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I'm new to PC gaming. Please give me your thoughts on this Alienware deal

Airbus Jr

Banned
Building PC is not that easy and not for everyone esp for beginers

Given the circumstances of graphic cards rarity these days it will be ok if you want to go that way

If money isnt issue for you and you have money then you can go for Alienware R13

 
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STARSBarry

Gold Member
Building PC is not that easy and not for everyone esp for beginers

Given the circumstances of graphic cards rarity these days it will be ok if you want to go that way

If money isnt issue for you and you have money then you can go for Alienware R13



The issue with these alienware PC's is that they always AT BEST use an AIO 120mm cooler.... like there are sub £40 blocks that will provide vastly superior cooling performance and are vastly cheaper to produce alongside the added benefit of having no water pump and therefore being far more reliable.

Its no suprise that Alienware are some of the worst for thermal throttling, there air cooling solution which you get if you don't "upgrade" to there Cryobullshit AIO are WORSE than the stock intel cooler.
 
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DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
It's your money but Alienware is overpriced shit most of the time. Don't take my word for it though:


Man, that case is atrocious. It’s a crappy OEM case from like 20 years ago with a bunch of fancy looking plastic attached to it. And the CPU cooler is a joke too.

MAYBE it would make sense to get that and transplant it to a better case along with a decent CPU cooler.
 

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
Don't
Buy
Prebuilt

Ever.
There are plenty of decent builders out there problem is the cost because they are higher end
I recently bought a prebuilt from Digital Storm and love it. Only had a few minor issues with thr settings, but everything runs like a dream. Maybe look there?
Like Digital Storm would totally trust them to build me a Pc among a few others like Origin and Maingear just to name a few I personally would trust
 

chozen

Member
Strange that guy got the wrong cooler.

I bought an Intel CPU (has liquid cooling) alienware about 3 years ago with a 2070 Super, I haven't crashed or bluescreened once on this PC and I got it for a few hundred dollars cheaper than usual with some deals.

I've been happy with the purchase, I guess everyones experience isnt the same.

In a time where GPUs are overpriced I'd say my PC probably went up in value only because of how the GPU market has been.

Most criticisms on the recent Aurora shells is that is lacks proper cooling which may be true but that has not hampered my gaming experiences and I have played VR intense titles like Half Life Alyx, and most of my non VR games run at 2k HDR 100+ Fps.

That being said Alienware has a new R13 chassis with improved cooling, I'm not sure why alot people hate on alienware but this is my second time buying from them (the last time was over a decade ago and it was great then) and I've been fine.
 
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KyoZz

Tag, you're it.
Ok, so if I was to take the leap of faith despite everybody's recommendation and go for a pre-built PC, may be because I have no experience building PCs or little knowledge of good component brands, what other name should I consider if not Alienware/Dell?
The best things to do imo is to buy the parts and then ask someone to build it (a friend or a professional). Also, I'm sure there are some websites where you can buy the parts separately and then ask them to build the PC (like materiel.net in Europe).
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats

going by ebay numbers it is actually not a bad deal overall.
 

Faust

Perpetually Tired
Staff Member
There are plenty of decent builders out there problem is the cost because they are higher end

Like Digital Storm would totally trust them to build me a Pc among a few others like Origin and Maingear just to name a few I personally would trust

The good thing is that prices can actually be cheaper atm. Got a 3080 with i9 for the normal price versus the inflated ones you get for trying to get them separately.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Only some. It's a sore spot for some of us and I have no idea why. It's some real pcmr shit. I say that as someone who uses that label.

I was partly joking, but these are the most predictable threads lol

MAYBE "insert any Bethesda game threads" compete on predictability, but probably not.
 
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IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Killing me that people are recommending Digital Storm on this forum in a thread about Alienware.

That is the absolute worst company I have ever dealt with in my history of consooming. Spent $8k on a system from them and then over a month of multiple calls a day w/ their awful support. Like just total bastards, evil fucks. Not kidding.

They instantly helped me as soon as I found a good place to publicly complain about them. Like a month of them literally laughing at me on the phone turned into a return w/in hours. They beg you to delete your complaint too. You won't see anything negative on their actual forums, they moderate all comments and nothing remotely negative shows up, as it stays hidden from users.

I think they have a bigger team dedicated to monitoring every public review site on the planet than they do actual customer support.
 
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St0pThatGuy

Neo Member
I would not waste my money on Alienware. Typically I'd stay away from prebuilts but that isn't necessarily ideal under the current climate. Look for more reputable options.
Yep, it's hard finding anything that's not prebuilt. I managed to get my hands on an R9 rx5950 laptop.
 

