Alienware Area-51® ALX

OK so I'm getting really frustrated with my current PC which is an HP Pavilion a450n that I got three years ago. I can't play any decent games like Battlefield 2, F.E.A.R., Half Life 2, Battlefield 2142, etc. So I've had it with suffering the slow 32-bit, 512 MB memory, GeForce 5200 graphics card, it's about time for me to get up to the limits now that I have a reasonable job and am about getting close to recieving my first credit card. I am fed up with having to pull my hair off my head (not really but almost) for say example with me trying to play BF2: I load a level, the CPU goes crazy trying to load all the graphics and such on multiplayer and when it's finished loading a map, the game has ended and moved on to the next map. CRAZY?! RIGHT?! So I need your expertise help and oppinion to what I should do. I currently have a system set up to these specifications with the Alienware Area-51® ALX:

Processor:
Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX6700 2.66GHz 8MB Cache 1066MHz FSB
Price: not specified

Operating System (Office software not included)
Genuine Windows® XP Professional - Free Upgrade to Windows Vista Business
Price: $100.00

Chassis:
Space Black, Alienware® P2 ALX Chassis
Price: not specified

Chassis Upgrades:
Astral Blue, Alienware® AlienIce™ 3.0 Video Cooling + AlienFX™ System Lighting
Price: $200.00

Motherboard:
Alienware® Approved NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
Price: not specified

Memory:
4GB DDR2 Performance SDRAM at 1066MHz - 4 x 1024MB
Price: $800.00

System Drive:
Extreme Performance (RAID 0)
1TB (2 x 500GB) Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ 2 x 16MB Cache
Price: $590.00

Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM:
2x Blu-ray Disc (BD-ROM) Reader / Writer
Price: $900.00

Secondary CD ROM/DVD ROM:
16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive w/ LightScribe Technology
Price: $100.00

Graphics Processor:
Dual 768MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 GTX - SLI Enabled - Requires 1000W Power Supply
Price: not specified

Power Supply:
Alienware® 1000 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
Price: not specified

Physics Processing Unit
I wish I could equip my PC with this but I'm out of PCI slots already.

Video Optimizer:
AlienAdrenaline: Video Performance Optimizer
Price: $30.00

Monitor:
Dell 24" 1920 x 1200 UltraSharp Widescreen Flat Panel /w HDCP - Blu-ray Ready
Price: $880.00

Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi® Elite Pro High Definition 7.1 Audio
Price: $450.00

Keyboard:
Saitek II Backlit Keyboard
Price: $30.00

Mouse:
Logitech® G5 Laser Gaming Mouse
Price: $20.00

Warranty:
3-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support with Onsite Service
Price: $300.00

Automated Support:
AlienAutopsy: Automated Technical Support Request System
Price: $50.00

AlienRespawn:
Alienware® Respawn Recovery Kit
Price: $30.00

Custom Software Bundles:
Battlefield 2142
Price: $42.00

F.E.A.R.
Price: $34.00

Half-Life 2
Price: $42.00

ALX Out Of Box Experience:
Exclusive Alienware® ALX Items
Price: not specified/free

Power:
UPS Protection - Tripp Lite LC1200 (1200W Capacity)
Price: $120.00

Game Controllers:
Saitek X52 Flight Control System
Price: $120.00

Headphones:
Alienware® Ozma 7™ Headphones with S-Logic™ Technology
Price: $200.00

Alienware Extras:
AlienInspection - Exclusive Integration and Inspection - $100 Value - FREE!
AlienWiring - Exclusive Internal Wire Management - $100 Value - FREE!

Free ALX Mousepad

Free ALX Polo Shirt

----------------------------------------------------------------------

OK! So that's quite a Mouthful, eh? LOL. Anyways, are they a scam or what ?! lmao. Ok so Seriously, is this state of the art or is this just going to cause my hair to fall off again??

Grand total:
$10,698.00
as low as $321/mo.*

References:
The Alienware customization page
www.alienware.com...

Xi-Fi Elite Pro page
www.creative.com...

I mean the price is whoppingly craZy if u ask me. I'm losing hair already despite the upcoming new pc im planning to get. So please i need ur help here!!!!!!!!!!!!!! who is good at this stuff ?! I mean do I have to spend a million dollars to get a decent computer ???

thank you!

7A

[edit on 2-1-2007 by 7Ayreon]

[edit on 2-1-2007 by 7Ayreon]

In my opinion you can get a very nice gaming machine for under $1000. You don't need to venture into cutting edge technology to have fun. I personally stay a bit off the curve because it' cheaper. My newest machine I bought from Dell for about $600 and that included a 19" LCD. I then added a GeForce 6800 (again, not cutting edge, but nice) and I can currently play just about anything I want to on it. In all honestly you're not going to know the difference if your pc can push out 100 frames per second (FPS). Once you get past 60 FPS it's hard to tell that there's an improvement.

Of course you don't want to be stuck with something that will be obsolete in 1 year, but even if it was, at $1000 a pop you can buy a new PC once a year for the next 10 years and stay up to date instead of buying one $10,000 unit that is guranteed to be outdated in 3 years. Just make sure you dont' skimp on RAM and that you get a good CPU with lots of L2 cache. The rest of it comes down to arguements that venture into the realm of Ford is better than Chevy.(It's all opinions)

I got my macchine for about 700 Euro and it has

3.0 GHZ Pentium Processor

2GB RAM

200 GB Hard Drive

ATI Radeon X1800XT 512MB Graphics Card

Free card reader

Windows Xp Pro SP 2

and 700 euro is about 930$

Less than 1/10th of your price and almost as good

In my opinion, if you have the type of disposable income to purchase an alienware computer by all means do. I'm shure they make some of the best gaming rigs out there. But you can make a realy good gaming pc of your own without realy breaking out that much money...
I'm not going to post all my specs here but I game with an MSI Nvidia 6800gt
Asus k8n sli deluxe motherboard, 2 gigs of ram and an AMD athlon 3.2+ procesor. This setup has performed well up till now but will need upgradidn for some of the next gen games to run smooth.

First off you need to lay down your own budget, no one can give you any advice otherwise, I will say however that that configuration you showed us is a complete waste of money.

Originally posted by Edn
First off you need to lay down your own budget, no one can give you any advice otherwise, I will say however that that configuration you showed us is a complete waste of money.

A complete waste of money? For example, nVidia's Duel GeForce 8800 GTX SLI graphics card is not worth gaming with? What about the new Intel Core 2 Extreme processor and 4 gigs of memory? I think that's fantastic. If there's better technology then that well show it, but don't just throw it out in the trash as if it were nothing without actually explaining your point. Have you even checked out the specs and benchmarks these beaststly chipsets do? What about considering the new nForce 680i SLI motherboard? Of course it would be a complete waste of money if all you do is email and do simple internet searching. But not if your a modern day gamer that demands peak performance and quality. The real games out there require the latest power. If you truly want to dominate the battleground seamlessly.

7A

[edit on 17-1-2007 by 7Ayreon]

now that I have a reasonable job and am about getting close to recieving my first credit card.

[edit on 2-1-2007 by 7Ayreon]

It's not my place to give you financial advice, but maxing out your first credit card on a machine to play games on doesn't seem like sound strategy to me. Debt is easy to get into, but a monster to get out of.

There are things more important in life than the abilities of your computer. A sound financial position is one of them.

Your first credit card should be used only as a last resort.

This is just my humble opinion.

[edit on 20-1-2007 by mrwupy]