Why not to buy pre built.

anuraj · 14 Feb 2011 at 16:32

Ok I have 2 specs that are almost the same one is alienware one is homebuilt.
Alien ware:

Price From £4,188.99

Includes VAT & Shipping

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Print Summary
Included in your system:
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit- English
Intel® Core™ Core i7-970 (3.2GHz, 6.4GT/s, 12MB)
Dual 1.5GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 480
6GB 1600MHz (3x2GB) Tri Channel Memory
1TB RAID 0 “Stripe” (2x500GB Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive)
Blu-Ray RW (Blu-ray, DVD, CD read & write) & 24X DVD+/-RW (DVD, CD read/write)
Integrated HDA 7.1 Dolby Digital Audio
Display Not Included
No Security/Anti-Virus Protection
1Yr Next Day Hardware Support included with your PC
No Accidental Damage Support
NO - Dell may NOT telephone me in relation to my order and related products and services
Alienware Area 51ALX Black Anodized Premium Desktop Chassis
Accessories
Alienware 3D
Astral Aqua
Steam® Client and Portal™ Game - Factory Installed
Also Includes
Alienware Multimedia Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY)
Alienware Optical Mouse
Alienware Area 51 Resource DVD
English - Documentation with UK/Ire Power cord
D02A5A02
Alienware Area 51 DT Order - UK
AutoMatic Updates : AutoMatic updates - On
1 year Next Business Day Hardware Support included with your PC
One free Dell Expert call to help with your PC queries within 60 days of purchase
No Headset Required

Home built:

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
OcUK Extreme H2O Pre-Watercooled Case - Corsair Obsidian 800D £439.78
(£366.48) £439.78
(£366.48)
Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Far Cry 2 £207.98
(£173.32) £415.96
(£346.64)
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £189.98
(£158.32) £189.98
(£158.32)
Corsair HX 1000W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-1000HXUK) £188.93
(£157.44) £188.93
(£157.44)
Patriot Viper Xtreme 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-16000C9 2000MHz Dual Channel Kit £173.60
(£144.67) £173.60
(£144.67)
Asrock P67 Extreme 6 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £159.98
(£133.32) £159.98
(£133.32)
Logitech G19 Gaming Keyboard (920-000978) £129.98
(£108.32) £129.98
(£108.32)
Corsair Hydro H70 High-Performance CPU WaterCooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM3) £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
(£70.82)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £81.98
(£68.32) £81.98
(£68.32)
LiteOn iHBS112 12x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Drive - Black (OEM) £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
Razer Naga 5600dpi MMO Laser Gaming Mouse £70.99
(£59.16) £70.99
(£59.16)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £40.99
(£34.16) £81.98
(£68.32)
Linksys by Cisco WMP600N 600Mbps Wireless-N Dual-Band PCI Network Adapter £37.99
(£31.66) £37.99
(£31.66)
Pioneer 24x Internal S19LBK DVD Rewriter including Labelflash SATA Retail £21.98
(£18.32) £21.98
(£18.32)
Sub Total : £1,798.45
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £362.39
Total : £2,174.34
And more could be done the make the home made better

paradisiac · 14 Feb 2011 at 16:34

its the same with everything though, you are paying for the brand name.

Predicament · 14 Feb 2011 at 16:35

At first I thought you were asking us WHY you shouldn't build...
I thought it would be fairly obvious; your paying £2000 more...

Just a word: you cited an extreme example. Most builds, (say around £900 or so) your saving yourself about £75-250

anuraj · 14 Feb 2011 at 16:35

Yes but £2000 difference I'm guessing alienware is able to get away with murdering people infront of 200 cops.

Redgie · 14 Feb 2011 at 16:35

You're only discovering now that Alienware is overpriced!?

paradisiac · 14 Feb 2011 at 16:40

anuraj said:
Yes but £2000 difference I'm guessing alienware is able to get away with murdering people infront of 200 cops.

the more expensive the build, the bigger the difference. not being funny, but are you not aware that every company does this? not just alienware. you cant tell me if you went out and bought a :

HP Pavilion Elite HPE-380uk :
Specifications
Product Description HP Pavilion Elite HPE-380uk Desktop PC
Processor Intel® Core™ i7 processor 860 - 2.8 GHz
Chipset Intel® H57 PCH
Hard Drive 1 TB SATA 3G Hard Disk Drive (7200 rpm)
Networking Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN
Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g/n PCI-Ex1 minicard
RAM 8 GB DDR3
Graphics Processor NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260 Special Editionup to 5374 MB total available graphics memory, with 1.8 GB dedicated
Optical Drive Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner with LightScribe Technology
Ports 10 USB 2.0 ports (4 in front)
2 front audio ports
6 rear analog audio ports
1 rear digital audio port
2 FireWire® IEEE 1394 ports (1 in front)
Video Connectors HDMI/DVI port; VGA/DVI port
Slots 3 PCI-Express 1x (2 free)
1 PCI-Express 16x
Memory card device 15-in-1 memory card reader
OS Provided Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Dimensions (WxDxH) 179 x 422 x 401 mm
Weight 11.8 kg
Warranty 1 Year Warranty
£1235.99

you wouldnt be able to build it cheaper?