Pejo

Member
Not great advice IMO. If the OP has never had a PC before they will have little knowledge of the general layout of the mobo and wiring. Building your first PC can be daunting and way more so if you've never owned one previously. Once you've owned one and done various upgrades you get a feel for how they are built and gain the confidence to tinker with them. Also the GPU prices as previously mentioned has thrown things up in the air somewhat from the cost angle, self builds are not necessarily the cheapest option on a like for like build.
Yep, this is a good point. I personally like to research refurbished prebuilts to make sure they're using quality parts, then buy them and just swap out the pieces that I'm less thrilled about (usually buy one with a cheap graphics card then upgrade it myself). With prices being so wack-a-doodle right now on everything, prebuilt is just fine as long as you do your homework.
 
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Faust

Perpetually Tired
Staff Member
Killing me that people are recommending Digital Storm on this forum in a thread about Alienware.

That is the absolute worst company I have ever dealt with in my history of consooming. Spent $8k on a system from them and then over a month of multiple calls a day w/ their awful support. Like just total bastards, evil fucks. Not kidding.

They instantly helped me as soon as I found a good place to publicly complain about them. Like a month of them literally laughing at me on the phone turned into a return w/in hours. They beg you to delete your complaint too. You won't see anything negative on their actual forums, they moderate all comments and nothing remotely negative shows up, as it stays hidden from users.

I think they have a bigger team dedicated to monitoring every public review site on the planet than they do actual customer support.

I am sorry you had that experience. Maybe they improved? Never had an issue with CS when I ordered mine.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Only some. It's a sore spot for some of us and I have no idea why. It's some real pcmr shit. I say that as someone who uses that label.
In my personal experience, pre-built PCs were a huge scam from like 1992 all the way up to about 2017. That's a lot of time for folks like me that have been doing this forever to form strong opinions one way or the other.

Pre-builts have been a joke most of my adult life. OEM manufacturers like Dell and HP would leverage huge quantity orders directly with CPU / GPU / RAM manufacturers to buy parts that didn't meet QC in their "direct to public" sales. Motherboards were made to be proprietary or to have proprietary lock-in (like the system fails to boot if the graphics card that came with it was removed or wouldn't identify off-the-shelf RAM chips). Cases were weirdly shaped and lot of OEMs used motherboards that didn't have standard screw holes or standoffs - which means you can't easily replace the motherboard because it wouldn't have anywhere to mount. Power supplies would be weird, have a proprietary shape (so you can't swap it out), and have custom-built motherboard connectors that also prevented you from replacing it or using it in a different PC. I'm sure these companies made a ton of money, because they controlled the supply of aftermarket parts to consumers, because it used to be that if your power supply needed to be replaced, you had to go looking for genuine Dell or HP parts because they were literally the only thing that worked or physically fit in those PCs.

Nowadays, it seems to me that a lot of OEMs are using commodity parts out of necessity. AMD and NVIDIA don't want to fuck about with making a custom GPU that's only ever going to be sold to Dell. Chinese companies that make power supplies do a lot more direct-to-consumer business than ever before, and companies like Dell and HP are having a hard time convincing them to make proprietary components because they don't want to pay for custom parts. Same with motherboard manufacturers, companies that make RAM, basically everyone in the supply chain. The upside of this is that OEMs have learned that using standard PC components also makes them MUCH more agile - no longer do they need long long lead times on custom parts - if they want to upgrade their hardware they can just swap out a few piece here or there without having to redesign the whole system like they used to.

Even still, the reputations of pre-builts will probably always suffer in the future because of the way things used to be done.
 

Reizo Ryuu

Member
The only pre-built kinda worth it currently, are the OMENS from HP, Alienware is pretty much never worth the price.
Not great advice IMO. If the OP has never had a PC before they will have little knowledge of the general layout of the mobo and wiring. Building your first PC can be daunting and way more so if you've never owned one previously.
This hasn't been true for well over a decade, mobo manual tell you precisely were all cables need to go and the hardest thing to install is probably the CPU + cooler (knowing that you only need a drop of paste etc.).
The manuals even tell you, and use pictures to illustrate, how to install ram properly (dual channel).

Websites like pcpartpicker even take care of the compatibilty between parts for you.

In 2019 I built a pc for a friend of mine, and he wound up removing the air cooler I installed and installing water cooling himself; he had never done something like that before.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
I am sorry you had that experience. Maybe they improved? Never had an issue with CS when I ordered mine.

