I Have a question.

[Oblivion]

Would an AlienWare computer with the specs listed below be worth the money?

Technical Specifications

Processors
AMD Athlon™ 64 FX-55 Processor with HyperTransport Technology
2.6GHz, 2000MHz FSB, 1MB full-speed level 2 Cache

AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor with HyperTransport Technology
Up to 2.45GHz, 2000MHz FSB, 512KB full-speed level 2 Cache

Operating Systems
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional Edition

Chipset
VIA K8T800 Pro / VT8327 HyperTransport chipset

Memory
Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
Four DDR DIMM sockets
Up to 4GB of system memory

Graphics
AGP 8x high-performance graphics
Up to 256MB DDR3 dedicated video memory
DVI, VGA, and S-Video outputs with dual-display support
Full DirectX® 9.0 and OpenGL® 2.0 graphics compatibility

Drive Bays
Externally accessible:
Four 5.25" for DVD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD/CD-RW, or DVD±RW drives
Two 3.5" for floppy drive, 8-in-1 digital media reader / writer, or front accessible 1394

Internally accessible:
Four 3.5" bays for hard drives

I/O Ports
Externally accessible:
Serial:
Parallel:
Video:

Keyboard:
Mouse:
IEEE 1394:

USB:
Audio:
Ethernet:
* One 9-pin serial port
One 25-pin parallel port
One 15-pin VGA port / one 24-pin DVI port
Two 24-pin DVI ports (optional)*
One 6-pin mini-DIN port**
One 6-pin mini-DIN port**
One IEEE 1394 port - 1 back
Two IEEE 1394 ports - 1 back / 1 front (optional)
Eight USB 2.0 ports - 4 front / 4 back
Six 1/8" analog jacks / one optical output / one coaxial output
One Gigabit Ethernet


*Two DVI ports available depending upon configuration
**USB compatible with adapter

Internally accessible:
Serial ATA:

Primary IDE Channel:
Secondary IDE Channel:
Auxiliary IDE Channel:
Floppy:
* Four Serial ATA-150 ports
RAID0 and RAID1 (optional)
One 40-pin connector
One 40-pin connector
One 40-pin connector on PCI bus
One 13-pin connector


Slots
1 AGP 8x slot for graphics
5 PCI slots

Chassis


AlienIce high-performance air intakes illuminated in choice of colors
Locking front and side panels secure and conceal front I/O ports and drive bays
480 watt power supply with Active PFC
Up to five high-efficiency, low-noise 80mm fans - two additional provided by power supply
Up to six USB 2.0 ports (4 front / 2 back)*
Four 5.25" external bays
Two 3.5" external bays
Four 3.5" internal bays

*Dependent upon system configuration

Power
Output Wattage: 480 Watts
Input Voltage: 100 - 240V at 50 - 60Hz
Heat Dissipation: 841 BTU per hour (monitor not included)
Backup Battery: 3.0V coin cell

Total Cost- $1,539


But heres the thing. I can also configure it. Tell me what is necessary and what i can downgrade to get it at a cheeper price but also have it be an amasing computer.

Thanks, Oblivion
P.S. If you want to configure it to see what the other parts are, go here.

[kickmyflip]

Oh yeah that sounds about right, because the 64 bit processors from AMD are still pretty expensive. And a 2000 mhz fsb... damn thats alot. You may or may not need that much. Well actually you might because of the 64 bit processor... The whole deal sounds good to me.

[Oblivion]

You sure? People ive asked said that the computer is a fucking rip-off.

[kickmyflip]

Well the thing that is costing you soo much is that 2000 mhz fsb. Your can only reach 400 mhz on your ram slots so its pointless to have 2000 mhz... So I'd say 800 mhz fsb on your mobo would be best... you would save a bundle.

[Oblivion]

yeah this computer is strictly for gaming so 800 instead of 2000?

[unit_number_43]

If you know enough to build your own system, then buying one from any company is going to be a ripoff...Alienware makes some nice looking systems though. If you built it yourself you could get that sytem down to under $1000.

You didn't list specific specs as far as models and makes, but I'll try to give you some general ideas of what you should get, by my opinion of course.

-1GB DDR memory, windows xp eats memory like nothing you need at least 512 to run a decent dependable system with XP (I used 256 and get a lot of memory related crashes when playing resource intensive games)

-2.6GHz AMD-64. 'nuff said.

-Vid Cards, I'd go with a mid-to high end Radeon card. nVidia still makes some good products, but it seems ATI has beat them out with this last batch. I wouldn't spend too much money on the graphics card, you'd be plenty safe with a mid-ranged card. You see a lot of people spending $500 on a GFX Card so they can get FPS's in the 200fps range. After 125fps the human mind can't keep up and the game will actualy start looking jumpy. Getting something in the 80fps-100fps range is pretty ideal. I can get that kind of framerate out of my little GeForce 4 440 on Quake 3. I bought that for about $75 almost a year ago.

-Motherboard, I'm not a fan of Via, I've had their motherboards before and wasn't very impressed. They're solid, but nothing to gawk over. I like MSI myself. and for chipsets i absolutely LOVE nVidia's nForce chip.

[tacoX]

Without even fully reading the specs, anything Alienware is very-very overprices. You can get teh same computer for about 900~ custom made. Your paying that extra 600 dollars for the Alienware name.

I'm not too advanced with computer hardware or building, but in most cases its better to go with a custom computer. Most offer warranties (usually about a year, less than dell and such - but then again its 600$ less).

Just my non-expert opinion.

[graffic]

Yea...not an expert.....but in general, computers are much cheaper custom-made.

[Kritacul]

www.newegg.com

you can build a custom computer for less than a $1,000....

[unit_number_43]

I actually work for a company that builds cheap dependable systems that look pretty damned good. You can drop me a PM here if you're interested.