Alienware Fiasco/Building new computer

Red Love X · Jan 18, 2011

Hi guys! I recently made the purchase of an Alienware Aurora that was on sale for about $1400, and decided it was worthwhile given that to put the pieces together myself was about $1100, and wasn't up to the challenge. However, after researching further, I've found out that not only isn't the PSU up to snuff, but it uses proprietary cables (one massive plug), but the Radeon 5770s in Crossfire are actually OEM, further devaluing the system. I'm strongly thinking about cancelling the order and attempting a full refund (to negate some bogus restocking fee when I feel like I was lied to/had the truth withheld from me) and building my own.

The set up I originally had in the Aurora was as follows:

PSU - Stock Alienware, probably had 6 12V rails running 18 Amps apiece
CPU - Overclocked Intel Core i7 930 Quad Core Processor (3.36GHz, 8MB Cache)
OS - Windows 7 64 bit
RAM - 6GB Triple Channel DDR3 1333MHz
GPU - Dual 1GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon HD 5770 in CrossfireX (my main point of frustration)
HDD - 1TB SATA II
OD - Single 24x CD/DVD Reader/Burner
Case - Stock alienware
Mobo - X58 (I think)

I'm a little scared to put the computer together by myself, but I've heard wonderful things about this forum and hope I could get help to try it myself. Since I'm not going to have the financing like I did through Dell, I can probably spend around $1000-1200. Is there any major tweaks up there that could/should be done? Anything I've forgotten? I plan on getting a top of the line PSU (no skimping out on that for me!) and would like to be able to upgrade in the future.

I appreciate any and all help in the matter!

Drenlin · Jan 18, 2011

I would cancel it for sure. Alienwares are almost always way overpriced for what you get, even compared to other pre-built machines.

No point in getting two 5770's anyway...you can get a better single card for cheaper. You could also do a Sandy Bridge build for cheaper than an X58 one, and get loads more power from it.

Red Love X · Jan 18, 2011

Drenlin said:
I would cancel it for sure. Alienwares are almost always way overpriced for what you get, even compared to other pre-built machines.

No point in getting two 5770's anyway...you can get a better single card for cheaper.

What card would you suggest? I'm in the process of putting together computer parts via Newegg, and I'll post it here as soon as I'm done.

lion149 · Jan 18, 2011

Obviously the value is to build it on your own that is common sense. That is like saying it is cheaper to fix a part on your car then take it to a mechanic.
The question you need to ask yourself is when the $1,100 PC doesn’t work as planned are you capable of getting the system to work etc. I know this may come off mean but i am just trying to prepare you before you attempt your first build.
Dell etc. make money because they guarantee their work and help you when it malfunctions. If you choose to build your own system, you stand to learn a ton and save $ in then end!

Red Love X · Jan 18, 2011

lion149 said:
Obviously the value is to build it on your own that is common sense. That is like saying it is cheaper to fix a part on your car then take it to a mechanic.
The question you need to ask yourself is when the $1,100 PC doesn’t work as planned are you capable of getting the system to work etc. I know this may come off mean but i am just trying to prepare you before you attempt your first build.
Dell etc. make money because they guarantee their work and help you when it malfunctions. If you choose to build your own system, you stand to learn a ton and save $ in then end!

No, I appreciate the honesty. I knew that I was paying a premium to have it through Dell, and I willingly paid that for a few reasons, most of which turned out to be untrue. I figure if I truly have major problems, there's some PC repair places in town that I could get answers from, and would STILL probably be cheaper to enlist their help than go Dell's way. So yes, if it breaks down, I can either troubleshoot or take it to a repair shop.

Red Love X · Jan 18, 2011

Okay, here's what I have so far. Would love feedback if I'm crazy/stuff won't work together/building too high of an end.

CPU - Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor BX80601950
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115211
Is this too much to run current (and maybe future gen) games? I saw the Sandybridge architecture, but I wasn't sure if that was anything less than overkill.