I don't doubt that. You probably got your system fully in tact though, and not completely busted like mine was.

My case was broken; and I don't mean broken in shipping, I mean it had broken before shipping.. they sloppily soldered it together before sending it, and that soldering came loose. You could literally see someone's greasy handprints all over the corner of the case, complete with soldering iron shit all over the place. I noticed it as I halfway opened the thing.. and instantly took photos.. with part of the wrapping still on, to ensure they knew it wasn't me. I never even turned the thing on, because when you spend 8 THOUSAND DOLLARS on a computer, you expect it not to have that kind of shit.

I just wanted my money back and for them to take it back. I wasn't going to deal with a company that would do that. They wanted to charge me a $1000 return fee, plus pay for the $200 shipping (thing had to be shipped "freight", like a semi-truck shows up to your house.) They continuously "put me on hold" AKA hung up on me.. they mocked me a few times.. they were "having fun" with how fucked up the situation was. In the meantime, I realized their entire forum was a bunch of ball-licking nonsense, as they don't let anything negative even show up.. just out the gate a completely bullshit/not trustworthy thing. They do every paid BS promotion they can to, with all these "awards" that if you look into, are just things you pay a company for.

I'm not still bitter.. I SWEAR.
 
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IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
This is a myth

Agreed. Although I wouldn't buy a pre-built from Dell, I would get one from Overclokers or PC Specialist (UK retailers).

Like others have said, if you have no experience building a PC, I'd advise against buying all the parts and doing it yourself.
 

Thabass

Member
Prebuilts have come a long way since the early days of them. But I wouldn't touch Alienware. Go somewhere like iBuyPower or OriginPC.
 

Rival

Gold Member
If I was going to consider an Alienware I’d at least wait a few more weeks because they usually do some decent discounts around Black Friday but I’d never buy one. Just for reference I just built a pc with a 5900x / 2tb 980 pro / Corsair 4000 rgb case/ 32gb ram / and a 3080ti and it was ~$3400usd.
 

Faust

Perpetually Tired
Staff Member
I don't doubt that. You probably got your system fully in tact though, and not completely busted like mine was.

My case was broken; and I don't mean broken in shipping, I mean it had broken before shipping.. they sloppily soldered it together before sending it, and that soldering came loose. You could literally see someone's greasy handprints all over the corner of the case, complete with soldering iron shit all over the place. I noticed it as I halfway opened the thing.. and instantly took photos.. with part of the wrapping still on, to ensure they knew it wasn't me. I never even turned the thing on, because when you spend 8 THOUSAND DOLLARS on a computer, you expect it not to have that kind of shit.

I just wanted my money back and for them to take it back. I wasn't going to deal with a company that would do that. They wanted to charge me a $1000 return fee, plus pay for the $200 shipping (thing had to be shipped "freight", like a semi-truck shows up to your house.) They continuously "put me on hold" AKA hung up on me.. they mocked me a few times.. they were "having fun" with how fucked up the situation was. In the meantime, I realized their entire forum was a bunch of ball-licking nonsense, as they don't let anything negative even show up.. just out the gate a completely bullshit/not trustworthy thing. They do every paid BS promotion they can to, with all these "awards" that if you look into, are just things you pay a company for.

I'm not still bitter.. I SWEAR.
Perfectly understandable and you have every right to be pissed in that situation. Hopefully whomever had their hands in thst build got removed
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Perfectly understandable and you have every right to be pissed in that situation. Hopefully whomever had their hands in thst build got removed
I'm really not one to complain either; I've had semi-negative experiences with companies and considered it bad luck and continued to do business with them and it's been fine.

This was terrible from top to bottom; from the build, to the customer service. I was lied to several times as well, which I proved to them, they just literally laughed at me. Didn't matter who it was "escalated" to the treatment was the same.

They even dicked me around after agreeing to the full refund thing.

