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About Alienware Area-51

If by "worth it" is it in the sweet spot for price and perfomance, no.

For a gaming system, around a $1,000 parts system you build yourself is the best value. You can get a good CPU and Video Card without going crazy to try to get the most frames you possibly can. For $1,000 you can even get a good size solid state hard drive along with 8 or 16 gig of RAM.

I would say 80% of the possible performance you could want is in that $1,000, then going up from there you are paying more for less and less gains.

Can a $2,000 system run a game smoother at top settings than a $1,000, of course. Will you be able to tell $1,000 of a difference between them if you have to drop the settings to High from Ultra? Probably not.
 


He's right. You could build a much better system yourself for far less money. No one really needs SLI Titan Zs unless you're doing some seriously heavy rendering.
 
I have owned Dell systems in the past, they treat you very well with their support. And their systems are very well thought out.
But I began to build my own for a while. Loved doing it. 3 systems later, I am back to ordering the latest Area51_R2. I just got tired of dealing with all the separate parts and the time consuming research. I'm older now,45 and have allot less energy to devote to a super organized build of that magnitude. Plus, I can afford to pay someone else to design and put one together for me.

It's a boutique computer. And you're buying more than just the computer. You're buying ease of use and peace of mind.

Now if you're young and don't have the money to burn, and you enjoy, and have the time to do your own assembly and troubleshooting, then the best bet is to build your own. There is nothing like getting the parts after weeks of review digging and then searching for all the best prices and then getting it all together and spending 12-40 hours painting, customizing and putting it all together. IT IS A RUSH! You plug it in and power it up and run a few games and there is nothing like it. It's like when I was young and spent money on the best model airplane I could get, and spent weeks putting it together. Same rush. But for me today, I'd rather spend that 3 weeks of planning and shopping and assembly with my granddaughter.
 
Honestly if you have the knowledge you should build a PC instead. It leaves you feeling more accomplished and you save more money in the end, Gaming computer companies overcharge for a computer and take advantage of consumers who cannot build their own system. In the end if you can get into building your system you will be able to feel like you can show off your work as well as build a better system for less.
I still feel like you could buy all the parts and have someone build it for you and you'd still be paying less than what a company like Alienware or Cyberpower would charge.