Alienware? What about it?

Question

I'm going to buy an alienware desktop. I plan on spending no more than 2500 (with tax) on the tower only. I will accept the stock keyboard and mouse but get both of those and a moniter elsewhere. What is the best configuration with this amount of money? I'm choosing between the Area-51® X58, Area-51® 750i, and Aurora. I'm leaning towards the Aurora with this configuration:

Processor: AMD® Phenom™ X4 9550 Quad Core 2.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache
Alienware P2 Chassis: Alienware® P2 Chassis with AlienIce™ 3.0 Video Cooling - Saucer Silver
AlienFX®: Alienware® AlienFX® System Lighting - Astral Blue
Alienware P2 Chassis Upgrades: Alienware® Standard System Cooling + Acoustic Dampening
Power Supply: Alienware® 1000 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
Graphics Processor: Dual 512MB GDDR3 ATI® Radeon® HD 4850 with CrossFire™ Technology
Memory: 4GB« Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 x 1024MB
Motherboard: Alienware® Approved AMD® 790FX Motherboard
Includes PCI-Express 2.0, BIOS Overclocking Utility, and Support for AMD Phenom Quad-Core Processors
Operating System (Office software not included): Windows Vista® Home Premium with Service Pack 1 – DirectX 10 Ready!
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 500GB SATA 3Gb/s 7,200RPM 16MB Cache
Optical Drives : Single Drive Configuration - 20X Dual-Layer Burner (DVD±RW)
Enthusiast Essentials: Killer K1 Gaming Network Interface Card
Dedicated Network Processing Unit (NPU) bypasses the Windows network stack to offload gaming network traffic from the CPU, giving you better frame rates and less latency.
Sound Card: High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio - Standard

Anyone with knowledge of Alienwares and/or any of these parts, I need your help to get an idea of how good this configuration is and if I can do better. This configuration is about 2400 but if you can design something better under 2500 I would appreciate it. Here is the website http://www.alienware.com/products/desktop-computers.aspx
I NEED YOUR FEEDBACK!!!

Answer 1

Thank you for revitalizing the world economy with your purchase :)



But if you want gaming performance, don't go with a Phenom, go Intel or Phenom II...



The Alienware Area 51 X58 is a better choice than the Aurora. Take the base configuration at $1649- double the RAM to 6GB, upgrade to the single GTX 295 graphics card and possibly the 1000W power supply (don't think you really need that, but it won't hurt)



Now compare that Alienware to this system with a Core i7 processor and GTX 260 - you could easily upgrade to a Radeon 4870X2 or GTX 295 with the money saved...

Answer 2

definite and no. definite they make some rather effective computers and laptops, yet they're way too high priced. the only element i could ever purchase from alienware(if I had the money) could be a pc. They make diverse the wonderful gaming laptops. The computers are notably a lot a ripoff nevertheless, thinking you are able to build your individual computing device with the comparable specs for some million/2 the fee.

Answer 3

NO. Alienware is overpriced and you pay for the brand. There actually manufactured by Dell.



You can easily build a computer much faster for much cheaper. Just join a computer forum and as a few people for help and I'm sure you will be much more satisfied.

Answer 4

Just FYI, Alienware cost about 75% more than it's actually worth, and you could be buying a much much better machine (Although it might not look as "cool") for the price you're paying.



You could probably build that machine yourself for under a 1000.