V F · 14 Feb 2011 at 16:42

I've always admired their cable management/internal placements. Are they using modified H50's? from some of the photos displayed. Also do they no longer make AMD systems?

anuraj · 14 Feb 2011 at 16:44

V F said:
I've always admired their cable management/internal placements. Are they using modified H50's? from some of the photos displayed. Also do they no longer make AMD systems?

Not that Intel are more expensive ad have better performance so they try to bankrupt people off that.

paradisiac · 14 Feb 2011 at 16:47

anuraj said:
Not that Intel are more expensive ad have better performance so they try to bankrupt people off that.

alienware is not heavily advertised, so people that shop with them find them by browsing the net, so, if they can find alienware they are more than capable of finding other shops. its not alienwares responsability to price things so people dont bankrupt themselves, if there are people out there stupid enough to spend that sort of money, then what are they doing wrong? if people didnt buy, prices would drop. good business accument if you ask me.

V F · 14 Feb 2011 at 16:53

I use to think my case was really small for airflow now that I've seen their new cases. It looks really cramped. I wonder what the ambient temps are like. I only see 1 fan on the radiator. Probably another tucked in front of the hard drive bay.

Ah, I think I see 3 more along the roof.

ThomasTheTankEngine · 14 Feb 2011 at 17:19

V F said:
I've always admired their cable management/internal placements. Are they using modified H50's? from some of the photos displayed. Also do they no longer make AMD systems?

Years ago they were nice, but the more modern ones I've seen looked very amatuerish. Shoddy cable managment and 5970's in adjacent slots with insufficient cooling.

lolwithtim · 14 Feb 2011 at 17:28

Now thats shoddy cable management, my Packard Bell is probably neater inside.

It is a lot cheaper to build PCs than to buy them from a company, yes its less work for you and you have a branded pc, but it's not good for your pocket, not at the moment anyway.

V F · 14 Feb 2011 at 17:47

Thats an Alienware? looks like somebody's generic build.

I use to once think Alienware was the Apple styled look for PC's before they went mental with the Christmas lights. I'd expect something like this:

anuraj · 14 Feb 2011 at 17:54

V F said:
Thats an Alienware? looks like somebody's generic build.

I use to once think Alienware was the Apple styled look for PC's before they went mental with the Christmas lights. I'd expect something like this:

That's hard to achieve

ThomasTheTankEngine · 14 Feb 2011 at 18:15

Yup, it's alienware. It's from this thread. 6 pages, 3 months, 1 total replacement, and he's still got a PC that overheats and doesn't work properly.

There was a very similar thread on here a while back, but I can't seem to find it now.

Alienware built their reputation by building quality pc's, but that went completely out of the window when Dell took them over.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/member-reviews/31385-area-51-delivered.html

crisbduck · 14 Feb 2011 at 18:20

Thats amazing! =o Wheres it from?

King Damager · 14 Feb 2011 at 18:32

That is gorgeous that example!

But yeah, you've cited an extreme example, I recently used this argument against parents to convince them to let me build my own pc, and discovered with HP the components are ~ 2/3rds of the actual price...

Also for your comparison why did you use a 2500k instead of a 950 OCUK have 950's on their site, and it would have been a much fairer comparison to use it. Yes a 2500k outperforms a 950, but the chances are the Alienware spec won't have been put together when the 2500k was around. Now I'm not defending Alienware here, because since the Dell take over they do massively overcharge, but still, your comparison isn't quite realistic...

kd

mrbios · 14 Feb 2011 at 18:43

V F said:
Thats an Alienware? looks like somebody's generic build.

I use to once think Alienware was the Apple styled look for PC's before they went mental with the Christmas lights. I'd expect something like this:

http://soundrent.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/447.jpg[ /img]
[img]http://soundrent.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/446.jpg[ /img][/QUOTE]

I just dribbled looking at that.....That's insane build quality, something i strive to achieve but i can never quite manage!

Predicament · 14 Feb 2011 at 22:01

and then there were two..

frostyste · 14 Feb 2011 at 22:45

never saw your theard sorry, the only think that draws me to alienware is their laptops thats even if i wanted or needed a laptop.