Dell or Alienware?

Gonzo

Im thinking about getting a new computer this summer/early autumn, Im on my 3rd Dell PC right now and am inclined to go with them again but I hear Alienware are also quite good but I dont know anyone with an Alienware and wondering would Dell be the safest choice. Im looking at 2 systems one from each company and they come out similar prices but the systems do seem quite different and im wondering which are best, neither systems have a monitor or speakers:

Dell: (1 year onsite NBD response)
Intell Pentium 4, 3.4ghz with 2mb cache
dell motherboard
2048mb PC4200 Dual Channel DDR2 533mhz
320GB serial ATA RAID 0 Stripe
3.5" floppy
256MB ATI Radeon X850XT Platinum
16x max. DVD +/- RW with dual layer write capability
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 Soundcard
Enhanced USB Multimedia Keyboard
Dell USB Optical Mouse
Total € 2411 incl VAT and shipping

Alienware: (AlienCare 1-Year Free Phone 24/7 and Collect & Return)
AMD Athlon™ 64 4000+ Processor with HyperTransport Technology
Alienware® nForce™4 SLI™ Chipset Motherboard PCI Express
1GB Alienware® Dual Channel Low-Latency DDR PC-3200 at 400MHz - 2 x 512MB
PC Power & Cooling 510 Express
ATI RADEON™ X850 XT Platinum Edition PCX 256MB DDR3 w/ Dual Digital and TV Out
160GB Seagate Barracuda Serial ATA 7200rpm w/ 8MB Cache
NEC® ND-3520 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Recorder
Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy 2 ZS - 7.1
Integrated 3Com® 100Mb Ethernet Adapter
1.44 MB Floppy Drive - Black
Logitech Internet Keyboard UK
Microsoft® IntelliMouse Explorer USB 4.0
Total: €2,360.71 incl VAT excl Delivery

should I wait till late autumn/early winter?, will there be faster processors just around the corner or a new ati graphics card better than the ati radeon x850.
Thanks

garthv

With the introduction of dual core processors there really is no point in buying single core machines right now. By the time the summer comes along i can see a big price drop in single core processors as soon as double core proccessors drop in price and are more readily available. Im goin to be building a new machine myself but Im waiting for the price drop

Chalk

not a fan of either..

check jes.de
http://www.jes-computer.de/product_info.php?pID=20197&MWbusiness=a2cf5461d38b1b44106c1203d5e9dc60

for half the price 1199eu inc vat you can get
Prozessor: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (Socket 939, "San Diego", SSE3, Strained Silicon)
• Speicher: 1GB (2x 512 MB) DDR 400 Dual Channel A-Marke
• Grafikkarte: Leadtek WinFast A400 GeForce 6800 GT mit 256 MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Karte (mit TV-Out und DVI-Out)
• Mainboard: ASUS A8N SLI mit NFORCE 4 Chipsatz (Steckplätze 3x PCIe. 2x PCIe x1, 1x PCIe x16)
• Schnittstellen: 6x USB 2.0, 1x GIGABIT-LAN RJ 45, 2x IEEE1394 Firewire
• Festplatte: 250 GB S-ATA mit 7.200 U./Min.
• Laufwerk: Multi DVD +- R/RW Brenner(16x) mit Double Layer Technologie von NEC
• Cardreader: 8 in1 Flashkarten Adapter
• Sound: AC97 6 Kanal 7.1 on board
• Garantie: 24 Monate Garantie incl. Vor-Ort Service durch den Hersteller


thatd leave you 1200 change for a screen and some more ram

Einstein

Or if you had an idea you could buy all thos parts online and build the PC yourself for half the price. It's really really easy, just depends if your that bothered, just an idea!

Otherwise I might go for the Alienware, they're pretty savage pc's

dave

Chalk

Divers wrote:

Otherwise I might go for the Alienware, they're pretty savage pc's

even though the price is the same as the dell for lower spec?
and twice that of the jes for lower spec?

repeat over and over,
its just a fancy case
its just a fancy case

egan007

Tell you what - ill build you a pc for 2200!

wideband

I went for the alien myself and have no complains.....heres some screen shots you should have a look at though!

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/DevelopWithAMD/0,,30_2252_869_875%5e10543,00.html?redir=IEGFC01

may the force be with you

Einstein

Chalk wrote:

repeat over and over,
its just a fancy case
its just a fancy case

So I'm easily amused

Chalk

wideband wrote:

I went for the alien myself and have no complains.....heres some screen shots you should have a look at though!

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/DevelopWithAMD/0,,30_2252_869_875%5e10543,00.html?redir=IEGFC01

may the force be with you

they seem to be screenshots of far cry.
surely that will run on any a64 pc.

not just an alienware??????

WizZard

For that money you could build a much better system yourself! Or get someone on boards to do it for you. I've done that before for other boardsies.

WizZard

Chalk wrote:

they seem to be screenshots of far cry.
surely that will run on any a64 pc.

not just an alienware??????