Ironically I am typing this on an Alienware PC I've never had any issue with. I also have an Alienware HTPC under my TV that has been going strong for as many years. I've upgraded the graphics cards on both with no issue. I have an Alienware gaming laptop that has been going strong for 5 years w/ no problems. I've bought a myriad of gaming laptops over the years as well; ASUS RoG, Razer, and Alienware off the top of my head.. only the Alienware still works lol

I've bought from CyberPower/iBuyPower as well, but have had issues with both of them... they do NOT fully test their machines, and they let you pick parts with compatibility issues. They aren't fun to deal with either when there is a problem... I'd still MAYBE buy from them if the price was right.. but it's always ironic how good my experiences are w/ Alienware PCs lol

I buy them because my wife likes them; for myself I prefer doing the builds where I choose every part/brand... but... the systems work well.. never have had issues.. never had anything break.. never had issues upgrading them, etc. It's a mix of off the shelf and stuff they contract w/ manufacturing companies with.. the same companies that generally build everyone else's stuff.. and.. like I said, never had any issue with any of their parts *shrug*
 
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CeeJay

Member
The only pre-built kinda worth it currently, are the OMENS from HP, Alienware is pretty much never worth the price.

This hasn't been true for well over a decade, mobo manual tell you precisely were all cables need to go and the hardest thing to install is probably the CPU + cooler (knowing that you only need a drop of paste etc.).
The manuals even tell you, and use pictures to illustrate, how to install ram properly (dual channel).

Websites like pcpartpicker even take care of the compatibilty between parts for you.

In 2019 I built a pc for a friend of mine, and he wound up removing the air cooler I installed and installing water cooling himself; he had never done something like that before.
I've built many PCs and although it mostly goes ok there can always be curve balls. I recently installed a new CPU in a new mobo and it didn't boot. Pc part picker showed no compat issues for the parts. It turned out that the mobo had been sat on a shelf and had an old firmware version that wasn't compatible with the newer CPU. I had to put in an older CPU that I had so that I could flash the mobo to the latest firmware. If I was less experienced and had no spare components to troubleshoot then I wouldn't have known how to solve the issue and even if I did I wouldn't have been able to flash it without a working CPU.
 

Malakhov

Banned
Id go to a local or chain computer store and pick your components and have it build it for you if you can't. Prebuilt is awful
 

Kagoshima_Luke

Gold Member
Don't
Buy
Prebuilt

Ever.
jake-gyllenhaal-shake-head.gif
 

Moochi

Member
If you buy from Alienware, go through Dell Outlet. They have the same warranty as the new ones, the prices are much better, and a lot of times you can get them shipped to you within a day or two. Pre-builts are great at the moment if you want to actually get a top end video card. You really can't build one yourself without a tooooon of hunting and work.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
Seems like most people in here haven’t seen GPU prices lately. For the money the aurora alienwares are an absolute steal. As long as you know what you’re buying and what potential problems they have you’re making out like a thief.

I can build a pc with my eyes shut but I still bought a Alienware Aurora because I could either buy a 3070 or buy the entire pc with a 3070 for almost the same price. No brainer. That one comes with liquid cooling so you’ll be fine. I upgraded the cpu cooler to a liquid cooler and added VRM heat sinks on mine and it’s a beast of a machine for the price.
 

Ezquimacore

Banned
People saying don't buy prebuilt clearly forgot we are in a situation where prebuilt is cheaper than buying parts these days. However, if you gonna buy one I recommend a different one, Alienware is known for selling selling PC with shit parts, also that case is difficult to deal if you want to upgrade.
 
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IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
They wanted to charge me a $1000 return fee, plus pay for the $200 shipping

What the fuck? That's obscene. How the fuck do they justify a four figure sum "return fee", plus 200 for shipping?

Considering you paid £8k, they should have arranged collection for for the faulty unit and shipped you out a new one without charge.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
The only pre-built kinda worth it currently, are the OMENS from HP, Alienware is pretty much never worth the price.

This hasn't been true for well over a decade, mobo manual tell you precisely were all cables need to go and the hardest thing to install is probably the CPU + cooler (knowing that you only need a drop of paste etc.).
The manuals even tell you, and use pictures to illustrate, how to install ram properly (dual channel).

Websites like pcpartpicker even take care of the compatibilty between parts for you.

In 2019 I built a pc for a friend of mine, and he wound up removing the air cooler I installed and installing water cooling himself; he had never done something like that before.
The biggest issue I have with omens are that they put their own heat sinks on the gpus. It’s probably not that big of a deal but it definitely looks cheaper.
 
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IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
What the fuck? That's obscene. How the fuck do they justify a four figure sum "return fee", plus 200 for shipping?

Considering you paid £8k, they should have arranged collection for for the faulty unit and shipped you out a new one without charge.
15% "restocking fee."

