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dell vs. alienware
you can get a dell 8500 xps for a lot less than an alienware, despite having nearly identical components.
Alienware Aurora: $1749.00
| PROCESSOR | 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3820 (10M Cache, Overclocked up to 4.1 GHz) | edit |
| OPERATING SYSTEM | Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English | edit |
| MEMORY | 8GB (4 X 2GB) Quad Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz | edit |
| VIDEO CARD | 1.25GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560 Ti | edit |
| HARD DRIVE | 256GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive | edit |
| MONITOR | No Monitor | edit |
| SOUND CARD | Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio | edit |
| OPTICAL DRIVE | Single Drive: 24X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability |
Dell 8500 xps: $ 1769.00
| SOFTWARE | Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2010, English | edit |
| MONITORS | Dell S2740L 27-Inch Full HD Monitor with LED | edit |
| LIMITED WARRANTY | 1Yr Ltd. Warranty- Advanced Exchange | edit |
| Dell S2740L Monitor | Dell S2740L Monitor | edit |
| MEMORY | 12GB Dual Channel DDR3 1600MHz - 4 DIMMs | edit |
| OPTICAL DRIVE | Blu-ray Combo Drive (BD-R, DVD+/-RW), Write to CD/DVD | edit |
| HARD DRIVE | 2TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive 6.0 Gb/s + 256GB SSD | edit |
| VIDEO CARD | Nvidia GTX 660 | edit |
| SUPPORT | 1 Year Enhanced Support - America's Best Standard Support | edit |
| MCAFEE SECURITYCENTER | Download - McAfee Security Center 1 Year | edit |
| SOUND CARD | Integrated 7.1 with WAVE MAXXAudio 4 | edit |
| XPS 8500 | XPS 8500 | |
| Chassis | White w/19:1 Media Card Reader | |
| PROCESSORS | 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3770 processor (up to 3.90 GHz) | |
| SPEAKERS | No speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system) | |
| WIRELESS | Dell Wireless 1703 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth v4.0+LE | |
| USB 3.0 | Integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet | |
| MONITOR | No Monitor | |
| Adobe Reader | No Adobe Reader Selected | |
| Ship Material | Shipping Material, Direct | |
| Wireless Driver | Dell SRV Software 1703 | |
| Documentation | English Documentation DAO | |
| Additional Software | Additional Software | |
| Optical SW | Cyberlink Media Suite Essentials BD | |
| Power Cord | US Power Cord | |
| Additional Settings | PocketCloud Companion, Standard, Digital Delivery | |
| Miscellaneous | PCmover Home – Free | |
| KEYBOARD | Dell KB213 Wired Multimedia Keyboard, US-English | |
| MOUSE | Dell Laser Mouse | |
| ADOBE SOFTWARE | Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements- Additional software purchase required | |
Am I missing something?
For essentially the same price; the xps 8500 has a 2 tb sata + the 256 ssd, a blu-ray drive, windows 8, plus I can throw in a 27" monitor.
The processor doesn't seem quite as beefy in the dell, but is there a huge difference?
The only other thing I see as a major difference is that the alienware can support 2 vid cards; but i'm understanding that's no biggie.
Soo.....any thoughts?
Comments
Build it yourself?
Dell owns Alienware. If you pay the extra money for the Alienware, you're paying extra money for the name, only. The other difference is that Dell uses proprietary components for their motherboards, video card integration, etc.. This makes it a huge pain to upgrade a Dell. Alienware will use more upgrade friendly components, but only slightly (and any upgrade you do will void the warranty).
You'll save a lot more money building a system yourself, or going to another PC builder like Cyberpower PC or Ibuypower. Just make sure you go through and pick the best name brand components you can afford. Usually these PCs are half the price of a Dell and will serve you better since it's not proprietary crap.
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
As others have pointed out, Alienware is Dell.
But really, that's way, way too much to pay for either of those computers. There's no sense in spending over about $1500 for even a high-end gaming computer unless you have unusual needs. And while those are capable gaming computers, they're hardly high-end.
.
I've been pricing i5 3750k / 7870 system for a mate, its coming in about £700 - £ 750. Parts are cheaper in the usa too.
It's probably worth paying someone $100 to put one together for you.
I was shopping around for PC's not too long ago and was shocked at how much more you can get from ibuypower over Dell. Comparable systems for $400 less etc.
What is your opinion on them as a company?
