Alienware Area-51 7500 Review

[dang]

Checkout our latest review of the Alienware Area-51 7500 (http://reviews.digitaltrends.com/review4159.html)Alienware's Area-51 7500 packs a serious punch, but is light on your wallet, that is unless you want to load it up with plenty of options.

[techfreak]

Here is HardOCP's review: http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI0MSwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI=

Looks like they had some problems. Is it just me or does every desktop that hits their labs come with some sort of issue??

[ECA]

$2800??? WOW...
anyone done a Part comparison?? See what they can do by Buying the parts and put it together yourself?? I dont need no Stinking $1000 Case..

[neuroking]

ECA, yeah I did. I came out to around $2300 at the time (not including shipping/tax/time).

[ECA]

and you could do what? with that extra $500+
Water cool the whole system?? then over clock it 2-3 times??

[Ioman]

ECA, why do we have to go these rounds with you everytime there is a system review? You pay more for a prebuilt system. That pays for the warranty, techsupport, company name and brand and piece of mind. Not everyone wants to build their own systems.

[ECA]

Because you get 1 year support on 90% of your products, anyway.
Settup up yourself, you know what products are in your system, AND you will get a CD with your programs on it, insted of a Loaded system with all the extra Stuff" that dont work anyway.

[neuroking]

I don't want to deal with "90%". I want to call one company if there's a problem and not dig through 20 websites to figure out which item has which warrenty. PLUS, and this is a BIG PLUS, what happens when you call a company for a failed component? 90%+ of the time they pass it off on another component. Problem with your graphics card overheating? Obviously it's not ATI's fault, it's your Abit mobo. What does Abit say? Faulty power supply. With a prebuilt you say to one person, "It is broke. Fix it."

I know every single component in this system, as they're all top shelf, and they added ONE piece of unnecessary software that took 15 seconds to remove.

AW does give yo a recovery CD which returns the system to shipping specs. Oh, adn this system is watercooled. No fussing with hoses or resevoires, worry about leaks, etc. It was done for me. Probably saved me a good 2 hours on the watercooling, and another 1-2 on the building, 2-3 on the Windows install and driver updates, and probably about 8 one researching all the components. Basically I got a day of my life back and peace of mind, and sacrificed $400. And, i can't think of any component that I felt I had to 'settle' for.

Gaming PC makers know that the perception they are workign against is that you could build a better system for less. That's why many, though not all, have dropped their prices into a much more realistic range than a few years ago. Hell, back in 2003 I put together a system along the same lines as this one (one notch below top of the line) and saved $1000. Chances are that alot of people did the same. Then the AW execs probably said, "Hrm, these ain't selling due to the low cost to build. Let's drop the prices and let volume cover the lost revenue." You can either sell few of something at a high profit margin (ala VoodooPC), and many of something a a low margin (ala Alienware). I think, especially now that AW is owned by Dell, that they are getting crazy low deals on components, which also helps.

Anyhow, yeah, buying a prebuilt ain't as bad as it used to be. I might go this way from now on.

[Ioman]

I don't have time to build my own systems anymore. dealing with incompatible parts and other issues. No way. I will take prebuilt almost anytime of the week.

[ECA]

What happened tot he debate,
that Home built was MORE expencive...What happened?? some one figure this out??
So, you would trust what they say about an inhome warrenty, after all this site has seen about it? and some idiot from geek patrol coming to your house(?) and doing about the same things WE would do to the comuter int he first place.