Yes, on all 64bit systems. It has been confirmed to run on EMT64 and AMD64.

The Dell doesn't look to have EMT64 though, from the specs given

Chalk

i was just suggesting that it shouldnt be used as a plus for alienware alone

The Clown Man

Here's a PC I just put together on Komplett.ie:


Komplett AMD Athlon 64 PCI Express


Stock status: 1 stocked
Thermaltake Purepower Butterfly 480W
TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 2048MB Dual Pack
Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS, Bulk
Logitech MX1000 Laser Cordless Mouse
Norman IC, 1 year license Virus Control
PC box
SoftThinks Installation/Recovery
Gainward GeForce 6800Ultra 256MB GDDR3
Thermaltake Shark Silver
Sony Floppy Drive, 3,5" 1,44MB Silver
MSI K8N SLI Platinum, nForce4 SLI, ATX
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4GHz Socket 939,
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB SATA
Logitech Cordless Desktop EX100,
Microsoft Windows XP Home SP2
NEC DVD recorder ND-3520A IDE Silver
Creative Inspire T-7900 Retail

Total: €2266.77

Would leave room for you to put in another GF 6800 Ultra to make use of the SLI and double your graphics performance.

MrFitt

Hi,

I would have a very biased opinion as I work in Dell, but check out this review of our new XPS Gen 2 Notebook gaming system.

http://www.trustedreviews.co.uk/article.aspx?art=1374

I would also hold off myself until after the launch of the dualcore systems, (early June sometime) so I could avail of falling prices for singe core cpu systems.

Thats all my cents worth ...


Cya

Khannie

If I won the lotto and cba building my own system, I'd go alienware tbh.

WizZard

Khannie wrote:

If I won the lotto

Theyr'e the most important words!

@ The Clown Man

The PSU for that system you built on komplett is nowhere near good enough to run even 1 6800 Ultra plus all the other stuff, never mind SLi

The Clown Man

MSI recommends for full performance with SLI and power supply for Ultra's that you have at least 450w.

That PSU is the highest one that Komplett ship with the pre-built PC's.

However, I got a 550w myself but I built it myself. And I only have 2x 6600GT's .

I do agree though. More power is a good thing.

WizZard

It's not only a power issue.

There are two PCI-E connectors per Ultra Card. Since the PSU is not SLi compatible you would need to use a 4 molex - 1 PCI-E convertor. Leaving 5 molexes remaining for use. But you are advised to run the PCI-E convertor on a separate channel to the fans/drives etc. and since this PSU is not dual railed (IIRC) you shouldn't run the other devices off the other molexes.
Never mind adding another Ultra and being left with just one molex left over with only the 2 graphics cards connected!

Nukem

Ah Wizz ya beat me too it.

Also noticed in the Alienware package they have a SLi with a x850? Dunno bout that. Build one yourself. Better,more fun & something to fiddle with
Nukem

Gonzo

thanks for all the replys guys, judging from them I think its best I hold off for a couple of months and see how does the market pan out and see what these dual core processors will be like/priced, I will look into getting a system built around then rather than just taking the simple dell route and see which options work out best.

stevenmu

Dells prices seem to have gone up a good bit in the last month or so. Our sales rep confirmed that they drop their prices a good bit coming up to the end of their financial quarters/years. Subscribe to their price alert emails at www.dell.ie/biz and you'll be able to see when the prices drop again.

impr0v

Sorry if i'm hijacking the thread, but the OP seems to have made his decision to wait at this stage.

However, i need to order a high spec machine today, or at the latest tomorrow, for delivery to a client on a medium term rental. The machine has to be able to deal with heavy duty autoCAD work, specifically large vector maps with tiles of raster imaging super-imposed on them, and deal with a number of these maps as fast as possible.

After the rental period i'll be using the machine to replace my two year old p4, and it will be used for general multi-media stuff, Photoshop, lots of Flash, Dreamweaver, nothing heavy-duty, but a lot of them at once.

They've asked for a minimm of 2gb of ram and a 128mb gfx card, though i'd intend to go to a 256mb card anyway.

I'm currently looking at alienware, as i consider dell over-priced for the highend stuff and won't be building one myself, as i haven't built a machine prior to this and wouldn't be able to guarantee finishing it in time to supply it to the client.

One of their workstation options, the P4 EE mentions dual-core technology, but some of the posters above say that this isn't due in the marketplace until June. I thought there has been an extreme edition P4 available for ages, and all it really means is that it has a larger L2 cache, is this correct?

If the dual-core chips are coming out soon there is little point in buying single, so my next best bet is presumably one of the dual xeon or opteron configurations, given what I've specified above, which do you think is the best suited to my situation?

edmund_f

my 2 cents..

