Was it worth the expense and the wait? How’s the service package? Any problems with it?
Pushed to the breaking point by the release of Oblivion, I’m thinking of ordering one but want to some Doper feedback before I toss away the cash.
Got one in…2001 or so.
System locked up frequently. I think after many, many months I discovered it had to do with somelike like a particular codec running cutscene movies off the CD drive.
Of course, whenever I sent it back to them it would run a burn-in test, not lockup, and they’d chalk it up to “not our problem”.
Some of the worst customer service I’ve ever dealt with. If you’re going to do a boutique PC, I’d try someone else. Anyone else, personally.
-Joe
I got one several years ago, roughly 2000? Still runs great, I use it as a secondary computer to read news, surf for walkthroughs (hehe) when using my primary for games, tv, movies etc. Have them set up right next to each other at my home workstation.
Alienware boxes are very overpriced for what you get - basically normal parts in a fancy case. If you don’t feel like building a box yourself, MonarchComputer builds nice machines for a decent price, and their build quality is quite good.
My last three PCs have all been Alienware. I don’t have any complaints, but then, I’ve never had to deal with their customer service guys, whom I understand are less than stellar.
Alienware are great for rich people who can drop a few thousands without blinking and who don’t want the bother to build and maintain their own computer.
Alienware systems are , indeed, grossly overpriced. I would strongly recommend you go to the forums at anandtech.com and ask the people for advice.
Unless you’re rich, then go and buy the most expensive Alienware you can find and enjoy!
I ended up going with MonarchComputer, thanks RandomLetters.
Last Gaming Box ratings I saw Alienware is not even the top Gaming boxes.
Falcon NorthWest is the top rated in pcmag.
You can buy a reasonably solid Cutting Edge Gaming PC from Dell for a lot less.
Look at the Dell XPS 600 with 2 Gigs of Fast Ram and the top Video Card.
Go with only the Pentium® D Processor 830 with Dual Core Technology (3.0GHz, 800FSB) but invest in the Dual 256MB Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX with SLI Technology.
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 DIMMs
160GB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 80GB 10K SATA2 HDDs)
They throw in FEATURED UPGRADE! 20 inch UltraSharp 2005FPW Widescreen Digital Flat Panel dirt cheap.
This Config is only $3089. Play with the configurator a bit.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DXPS600G1&s=dhs
If your budget allows go for a faster processor. But this should do you well.
Jim
I built my last rig with components from (mostly) Monarch. I price compared between them and NewEgg and Monarch was a bit cheaper, $200 or so. I’m a big fan of building your own rig, I’ve done my last 3 and have really had great results, but Monarch sure has an attractive set-up charge.
So what’d ya get??
Interesting coincidence. I was borderline about to start a Pit/MPSIMS mild rant about Alienware.
I have recommended them in the past. Now I am deeply sorry that I ever did. The honeymoon is over.
My husband and I both have Alienware notebooks. They worked wonderfully for the first year. But you know, the closer our warranty gets to expiration, the more these suckers lock up, crash, and burn, burn, burn.
The customer service isn’t too bad, in our experience. However, this is the second time in two months that my husband has to send his back to the company because it won’t even start (no screen, no response, nothing). Mine has blown itself up somehow three times in the past two months. Okay, maybe that’s hyperbole. But my video card fizzled, we said okay, called them up, they sent us a new one, which turned out to be defective, called them up, did the little song and dance where we ran all the proper tests and checked all the proper connections. Sent back the new card, got another new one. Now, I’m just waiting around for the inevitable and unexpected locking up, powering down, and no response that this computer is so prone to doing. We bought an external drive (which is a good idea anyway) because it was happening so frequently, we were constantly losing all of our information. My husband makes beats - all gone. I’ve got my book backed up in several places. Again, backing up is always wise, but we’ve certainly become hardcore believers in it recently. When you crash once or twice a week, it becomes second nature. Heh. I remember the good ol’ days where we’d have to search up and down for that damned Windows XP disk. Now it’s sitting on the desk between us. We don’t let it out of our sight.
My husband’s computer right now? It’s in the mail; on the way back to Alienware HQ so they can “fix” it again. Since the first of this year, there’s usually only one computer up and running. If we’re lucky. And often, one computer can’t use any big games until they’ve figured out what the problem is or sent us a part. And the computer doesn’t go out and come back in a timely manner; last time my husband sent his back to Alienware, it took a month before we saw it again, even though it took them a day to fix it.
Big waste. When my husband gets his back this time, he’s seriously considering selling the Alienware and getting something much less glorified. The last computer we had may not have been top of the line, but it ran our games just fine and didn’t crash everytime you looked at it funny.
Not happy. Grumble.
On a related note, Dell just purchased Alienware. So next time you see someone with an Alienware box, be sure to tell them “Dude, you just got a Dell.” 
I decided on:
Not their top of the line but it struck me as a good basic rig that exceeds the mid-to-high end reqs that people are tossing around for Oblivion. At least now I can run F.E.A.R. with all the trimmings.
The IT geeks at the office will do some upgrades when it gets here, and give it a general once over. Learning how to build my own box is the one thing I wish I’d learned during a misspent youth.
Anyway, thanks for the info. Alienware always had the machines I always salivated over, but if Dell’s running the show I might as well save the extra cash toward my next rig.
It’s really not difficult to build your own - there are plenty of guides with pictures out there - and that way you can control the quality and price of parts going in there. I’d never, ever buy a prebuilt.
well even though you went elsewhere here is a pit thread that has my problems with alienware a few posts down
Dell to buy Alienware in gaming computer expansion. That title speaks for itself. Alienware fanboys are probably frothing at the mouth right now.
Ouch! Sorry man, that sounded painful to deal with.
FWIW, I bought my new computer from Velocity Micro and I’m happy as Hell. The computer works perfectly, they even got it out to me QUICKER than they said they were going to (I got it half a week before they said they were going to ship it!). Everything works fine. The only problem was that the button for the 1st DVD drive is a bit ‘loose’ feeling, but not a big problem in the slightest.
Friend of mine bought an Alienware. Had trouble with it right away. The included restore disk was less than helpful. We finally just cleared the hard drive ourselves and installed from another OS disk. The machine worked much better after that. Make sure you have the latest version of Win XP. Earlier versions make it unhappy.
And the desktop case is big. No, really. It’s the size of an actual Alien ™ head. Those things are big. Assume it will be twice the size you expect and you’ll be close.
Oh dear, and mine’s being delivered in 4 days. I just now checked the dimensions online and, well, it’s not going to be a sleek and subtle…um… piece of furniture. It’s 5 inches taller than my current fullsize tower, half again as wide, and barely fits the depth of my large desk. And to think I’ll be running both systems on the same desk for a week or more…
It looked cool in the photo, but I didn’t realize the tower dimensions were intended to inspire an erection in an adolescent boy, not please a middle-aged woman. One good thing is it should have the internal space for good airflow/cooling. :o