KevinC
9168
To be fair, I was pretty surprised myself. I don’t know if their prices have gone down or everyone else’s have gone up, but I hadn’t bothered looking at them for a while because the name was synonymous with overpriced hardware.
Aceris
9169
To be honest since it has an intel chip in it I’m surprised you aren’t dunking on him :)
But yeah, I hadnt realised tha the discussion of that GN review had been kicked off by @DaveLong posting his cool new machine. You really can’t go wrong at the end of the day with that kind of quality silicon, I hope it serves you well Dave!
It is tough to tell, isn’t it? Because of the hinge mechanism. Maybe I ought to open mine and then use a measuring tape to try to see how much more room I would have for a bigger fan.
EDIT: (On the other hand, even if there’s room for a bigger fan, it would just be blowing the air right into that solid metal part of the power supply, it is such a strange design decision).
This is where your perception is skewed. Alienware is a US brand and we definitely get better pricing domestically, same as you’d get for wherever you’re located.
Again, I can only speak from my own experience owning a Dell XPS tower from 2009 with a Core i7 860. I replaced the power supply and the motherboard in that machine after like six years of service and it’s still being used as a powerful secondary machine with a GTX970 inside. Between my sons and I we have five Alienware computers. Three are Auroras pre the new design and now one R12. My youngest also has a Dell G15 laptop that has performed extremely well although he has experienced more issues with heat… I got him a strong cooling pad to put under it and all is well since.
I’ve had no issues. I see these machines running and being used daily, heavily. My kids game more in a week than many of you probably do in a month. No problems. None.
Also, the “Alienware is overpriced” thing hasn’t been true for ten years. They used to push people toward their Area51 setups that ran $3000 or more, but since they introduced Aurora, that hasn’t been the case. I also have the Steam Machine from some six years ago now?! That’s also a nice performer. No issues with heat. 750Ti performance.
Right, hence why water cooling with the radiator And fan at the top of the case would make so much sense
Alienware is fine; it obviously can’t match building your own, but you can’t buy GPUs at MSRP so that isn’t even remotely an option. It also doesn’t match boutique builders like Maingear but is much cheaper (talk about overpriced!) so that’s OK too.
I should also point out that the price of the Ryzen Alienware machines went up recently. I looked at the difference between the Intel processor and what the Ryzen offered and that’s not at all worth the price difference. When you’re talking single digit percentage improvements in just certain games or applications, that’s not at all worth a premium.
Yeah, I had a machine from maingear some years ago. I wouldn’t recommend.
@DaveLong finding ways to mount intel hardware with Ryzen cpus must be expensive 🤣
Aceris
9176
It sounds like the real problem is the lack of good, no-frills SIs in the US.
You buy components, you let people order some combination of the components, you put them together, make sure it works, and ship the box to the customer. Then you deal with any problems (which there mostly aren’t, because the components are highly reliable and you checked everything was correctly plugged in before it left the factory and shipped it with suitable packaging). Why is this so hard?
Steve (the YouTuber) has plenty of experience with Dell, some awful and some good; for instance, he likes their proprietary power supply, but wishes it wasn’t proprietary, and also their 3090 variant). His schtick is teardowns and pointing out areas for improvement, and he focuses on cooling and cases more than other tech YouTubers. His current series is reviewing pre-built PCs to highlight the differences beyond the components list; in this case, that you’re getting less value than one might assume because of overheating issues throttling the speed.
But yeah, PC gaming has plenty of “gatekeepers.” I don’t count Steve among them; he’s trying to shame the companies and not the consumers.
The problem is you can’t buy components without buying other components right now and that’s only if you win a fucking lottery. Welcome to the Newegg Shuffle.
Meanwhile, I just used the Rewards I got from my Alienware purchase to order another 16GB of RAM for the PC pictured above which made the price for that… free. I paid $2300 after tax (12 months no-interest) for Core i7-11700F, 32GB of RAM (3200), 512GB SSD, 1TB 7200RPM SATA, RTX3080, case, 1000W power, Windows 10, etc. No hassles. Turned it on. Set up Windows. Downloaded 100GB of Warzone (super fast I might add… I was getting around 25MB/sec IIRC) over Wireless in an hour or less (I wasn’t timing it) and was enjoying 130fps on my five year old 144Hz 27" Dell G-Sync monitor at 1440p last night. About the only thing I could have “complained” about was that my headset didn’t work right until I downloaded the SteelSeries GG software which fixed it instantly. That and I was reminded I want an IPS monitor again because while I’ve enjoyed using this TN panel, I just plain like IPS better. Maybe an HP Omen is in my future…
It’s amazing these have been around for so long with no product refresh from Dell. Great monitor.