Mobo - ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131641
Again, not sure if this is necessary or not. I merely picked it up because the socket types matched, it supported Crossfire, USB 3.0, etc.

Case - Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021

OR

NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Steel / Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146067

Pretty open to all suggestions on the case, I really have no idea what I'm looking for. Both seemed to have enough room for everything as well as a decent design. Appreciate recommendations!

GPU - XFX HD-687A-ZNFC Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150506

Reviews seemed decent, supports Crossfire, DX11, at a medium-high price point. Other possibility was the 5870, and while that seemed like a very solid card, benchmarks didn't show it capable of running everything at max (or close to max) settings, which is what I'm shooting for.

PSU - CORSAIR Professional Series AX1200 1200W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 SLI Certified 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139014

OR

CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009

One is clearly more expensive than the other. It comes down to my GPU selection, and whether or not I could Crossfire two high end cards (such as the 6800 series/etc) on the 850W PSU, or whether I would need the higher end (single 12V rail using 100 Amps) selection.

Heatsink - No idea.

RAM - CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX4GX3M2A1600C9
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145260

HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black WD7502AAEX 750GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...n_digital_caviar_black-_-22-136-794-_-Product

Thoughts? Recommendations? Something crucial that I'm being an idiot over and missing? Thanks in advance!

EDIT - Also, price point not considering shipping would be around $1250 if I take the cheaper case/cheaper PSU.

Drenlin · Jan 19, 2011

-For the CPU/mobo, definitely go with Sandy Bridge. An i5 2500K would be more powerful than that i7, and cheaper as well:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

Asus's P8P67 Pro would be a good mobo to accompany it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131682

-Definitely grab something more powerful than a 6870 to accompany a CPU that beefy. A Radeon HD 6950/6970 or Geforce GTX 570/580 would be a better match by far. At least one of those should still be in budget after chopping off over $100 with the CPU/Mobo.

-Of those two cases, the Phantom is easily the better of the two. It has more room, more features, better cable management by a mile, and better airflow. The Rosewill Thor is another good full tower in the price range.

- For the power supply, if you're staying with a single video card, even the 850W is overkill. If you're adding a second one eventually, it's about right, though power could get a little tight with dual overclocked 6970's or GTX 580's.

-You could probably get some faster RAM for not much more...possibly even the same price.

Red Love X · Jan 19, 2011

Thanks! Still learning, so appreciate all the information. Few other questions:

- When looking for a mobo, what am I looking for, other than socket type to match up with my CPU?

- How do you tell a "good" case from a "bad" one?

- When comparing the i7 950 and the i5 Sandybridge 2500K, what is the difference in technology that makes it so much faster?

- If I were to install a small SSD to increase boot times, how would I tell the computer to boot from one drive and save to another?

SslagleZ28 · Jan 19, 2011

$1400 is easy to work with

Drenlin · Jan 19, 2011

Red Love X said:
Thanks! Still learning, so appreciate all the information. Few other questions:

- When looking for a mobo, what am I looking for, other than socket type to match up with my CPU?

Build quality, features, and warranty, for the most part. Asus and Gigabyte are usually the best for all three.

- How do you tell a "good" case from a "bad" one?

Look for one with plenty of fans for airflow, good cable management, and good build quality.

- When comparing the i7 950 and the i5 Sandybridge 2500K, what is the difference in technology that makes it so much faster?

I couldn't tell you what all they did, but the architecture has changed a bit. The benchmarks speak for themselves. They overclock like mad, too...with a good air cooler they can usually hit around 4.8GHz, fully stable.

- If I were to install a small SSD to increase boot times, how would I tell the computer to boot from one drive and save to another?

Whichever one you install the OS to will be the one it boots from.

2048Megabytes · Jan 19, 2011

When using a solid state drive you install your operating system on the solid state drive and install other programs on the hard disk drive. Just be sure when you are installing programs that you put them on the hard disk drive. Also, do not try to defragment any data on a solid state drive. Disk defragmenter tools are made to organize data on hard disks not on solid state drives.

