Opinions/options wanted re Dell Alienware

Hoddie_2

Decided to splash out on a new PC and I want one that will handle games and last at least 3-4 years. I have always built my own PC but want to go shop bought this time because I have a pretty good budget and want the safety net of a guarantee. And if truth be told things have moved on quite a bit since I last built one. For that reason I also want a retailer that is established and isn't likely to disappear during the guarantee period.

I have a budget of 1400 quid and am considering the Alienware Aurora ALX (4th from the left, with the free monitor):

http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/home/alienware_showcase_deals/fs.aspx?refid=alienware_showcase_deals&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1

Curious to know what people's opinions are of this desktop, and whether there are other established retailers offering similar or better deals.

Thanks in advance

JasX

Well breaking it down

£75 graphics card x2

£220 processor

6GB RAM (think this has gone up recently £100+ish) ?

£69 copy of windows7

mediocre hard drive (<£40)

no sound card

basic DVD drive (£20 or 0 if re-used)

decent power supply £80-120, (do NOT skimp here with an expensive machine)

MOBO £100+ (good place to save money if you don;t use all the bells and whistles)

Case?

I'm fundamentally not impressed, £1500 is about the budget I built my beast of a machine for a year back and even then I ended up far higher spec.

You could probably self build re-using some basic components from your existing machine a similar spec for about 60% of that cost, if something breaks replace/upgrade it wiith the money you saved. Alternatively an extra £50 would get you a Blu-ray player, £50-£140 for a decent sound card, making sure you get a Samsung F3 1TB for £45 as your main drive will give you a good boost too.

If you are, as you say, confident self building the benefits only get bigger as your budget gets bigger so opting for a shop bought guranteed one just because your spending more is a one way to get very poor value for your money...

If you want to update yourself on current components google benchmarks and I fiind this site a good initial pointer (but go eleswhere to actually buy the stuff)

http://www.pcper.com/hwlb.php

gonzo127

to be honest personally think its expensive. and other than building your own as above here are a few examples

just a quick look over at cyberpower shows the Infinity Phoenix for £1315 having
a better CPU,
More hard drive space,
better GPU - having looked at a few reviews the 5670 in crossfire performs slightly worse than a single 5850 and the GTX 470 is equivelent of the 5870
bigger monitor (although might not be better hard to tell without looking at them next to each other) - BenQ G2420HDBL 24" 5MS 1920x1080 FULL HD LED
blue Ray player

Quick look on Novatech who give the iForge which is a simular system to cyberpower (although less hard drive) but without a monitor which gives you roughly £200 to buy a monitor you want

DinoPC gives the Rex i7 Roar for £1000 once again simular specs but no montior and the 5850 but you can customise to get the extra's

anyways you get the idea

spakkker

Seems the cpu has all but been superceded by i7 930. So much for being futureproof.

notisis

It's also not clear whether it's definitely water cooled. Info on the aurora alx machines indicates it is (liquid cooling) but it doesn't actually say so in the spec that I can see. Water cooling kit £200. Decent 1000rpm 300Gb SATA drive is £140 up, matched 6Gb RAM min of £120. IF and I say IF you are getting decent mainboard, case suitable for modding with full cooling and other components then possibly this is worth £1300 but you would really need to check the specs first.

JasX

notisis wrote: »

Water cooling kit £200.

Don't quite follow the logic of getting lower spec components and spending near 15% of the budget on unesscessary water cooling...

notisis wrote: »

Decent 1000rpm 300Gb SATA drive is £140 up,

Samsung F3 1TB is amongst the best on the market for non-SSD and very reasonably priced (£45ish)... would you be talking about one of these overpriced raptors they've out performed by over 30% simply sensibly partitioning a mid range barracuda costing less than half the price tag? (and with 5x the storage space)

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=658

supermonkey

might be worth contacting a business that custom makes them? I have a few I trust that I could recommend