Video Card: Xfx Radeon HD 5850- $260
Case: Cooler Master CM690 - $70
Memory:Corsair XMS2 4GB PC6400 -$80
Power Supply: Ultra LSP750 750 Watt- $70
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB: $100
+ optical drives, monitor and operating system

For gaming, most of the investment should be in the video card. The power of the video card depends on the size and resolution of the monitor you are using, the 5850 is really only useful at resolutions of 1920x1200 and above, for anything less, you can settle for a Radeon 4890 or a GTX 260 (although Crysis is one of the few games to push even high end video cards on low resolutions). If you want to spend more, you can upgrade to a solid state hard drive for your primary drive or create a RAID array for storage.

See The Tech Report (www.techreport.com) or toms hardware (www.tomshardware.com) for system guides and people far more knowledgeable than I about building desktops.

They trash the OS from English to French and full bloatware.

As PC Builder I am sure you could offer him better then Alien Ware w/o make him so affraid to make one.

Alien Ware common

Offer him your solution for same price and your resonable profit but don't make him affraid.

Asus Motherboard are almost worry free and so stable there is other very good motherboard also that you know.

And please he already own a PC and run a business that not it is like he start from scratch to justifly the bloat ware i.e Aol offer for example to get the internet lol.

I have a hard time that you will offer him a Alien Ware when example of built a PC is already available from like Tom Hardware and CNET also.

?????????

My general advice is to buy the computer off-the-shelf then add or swap in what you need.

What are you going to do if you build from scratch and it doesn't work right? You can't take it back.

I have found this model with 12gb Ram, 1 TB hard drive and all the other components you have listed for a total cost of $1,695.00. Nearly 1K cheaper that you quote at AAFES, no tax and free shipping after 100 dollar promo discount. Of course you would need to be, or have been in the service to order from them, or receive it as a gift from someone who is or was in the military. I thought this was a good buy and jumped on it, hopefully it will be worth the price. I know it is several hundred cheaper than listed on SAMs Club with has less memory and hard drive advertised.
Good luck.

Yes, this is the online Army, Air Force Exchange Store (AAFES). The weblink is www.aafes.com.

I realize this thread is old but I thought I would update it. First off as I read it I thought wow this is some serious BS. There is no way you could build a custom computer yourself as powerful and cheaper than Alienware. You couldn't do it back at the time of this post in 2009 and you certainly can't do it now in 2011; we just don't have the buyin gpower they have to purchase the parts. Was interesting how nicolasprieur1995 forgot a few parts in his list like the motherboard and operating system and some other rather important items which I think would add to his price . I think one better make an itemized list of the components in an alienware system then come back and tell me how much you can get the same parts for!