Evergreen sales gonna evergreen I think? It’s still a good deal for a G-Sync monitor at that refresh and resolution.
At the time, it was also one of the few that let you rotate it. That was huge for me as a guy who likes vertical arcade games. I use that feature often. The more recent 1080p IPS I bought for the old Dell upstairs has it too.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-nitro-xf243y-pbmiiprx-23-8-full-hd-monitor-hdmi/6425559.p?skuId=6425559
I got that for $158 after tax back in February.
The PC was free, you just paid going market value for the RTX3080. ;)
A few years ago (2018) you recommended a dell XP’s 8930 as a decent prebuilt that had a 1080 and was on sale for $1250.
It was a decent machine for the price (and I’m still happily gaming on it!) The really funny thing watching that video is that I have the same case, but without the plastic Alienware wrapper. The way the power supply swings out, where the GPU and CPU are positioned are exactly the same.
It’s funny to see the same case with a new coat of paint. Hopefully it’ll run as well as my XPS does, as I haven’t had a single problem with it.
Soma
9184
Frankly I don’t mind GamersNexus poo-pooing Alienware. It is overpriced but it is the only game in town if you want a not outrageously priced 30xx card. You buy from scalpers it will cost more. The more bad review means there will be a better chance Dell will cut price even more, then I roll the dice and order. If it is bad I just send it back.
My Alienware Aurora R5 is ok. No major issues other than a shitty non-modular power supply means it is a pain in the neck to upgrade (which I cbf and hoping to sell the whole rig minus SSD for a decent penny). Nothing melted. That case hasn’t changed and it is ok, a bit on the small side but ok.
My understanding is you can replace the R5’s power supply… you don’t need to get the Dell certified one. Check this link…
https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General-Read-Only/Aurora-R5-PSU-power-supply-unit-size/td-p/5548865
We’re about to try it with my old one. My son is taking it over and I’m putting in an EVGA 850W so he can eventually upgrade if/when 30 series cards are available reasonably priced.
I also did some reading regarding the heatsink/fan on these new machines. Before I get to that, people should know there is a water cooling option if you want it. You just have to specify that and configure a machine yourself. When you’re picking from the SALE list like I was, then that upgrade isn’t offered. Those are truly pre-built.
That said, after looking around on the Internet, the reason they have that fan style is because unless you’re gaming or using any of the high end features, you won’t be pushing the 4.9GHz that the processor is capable of. It simply throttles itself down during standard tasks and the fans do the same. It’s somewhat comparable to how a Corvette these days will actually turn off cylinders if you’re doing highway driving, all the way down to four of them IIRC, so as to save fuel and because it’s not needed power.
You can say this is cost cutting, whatever. And yes, that is probably true, but with air cooling the expectation is around 73 degrees under load, which is what I saw last night during a long Warzone session. Once I was done, I watched the temps and the gauges (Alienware provides a decent tool for this out of the box) and it settled back down to about 56 degrees after a bit.
All the above is definitely where the gatekeeping of high end PC gamers rubs me the wrong way. While I did get this computer for gaming, the reality is that it’s not going to be running balls to the wall all the time. Not even close. That’s part of Intel’s design expectation.
And I say all the above hoping that people here know I was the hardest of core PC gamers for many many years just for my own enjoyment and as a gd job. I had a Rendition Verite V1000 card before most people knew what 3D graphics cards even where and then put a friggin’ Diamond Monster 3D in there with it. I’ve been in the shit.
Not to comment on video cards but I’ve been running an Alienware Alpha w/ external GPU for a couple years now without any problems. Now I do have problem in connecting the external GPU to an Alienware laptop (ie, i can’t), and in fact i can’t disconnect the external GPU from the Alpha either, so clearly something gets stuck somewhere.
And looking just now it appears Alienware has ended support for it’s custom external graphics boxes on their new laptops, so i guess that was a good idea whose tail was too long for the reward.
Yeah they switched to thunderbolt now.