The i7 950 is $295 at NewEgg right now and the faster processor the Core i5 2500K is $225 at NewEgg. Do not even bother with the i7 950.

Cheap computer cases are made of lower quality materials that can get damaged and bent out of shape easily.

2048Megabytes · Jan 19, 2011

Also, here is some good information that will help you build a computer. It has pictures that demonstrate techniques on how to be successful with your build:

http://www.computerforum.com/104641-how-build-computer-step-step-photos.html

Red Love X · Jan 19, 2011

Wow, thanks for all the answers! I've been reading/watching videos of how to build it as a refresher for the past few weeks, so I feel fairly confident with some help I could get it together. I'm actually posting on two different boards, the first being the board where I let my initial complaints to light over at Dell. Slightly confused, as I'm getting two differing pieces of input.

Here's what the person over there said:

Cons to that set up is the board is only x8 x8 not x16 x16. That is fine for one card but will hurt SLI/Crossfire. Sandybridge is dual channel but I think it will OC realy well. If you can wait for the new socket I would do that. Downside is it may not be untill the 4th qtr of this year.

How much of a hit am I taking by not having the PCI slots set to x16? Would I be able to find a mobo that supports both x16 x16 and the new Sandybridge models? There was a poster over there who was given a poor mobo that his cards were set one to x16 and one to x8, and he would get about 24 fps with two 5870s across the board. Once he fixed it to x16 x16, it jumped to respectable levels.

Other poster:

PS will likely not power a second 6970 later ... consider a Corsair 1200w PS.

i5 ? Consider i7-2600K

Wait ... even number of slots and it says dual-channel ... you can tell Sandy Bridge is definitely only targeted at mainsteam. Ok, I've now lost all interest in SB. Good thing SB-E (Z68/LGA-2011) will be here eventually.

I do plan on crossfiring at some point down the road, though it's easily 6 months to a year, unless I win the lottery. Am I likely to have problems with that 850W PSU?

Also, how "bad" is it to have dual channel memory vs triple channel?

Thanks for answering all my questions! Getting smarter every minute.

2048Megabytes · Jan 19, 2011

There is not much difference in triple channel memory versus dual channel performance. In my opinion scalable link interface (SLI) is over rated. If you have a great video card you are not going to need two video cards.

Intel's Sandy Bridge Quad-Core processors are really good in my opinion.

Drenlin · Jan 19, 2011

Red Love X said:
How much of a hit am I taking by not having the PCI slots set to x16? Would I be able to find a mobo that supports both x16 x16 and the new Sandybridge models? There was a poster over there who was given a poor mobo that his cards were set one to x16 and one to x8, and he would get about 24 fps with two 5870s across the board. Once he fixed it to x16 x16, it jumped to respectable levels.

I dunno what his problem was, but if I remember correctly, with x8/x8, it's usually no more than a 2-5% drop on average, with the most powerful cards. There are some exceptions to that, but even then I wouldn't expect you'd see more than a 10% hit...and that's a worst-case scenario.

The only place where I could see it being a big issue would be with two HD5970's, which are dual GPU cards.

I do plan on crossfiring at some point down the road, though it's easily 6 months to a year, unless I win the lottery. Am I likely to have problems with that 850W PSU?

Unless you've got everything overclocked to within an inch of its life, I doubt an 850W would give you issues. Maybe with the 950, but the 2500K is a lot more power efficient. You could go ahead and grab a 950W-1KW model if you want to play it safe, though. That would allow for capacitor aging as well. With everything OC'd, you might be able to overload the 850W once it's aged a bit.

Also, how "bad" is it to have dual channel memory vs triple channel?

It isn't. Memory bandwidth is almost never a bottleneck in the system. The only place where you'd really see an advantage would be in benchmarking, but Sandy Bridge is so much more powerful anyway that it doesn't matter.