The best way to approach is find out the name of the software they are using and find out what system the software manufacturer suggest, espically the video card. CAD cards (Pro E Solidworks etc) are different from the standard game cards,

there seems to be a reasonably good discussion on there by people who know more than i

http://www.pcguide.com/vb/printthread.php?t=37283

edmund_f

Dell = low price rubbish support
Alien = high price excellent support

so with dell you will get whatever they can manage to sell you, but you will get more for your euro irrespective if you need it or not
alien, you will get what you need, but will pay.. just my experience. If you know about computers and are lazy you will go to Dell, otherwise you will probably build your own?.

chippo

The Dual Xeons and Opterons are available at the moment but I think what alot of people are saying is that as dual core become more standardised in systems the price of single core systems will drop quiet alot. So it is a good idea if possible for anybody buying a pc, if you dont *need* (bloody nice to have though ) a dual core then wait for the price on the single core processors to drop!

benkenobi

hi all im in a similar boat to the original poster of this thread dell or alienware and reading thru this thread and i was thinking do any of the other posters here build their own more importantly could they build one for me??????......
if u think u might u can help mail me cheers all

Ciaran500

The majority of people on here giving advice have built there own PC.

benkenobi

thats true Ciaran500 i was also wondering do any of them build them for 3rd parties as "nixers" ??????????

Ciaran500

I've heard a few people offering. You will be much more likely to get responses if you start another thread.

BloodBath

I went for the alien myself and have no complains.....heres some screen shots you should have a look at though!

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors...l?redir=IEGFC01

may the force be with you

Another noob dragged in by MARKETING. If you think the graphics have anything to do with the chip being 64-bit then your very gullable. AMD hands them a wad of cash. Crytek change a few textures and tweak the engine a bit then announce hey look what a64's can do. Stop buying into this crap.

As for the op, your making the right decission to wait a bit. The next gen of g-cards and processors are just around the corner. Even if you aren't interested in them they will drive the price of current hardware down.


BloodBath

Khannie

benkenobi wrote:

thats true Ciaran500 i was also wondering do any of them build them for 3rd parties as "nixers" ??????????

Yeah, I'd suggest starting a new thread for that. Plenty of skilled PC builders here more than willing to piece together the lego for a bit of cash

garthv

Hmm , couldnt seem to see another thread on anyone willing to build machines for others but if anybody wants somebody to build their machine for them/teach them how to do it just drop me a pm and i'd be more than glad to help.

Mac daddy

benkenobi wrote:

thats true Ciaran500 i was also wondering do any of them build them for 3rd parties as "nixers" ??????????

I do it every now and again, It is realy not that hard to do at all and it is more fun doing it yourself and at least you get exactly what you want because your the one building it.

revo

i got the aw 51m 7700 it wa sjust over 4000 and it kicks ass.

padraigf

I've built 4 PCs in the 9 months, all with excellent performance for the price, reasonably quiet and excellent reliability. Going to be building 2 more in the near future. I'd gladly help out any of you who'd like to learn to build their own/ have one built for them. Drop me a pm if you're interested.

PC 1 : (10 months ago)
Athlon XP 3000+, Gig of RAM, 9800pro flashed to XT, Fortron 350w Power supply, 2x80GB Raid 0 Array

PC 2: (7 months ago)
A64 2800+, Gig of RAM, 6800, Hiper Silent Power Supply, 200GB drive, 17" TFT

PC 3: (5 months ago, and my own )
A64 3000+ overclocked to 3800+, Gig of RAM, 6800GT overclocked to Ultra, Antec Sonata silent case with silent 380w power supply, 2x160GB Raid 0, 17" TFT

PC 4: (3 months ago)
A64 3500+, Gig of RAM, X800XT, Fortron 400w, 200GB drive


As you can see I'm used to building out very nice high end PCs. I also love the challenge of getting decent performance out of a relatively small budget. So if you're interested in something affordable, or a screaming beast of a gaming pc fire off a pm to me

joePC

Have a look at the following spec:

2x DVDR IDE LG GSA-4163B Dual =118.00 EUR

256MB Sapphire X850 XT Platinum PCIe = 472.00 EUR

2x HDD SATA 73.4GB Western Digital WD740GD (10000Rpm + RAID 0) = 317.98 EUR

MB ATX S939 ASUS A8V-E Deluxe = 106.99 EUR

2x DDR PC400 1GB Corsair KIT = 175.98 EUR

HDD SATA 300GB Seagate ST3300831AS NCQ = 162.99 EUR

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ S.Diego SSE3 Box (1mb L2) = 489.90 EUR

Fortron/Source Powersupply ATX 400W rev2 120mm, SATA Special Edition

CASE

The Spec would Beat both systems you listed all for a total price including Delivery €2145

AMD SD 4000+
2 Gig Ram
148GB (10K Rpm + Raid 0)
300Gb Hdd
ATI X850 XT Platinum PCIe
2 DVD-RW's

What more do you want, Trust me its a better setup, PM me if you want any more info.

Thanks, JoePC

padraigf

Impr0v, there have indeed been EE pentium 4s available for quite a long time.
It is the newest EE 840 (I think) that has dual cores however. All previous ones have just been a single (incredibly overpriced) core.

Horsefumbler

my sig...