Dell/Alienware Area 51

[rockyjohn]

It is only cheaper if you assign little value to your own time. If you place any reasonable value on all the hours spent learning about components, configuring the PC, ordering and inspecting parts, assemblying the PC, installing the OS, and testing the system, then it is not cheaper. And I can't beleive you say it is easier. How in the world do you figure that?

 

[aford10]

It depends on if you know what you're doing, and are familiar with the good deals.

It may not necessarily have value in dollars, but the value would be in the better price/performance build.

It's obviously not easier than buying one though. It's pretty easy to pull out a card and hand it to a cashier. Though, it's just as painful.

 

[ogreinside]

And if I had the cash, I would definitely do it myself. As I stated, I'm using a Dell Financial credit account, also used a 17% EPP coupon (it is nice to know people, employees can give them out to family/friends, as I am not an employee), using 12-month no-interest, and because of the issues I had with before, they actually gave me $150 credit - not a lot, but still shows they wanted to keep me as a customer. I will happily upgrade my own parts, add an Intel SSD soon (working on wife for that one, wish me luck).

If you go to spec out the same system I got now at alienware.com, it is right at $2500 without any discounts, with the standard warranty, and before tax/shipping. I just went to NewEgg and pieced together as similar a system as I could. The only difference is the case I chose comes with a 750W PSU, whereas my Alienware has a 1100W. Here is my public wishlist, though I believe you have to login to see it: https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/MySavedWishDetail.aspx?ID=8641189

Current price is just under $2300, and that's with some instant rebates, but before tax/shipping. So that's roughly $200 difference for having a reputable company build, test and support the system. I added 2 year warranty to mine, so that's another $229. After my 17% discount, and considering the difference in PSU, I'd say there isn't much of a price difference. I certainly don't see how it is "much cheaper and easier".

 

[ogreinside]

By the way, I absolutely love the system. I pulled out the 5970 so I could hug it (I used an ESD strap, I promise!). Here it is next to my iPhone:
http://img707.yfrog.com/i/ati5970andiphone.png/

I'm running at 3840x1200 with 24" and 27" monitors using an ATI Eyefinity group. I wish I had similar monitors, or even a 3rd one, but this is still amazing. Street Fighter, Burnout, RE5 - all play at 60 FPS with every effect turned up. Ok, enough typing, time to enjoy my system!

 

[dragon5677]

hey what is cpu binning

 

[mfurey]

Just my 3 cents...I have always built my pcs and upgraded them along the way and was pricing everything to do it again after a motherboard died. I was scheming building a higher end system with the ASUS Rampage III, 12gb corsair RAM, Corsair 1000w PSU, 2X5870 Crossfire (1 now, 1 later), i7-930 maybe the 6-core 980x, 80gb ssd, Corsair Obsidian 800d case, etc. -- the usual suspects.
I found a refurbished Alienware Area-51 ALX on eBay but a lesser video card and no SSD. I asked if he could swap out the video card for a 5870 and I paid the difference. It came with full Dell warranty and I bougth it thru Bing and got 8% off. I went to MicroCenter and bought an OCZ Vertex 2 100gb SSD for a little over $400, bringing my cost up to only $2100. My personal build would have been quite a bit more and I wouldn't have done anything more than a Corsair H50 cpu coller in terms of liquid cooling.
This pc is a work of art, inside and out. Sure it has the lights on the sides and front and top that can easily be changed to any color individually using the AlienFX sw, and the motorized fins on the top. It is ridiculously huge and heavy but I'm not moving it. Both side panels are hinged at the front and open with a pull on the back fin. The internal design is what I'm impressed with: when you open a side, internal work lights come on (powered by their own batteries). On one side there are 6 hd bays and I simply slide some of my SATA hds into the slots and closed the door. Genius design, similar to looking in a Mac G5 the first time.
On the motherboard side, they've done a great clean job of hiding cables, there's more bays for other hds and opticals (I put my SSD in one), a separation between the PSU and the mb, plenty of room and power for another 5870, and a openable cable sleeve to peel out sata and power connectors. It is really been designed by people that have been there in countless frustrating cramped builds. Came with the XiFi Titanium sound card and 6gb RAM (I'[ll add 6gb more).
Win7 was installed on a 640gb partioned sata drive and everything worked after I coneected it my two monitors. I reinstalled the os onto the ssd, did updates, installed the AW sw and was back to life in about an hour. I didn't use it long enough with booting from the hd vs the ssd, but it is fantastic as it is now, booting off the SSD, I put the games and programs I care most about on the SSD, all my downloads and temp files (like for Win and photoshop, browsers, etc.) are located on two 400gb WD drives in RAID1. I will probably add the 6gb RAM, then another 5870 and maybe another OCZ SSD (RAID0) in that order over time, but for now I am ecstatic with what I've ended up with for the $$.
Just wanted to say that I NEVER thought I'd be happy with a system put together by someone else, but if you look around you can sometimes find some sweet deals that bring you close to where you dreamt of going. This system rocks!

 

[JustAim]

I just bought a refurbished Area 51 from the dell outlet for 1557 with tax

Core i7 920
6gb ddr3 1333
2 x hd5870 in Xfire
2 x 640 gb in "RAID 0"
plus warranty and "support" for a year.

You can definately get god deal on a prebuilt that is cheaper than a DYI if you look about

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey