NewComputer

The motherboard on my system that my friend built just died, so I'm looking to get a new system through a company. I'd rather have a built system with support rather than trying to fix futher problems on my own. I'm looking to get a system that can handle high end gaming with no issues and a system I dont have to replace for at least 5 years. Here are the two that I'm looking at:

Alienware: Aurora 5500 - $2,096

Processor: AMD Athlon™ 64 3000+ with HyperTransport Technology
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2
Warranty: 4-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support with Onsite Service Bundle with AlienAutopsy and Respawn
Power Supply: Alienware® Approved 650 Watt ATX 2.0 Power Supply with Active PFC
Chassis: Alienware® Full-Tower Case - Saucer Silver
Chassis Upgrades: Alienware® Acoustic Dampening with AlienIce™ 2.0 Video Cooling System
Motherboard: Alienware® nForce™4 SLI™ Chipset Motherboard PCI Express
Graphics Processor: 256MB PCI-Express x16 NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6800 GT
Memory: 1GB Low-Latency Dual Channel DDR PC-3200 at 400MHz - 2 x 512MB
System Drive: 160GB Serial ATA II 3Gb 7,200 RPM w/8MB Cache
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 16x DVD-ROM Drive with Software DVD Decoder
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi® XtremeMusic High Definition 7.1 Surround Sound
Network Connection: Integrated High Performance Gigabit Ethernet
Monitor: No Monitor
Alienware Exclusive Offers: Gamespot Complete - Free 90-day Trial (a $20.85 value)
Alienware Exclusive Offers: 10% off your next EB Games online purchase
Desktop Enhancements: Exclusive AlienGUIse Theme Manager
AlienInspection: AlienInspection - Exclusive Integration and Inspection - $99.99 Value - FREE!
AlienWiring: AlienWiring - Exclusive Internal Wire Management - $99.99 Value - FREE!

Dell: XPS 600 - $1,969

Processor: Pentium® 4 Processor 640 with HT Technology (3.20GHz, 800 FSB)
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition
Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2 DIMMs
Keyboard Dell USB Keyboard
Monitors Video Ready w/o Monitor
Video Card 256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) nVidia GeForce 6800
Hard Drive 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ Native Command Queuing
Floppy Drive and Media Reader No Floppy Drive Included
Mouse Dell® 2-button USB mouse
Modem No Modem Requested
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
CD or DVD Drive Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 48x CD-RW Drive
Sound Cards Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeMusic (D), w/Dolby® Digital 5.1
Speakers No speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)
Office Software (not included in Windows XP) No Productivity Suite - Corel WordPerfect® word processor only
Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) McAfee SecurityCenter with VirusScan, Firewall, Spyware Removal, 15-months
Digitial Music Musicmatch® Jukebox Basic
Digital Photography Photo Album™ SE Basic
Hardware Warranty SAVE $50(Dell GiftCard) 4Yr Ltd Warranty,At-Home Srvc, XPS Warranty Spt
Premier Warranty Support Dimension XPS, Specialized Support
Dial-Up Internet Access 6 Months of America Online Membership Included
Financial Software (Preinstalled) No QuickBooks package selected- Includes limited use trial

I think for the most part, Alienware will be as is. I am planning on calling Dell to see if they can take some stuff off (like the dual drives) to see if I can save some money. Any recommendations on which is the better deal or things I should change? Thanks!

Vampiric Rouge

Well, Alian is EXPENSIVE, Dell has bad service and is expence. Dells are intels and arnt as good as AMD for gaming. Out of the two of them i would say alian but if you suck it up and build you could build a lot better system for the price they are both ripoffs. but out of the 2 i say alian.

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MAIN PC: Intel G965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard\ Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe\4gigs of samsung ddr2 ram @ 667\Antec neo 480watt power supply\Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT Voltmoded\430 gigs of HDD space all maxtor @ 7200rpm,and 80 gigs of samsung @ 7200 but only 2m\Benq FP202W 20.1" 8ms Widescreen LCD\ RAZOR copperhead\ flexglow gaming mousepad

Laptop: HP Pavilion DV1000\Pent M 1.73 Ghz\ 1GB Ram\ 100 Gig HDD

Archangel

well.. the system in my sig is a home-build pc.
and it costed half of what the alian ware does.. so i wouldnt buy neiter of those 2.

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Newton is dead, Einstein is dead, I don't feel very well either

Xfire - Mirrari
Intel Q6600 ( @3.6GHz)
Asus Triton 79 Amazing 549/3200
4x 1Gb Corsair XMS2 DDR800 ( @ 960MHz )
Asus Maximus Formula
Asus & Sapphire HD3870 512Mb
Corsair HX620W PSU

M0ddingMan1a

well, in this case, if i HAD to choose, then go with alienware. dell is crap

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Entertainment Rig// My FUll BLUE Rig:
CPU: AMD 64 Clawhammer 3400+//CPU: AMD Sempron 2600+
Mobo: DFI Lanparty UT 250gb//Mobo: Gigabyte GA-K8NS
RAM: 1 gig pc3200 Corsair XMS//RAM: 1 gig PC3200 PQi
Video Card: Ati AIW 9800pro 128mb//Video Card: Sapphire Ati 9600pro 128mb
HDs: 80gig Sata, 200gig ATA//HDs: 250gig WD, 80gig WD, 30gig WD, 13.5gig IBM
PSU: 500w X-Infinity//PSU: 500W Ultra-X Titanium Blue

Archangel

and the alienwar case's are a lot cooler

__________________
Newton is dead, Einstein is dead, I don't feel very well either

Xfire - Mirrari
Intel Q6600 ( @3.6GHz)
Asus Triton 79 Amazing 549/3200
4x 1Gb Corsair XMS2 DDR800 ( @ 960MHz )
Asus Maximus Formula
Asus & Sapphire HD3870 512Mb
Corsair HX620W PSU

NewComputer

I've checked out a few threads here and I've noticed the push towards home-built PCs. I've personally had a few computers that friends have built for me. Something always goes wrong and the friend is nowhere to be found. I'm just not tech-savy enough to isolate problems and fix them, and I've heard horror stories about fix-it places. I dont mind spending some extra money to have system I know will work and will have support for the future.

Money isnt really an issue, but I would like to stay around the $2000 range. Anything I should change on the above systems? Are there other companies out there with similar/better systems for the price range?

Praetor

So make sure you break the system in before you consider it finished.... lots of peopel think getting the hardware installed and the OS installed and they are done .... well its not good to go until you finish a burnin test

- AMD Athlon64 X2 4200 [ADA4200DAA5BV, 475USD]
- DFI Lanparty UT NF4 Ultra-D [130USD]
- Arctic Cooling Freezer64 [30USD]
- NEC 3540A [40USD]
- 3D Fuzion 7800GTX [420USD]
- Mushkin Redline PC4000 [2-2-2-5, 185USD]
- Maxtor DiamondMax10 250GB [16MB, 95USD]
- XClio 450W [12V@32A, 50USD]
Subtotal = 1425USD

There's a nice baseline to start with

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ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8
4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400
5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10
OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI

TheChef

Wow. What a nice system. I'm looking to go for the Redline series soon as I've heard good things. Maybe with that $575 dollars left over invest some in a nice PSU such as an OCz Powerstream or a NeoPower?

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Praetor

Well both of those PSUs are better than what i suggested but the one i've spec'd out isnt bad by any means either ... whether to spend the money is up to you (me, personally ... id prolly get the PowerStream between those two)

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ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8
4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400
5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10
OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI

pbsk8er03

Build Your Own

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COMING SOON:
DFI lan party NF4
Opteron 165 dual core
XP-120 cooler
520w OCZ Powerstream
Crucial ballistix 2GB(2x1GB)
eVGA 7800GTX
x-fi xtrememusic
Sony FW900 monitor