Red Love X · Jan 19, 2011

Drenlin said:
I dunno what his problem was, but if I remember correctly, with x8/x8, it's usually no more than a 2-5% drop on average, with the most powerful cards. There are some exceptions to that, but even then I wouldn't expect you'd see more than a 10% hit...and that's a worst-case scenario.

The only place where I could see it being a big issue would be with two HD5970's, which are dual GPU cards.

Unless you've got everything overclocked to within an inch of its life, I doubt an 850W would give you issues. Maybe with the 950, but the 2500K is a lot more power efficient. You could go ahead and grab a 950W-1KW model if you want to play it safe, though. That would allow for capacitor aging as well. With everything OC'd, you might be able to overload the 850W once it's aged a bit.

It isn't. Memory bandwidth is almost never a bottleneck in the system. The only place where you'd really see an advantage would be in benchmarking, but Sandy Bridge is so much more powerful anyway that it doesn't matter.

So I'm not going to have many issues even with dual 6970s in Crossfire in a x8 x8 set up? I found two boards that have the 1155 socket type and also have two x16 x16 PCI slots. One have 4 slots, the other 2. The price on the one with 4 is $320, while the one with 2 is barely $150. Not sure if that's the whole reason for the difference in the price, but here's my findings.

Asus - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...3131687&cm_re=1155_x16-_-13-131-687-_-Product

Gigabyte - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128465

Not knowledgable enough to tell why they're so much more expensive, unless PCI slots REALLY come at a premium.

Okay, so it sounds like triple channel memory won't be worth it at this point, so I won't try and hunt down a board that supports it (not even sure they exist until 4th Quarter this year). Will probably also get the 1KW PSU, just to play it on the reallyreally safe side. I don't expect problems, but I'd hate to be limited a year down the road by what it can handle. Appreciate the input.

Thanks for the answers on the SSD! That makes a lot of sense. Any good recommendations on 1600Mhz+ dual channel RAM? I'll keep sifting through Newegg, but would accept ideas!

2048Megabytes · Jan 19, 2011

This dual-channel RAM is good quality:

G.SKILL 4 gigabytes (2 x 2 gigabytes) 240-Pin DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) RAM - $48
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...93&cm_re=ddr3_1600_4gb-_-20-231-193-_-Product

Red Love X · Jan 19, 2011

2048Megabytes said:
This dual-channel RAM is good quality:

G.SKILL 4 gigabytes (2 x 2 gigabytes) 240-Pin DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) RAM - $48
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...93&cm_re=ddr3_1600_4gb-_-20-231-193-_-Product

Thanks, that looks good, and it's a lot cheaper than what I had in mind. Should be able to get both of those for cheaper than the 1333 I was originally getting, and put out 8GBs of RAM.

Oh, and I think I figured out the difference. The cheaper card says this under the PCI slots:

1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (blue, single at x16 mode)
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (black, at x4 mode, compatible with PCI Express x1 and x4 devices)

Would assuming that if you use both slots it moves to one at x16 and one at x4 make sense? That would explain the markup on the other board.

2048Megabytes · Jan 20, 2011

In my opinion you do not need more than 4 gigabytes of RAM presently. 4096 megabytes of memory is a lot of RAM.

Red Love X · Jan 20, 2011

Okay, all the information I've gotten so far has been very helpful. I've revamped the build a little to look like this. Tell me if there's any easy way to shave some off, as I'm pushing $1450 with the more expensive PSU and $1350 with the cheaper one.

Mobo - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128465

That's the area I feel I could easily make a quick, easy, and cheap adjustment, since I'm pretty sure the premium goes for the for PCI slots for GPU additions. I'd still like to be able to crossfire x16 x16 at some point, so if someone has a suggestion, I'd appreciate it.

OD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

Case - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146068

HDD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433

GPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150517

PSU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009

OR

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139007

RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231193

CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

Anything super important I'm forgetting to add? I thought I only added quality parts, but I'm not sure.

EDIT - Or if all this together will even function.

Alienware Fiasco/Building new computer

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