I've pondered building my own but meh, I just don't have the time to fix any of my own mistakes. Willing to pay a premium to have it at my door step ready to go.
I don't really like building them myself anymore as I don't have the time. But I do agree with folks here regarding cyberpower and ibuypower. You get a lot more for your money and they give a standard 3 year warrenty now. I just configured one for my nephew. As a matter of fact, on cyberpower, they actually give you a FPS meter on the side of the screen which gives you a rough idea of the frames per second you can expect.
I really wouldn't by a dell or an alienware.
Perhaps. However, if your mate fucks it up you're fucked. I did my last few on cyberpower and it was bascially about $100 more then building it myself, except a got a 3 year warrenty.
I should have qualified this here and in my other thread.
A. Of course I know alienware/dell is the same company =p
B. Of course I know these are overpriced
C. Of course I know it's cheaper to build it myself
D. I should have noted that neither of those would be my bottom line price; I have a few incentives from dell which essentially would bring those prices down to around 1500 for either.
E. I still know that's overpriced
But, here are my options:
1. Use my dell account and replace my completely defunct computer.
2. Use my savings on a computer instead of getting gifts for my wife, family and friends and cancel the family trip. (As you can see, not really an option)
3. Wait for 3 or 4 months with no computer to save a few hundred bucks. Let me add that I live in an extremely remote area and do not have telivision; so this would mean several months of book reading as my only form of entertainment outside of sex.
So, back to my original question;
getting the alienware, i'd be buying the name and getting less features.
getting the dell, i'd be getting essentially the same rig with more stuff.
And, yes, I'd be paying too much for either.
Is that about right?
In light of this new information. Get the dell.
One way you can self build and cut most of the risk is to buy a prebuilt motherboard, processor, RAM bundle. Which cuts out the 3 biggest scares - fitting the processor, fitting the cooling and configuring the bios.
ANYONE can fit a graphics card or hard disk.
Most people can fit a power supply if they have a quick look on the internet first.
everybody I know that ever had a Dell system later regretted the decision. I bought one 2 years ago, and it went back to Dell 3 times, the last time I told them to keep it, and turned around and filed a chargeback on my credit card.
There is no way I would have a Dell. Just build your own, thats what I done.
With those options listed, go for the Dell as it offers more for the price. When you need to, update the video card. After that, build a custom PC and use this Dell as a second PC.
Both are very expensive compared to building yourself. It's very easy to build your own computer, there are detailed guides on how to do it if you are unsure.
If you're willing to pay a big chunk of money for someone to build your computer and put their logo on it, go with Dell. If you're willing to pay a very big chunk of money for a flashy computer with their logo on it, go with alienware. In terms of quality it's the same.Why is it that you're able to spend $1500 to buy something from Dell, but not able to spend $1000 to buy something from New Egg? New Egg takes credit cards, too, you know. For that matter, New Egg even offers their own financing, just like Dell. If the problem is that you can't get financing and have maxed out all of your credit cards, then you shouldn't be spending $1500 on a computer and letting Dell charge you 30% interest for who knows how long. And if that's not the problem, then it's rather implausible that Dell will be the better deal.
It sounds like he has a line of credit through Dell only. If the man needs a new PC and that is the only means then go for it. I would use cash at ahnd if possible.. He should too..I think his family would understand if there is one less present under the tree and vacation comes a bit later....unless they don't get to use the new PC..lol.. Newegg is the way to go..I've never been disappointed. Not once.
=p
I guess it just boils down to not realizing New Egg had financing.
I'm going to look into it -
And you are right; the dell account is horrid - 29.99% good god. It was a 18 month no interest incentive which was the only reason I was considering it.
No interest incentives are usually a bad idea. The way they're typically structured is that if you don't pay off the item in full by the time the incentive period ends, then the company gets to charge you full interest for the "no interest" incentive period. That can probably also be triggered early in case of a late payment. And they'll try to help a payment to be late if they can, so that they can charge you extra. In this case, that would mean adding several hundred dollars in interest all at once.
Furthermore, they're intentionally set up to bait people who are likely to end up getting hit by the interest penalty. Someone who pays off his credit card every month won't care what the interest rate is, or whether there is a no interest incentive. Instead, they attract people who run large credit card balances (which you shouldn't do, by the way) and take a long time to pay things off. That's exactly the sort of person who likely won't pay off the balance on time.
There you go , a reason to build the system yourself. For 1800$ I can blow both of those PC's hands down by looking around for the best prices in components.