It was really a rather shocking experience TBH lol.. like I was legit pretty upset. Felt like I had been robbed. I'm not a Karen in any way, I'm chill as fuck.. I tip well even if service is bad at a restaurant because I know people have bad days, etc.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
People saying don't buy prebuilt clearly forgot we are in a situation where prebuilt is cheaper than buying parts these days. However, if you gonna buy one I recommend a different one, Alienware is known for selling selling PC with shit parts, also that case is difficult to deal if you want to upgrade.
These have excellent parts. The mobo is the only part that might cause upgrade problems 5+ years from now, but the PSU/CPU/GPU/Cooler are all very good. The motherboard is packed to the gills with ports too.
 

Urban

Member
Where are you from? Here in Germany we have shops where you can order the parts separately and they put the PC together for like 50-70€? If you choose this u have a guaranty too. I found that the best solution for my PCs.
 
I think we're in a slightly different era of PC builds right now; particularly if you're after graphics cards. You're paying a premium, but I'm not opposed to you going for it if you're doing it for a graphics card that you can't otherwise get a hold of.

Disclaimer: I have owned two Alienware PCs decades ago. My dad forced me to get prebuilt [and he paid for it] growing up. I saved the cases, and still use the cases today, because they're awesome and I'm not silly enough to care about LEDs except on my keyboard. I also own one of the amazing 34" Alienware IPS monitors, and I love it to death.
 

BlackTron

Member
I would hardly ever consider buying a prebuilt PC for myself, but I'm not so deluded that I feel my way is the only way in the known universe. Some people need to get off their high horse.

Maybe you have a LOT of money in the bank and just want to plug it in and go. Maybe you can find a decent deal on a machine, like a sale or open-box/return item. Maybe GFX card prices are frigging insane and the cost saving benefit of building yourself has eroded.

We all know Alienware is usually a rip off, but he asked about this specific PC at this specific price. So saying "Usually, Alienware..." doesn't help anyone. Even though I hate them and think their case designs are ridiculous.

Looking at the specs on this PC, it doesn't seem like a bad deal to me. He might pay the same amount to gather the parts himself, and then have to spend time putting it together. I'd be wary of Alienware's reliability or customer service, but there's none at all if you make it yourself...sure you can take it up with individual part manufacturers, but how do you even know what the issue is or what part is at fault if you don't know what you're doing and have no support?

I think the defining question would be to find out about the motherboard in there. The other parts seem OK but quality/reliability of the cohesive package will really depend on how good the mobo is and I'm unsure with how everyone derides Alienware's reputation. For an item of this price you really don't want to throw caution to the wind and end up with a mystery issue in 1-2 years from heat or whatever. On the basis of the price/specs alone I think its fine but I lack the experience/knowledge of Alienware to say it's a good call to get it. Maybe there is someone here with more experience to add more insight beyond "ALIENWARE IS OVERPRICED!!!!!1111!!11"
 

Edgelord79

Gold Member
I would hardly ever consider buying a prebuilt PC for myself, but I'm not so deluded that I feel my way is the only way in the known universe. Some people need to get off their high horse.

Maybe you have a LOT of money in the bank and just want to plug it in and go. Maybe you can find a decent deal on a machine, like a sale or open-box/return item. Maybe GFX card prices are frigging insane and the cost saving benefit of building yourself has eroded.

We all know Alienware is usually a rip off, but he asked about this specific PC at this specific price. So saying "Usually, Alienware..." doesn't help anyone. Even though I hate them and think their case designs are ridiculous.

Looking at the specs on this PC, it doesn't seem like a bad deal to me. He might pay the same amount to gather the parts himself, and then have to spend time putting it together. I'd be wary of Alienware's reliability or customer service, but there's none at all if you make it yourself...sure you can take it up with individual part manufacturers, but how do you even know what the issue is or what part is at fault if you don't know what you're doing and have no support?

I think the defining question would be to find out about the motherboard in there. The other parts seem OK but quality/reliability of the cohesive package will really depend on how good the mobo is and I'm unsure with how everyone derides Alienware's reputation. For an item of this price you really don't want to throw caution to the wind and end up with a mystery issue in 1-2 years from heat or whatever. On the basis of the price/specs alone I think its fine but I lack the experience/knowledge of Alienware to say it's a good call to get it. Maybe there is someone here with more experience to add more insight beyond "ALIENWARE IS OVERPRICED!!!!!1111!!11"
- Cheap OEM parts that can't be replaced unless it's by Dell
- outdated chasis with terrible layout
- poor cooling
- better options for prebuilts for less

Are some of the things that have been brought up. Nothing wrong necessarily with prebuilts, but generally you don't want OEM parts.
 
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