I am getting ready to get a new (gaming) desktop and thinking of just getting a prebuilt. I have built systems in the past with friends help and such but the convenience of having it already built is nice. I know it can cost extra but it also makes it easier than having to make sure all the coponenants are compatible, all the drivers are updateds…and such. So I was just considering going for a nice prebuilt.
Any recomendations or opinions? Or mabe even some good guides on building a nice system step-by-step with specific coponent suggestions so I would know they are completely compatibly?
I was checking out alienware desktops and might go with one of those but not sure yet.
I’m building one just like alienware’s SFF PC. Check it out and if you like it all post up the components I’m buying along with pics. It’s not going to cost anywhere close to 2k. However, I already own all the software I want/need so I don’t know if you already have that.
building it yourself, or getting a friend to help, is so much better. i would think an hour’s worth of work is worth saving a few hundred, maybe even a 1000 bucks.
Well after much debating, I think I am just going to buy a prebuilt. Most likely an alienware 5550 . Looks like it will be right around 2k which is about my budget for one.
I know I will be wasting some money buy paying for overpriced caponents but I am just too lazy to do it on my own and I really like the idea of just ordering one and having it show up ready to go with no compatibility issues.
Anyone have any experience with alienwares?
I just ended up ordering a dell 2005fpw since I have been wanting to get an lcd for a while now. It got pretty decent review and you can find pretty good coupon codes often.
[quote author=“antman22”]i have the dell 2005fpw. absolutly gorgeous. although, you might of wanted to wait for the 2450fpw(i think its called)....
im totally happy with the 2005 tho, no dead pixels,really bright, no ghosting or anything. its a quality screen.
Awesome! Everyone that I have seen that got one has been happy with it. And yeah that 2450 is damn nice…but way out of my monitor budget lol.
Right now I have a 21” crt…it the hieght of the 2005 very short? I’m not sure how much I will like having a “smaller” screen even if there is more desktop space. ...and can’t wait to play HalfLife 2 in widescreen 😊 (though I will of course have to wait until I get the new system heheh).
i certainly dont mind the slightly less vertical space. i dont notice it at all actually.
hl2 on this monitor is amazing.
im still getting used to having this much space tho, haha. it weird being able to have firefox open on one half while still have messaging windows on the right.
lol yeah, I am going to love having all that extra space. I am always right clicking and “open in new window” when I open up threads lol. It’s a bad habbit but I’m just used to it. Guess I should just use firefox lol.
So how much is the vertical space limited or compared? Like compared to a sheet of 8.5” by 11” standing vertical? My 21” fits the “11 with about an inch more to go. If the 2005 isn’t too much shorter then I don’t think I will mind the difference much.
its pretty much fits a whole sheet of paper vertically. so it sounds like you lose about an inch of space vertically.
if the vertical space bothers you that much, just rotate the screen 😊
oh ya, make sure you update the drivers on your video card to make sure you can handle the odd resolution and the screen rotation option.
oh ok good, that’s not too bad. I was thinking it might be a lot less tall.
And honestly, I am not sure if I will even be able to run the monitor at full res until I get the new machine. Right now I am using a vanilla geforce 3 :/
got the monitor yesterday and am LOVING it! The one inch or so loss in virticle space isn’t really that noticable and I love the widescreen space. As far as I can tell I don’t have any dead pixels…though there ‘might’ be some backlighting but I am not really sure how to tell since it isn’t obvious.
And although it is working at full res on my current system, it does lag some lol. It really really wants a new system heheh.
Great monitor though and although I am sure I would have liked the 2001 or 1901s just fine, I am glad I went with the wide screen. Can’t wait to see halflife2 in widescreen on this baby lol.
just as an update, I ended up going with an alienware. Here are the specs:
[1] Area-51? 5550
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support with Onsite Service
Operating System: Microsoft? Windows? XP Professional with Service Pack 2
AlienRespawn: Alienware? Respawn Recovery Kit
Chassis: Alienware? Full-Tower Case (480-Watt PS) - Saucer Silver
Cable Management: Alienware? Cable Management System
Power Supply: Alienware? 480 Watt Power Supply
Processor: Intel? Pentium? 4 Processor 650 w/ HT Technology 3.4GHz 2MB Cache
Motherboard: Alienware? PCI Express Motherboard with Intel? 925XE Chipset 1066/800MHz FSB
Memory: 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz - 2 x 512MB
Graphics Processor: NVIDIA? GeForce? 6800 Ultra PCI Express 256MB DDR3 w/Dual Digital and TV Out
Chassis Upgrades: AlienIce? 2.0 Video Cooling System - Astral Blue
System Drive: Extreme Performance - Serial ATA RAID 0 - 500GB (250GB x 2) Serial ATA 7,200 RPM w/16MB Cache
Optical Drive One: NEC? ND-3520 16x Dual Layer DVD?R/W Drive
Floppy Drive: 3.5” 1.44 MB Floppy Disk Drive - Black
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster? Audigy? 2 ZS High Definition 7.1 Surround Firewire (IEEE? 1394)
Network Connection: Integrated High Performance Gigabit Ethernet
Display One: No Monitor
Display Two: 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
Free Alienware T-Shirt: Free Alienware? T-Shirt - Black
Free Alienware Mousepad: Free Alienware? Mousepad
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!
SubTotal: $2,968.00
Shipping: $99.00
Discount: $500.00
Tax: .00
Order Total: $2,567.00
-$99 shipping mail in rebate
-$$$ from Offer Centric for a few sites completed
= priceless 😊. (or basicly free in other words)
and antman22, you were right. With the new system I was finally able to play HL2 and it does look damn nice in widescreen 😊. So many games to catch up on now lol. Gotta hurry before this thing is out-dated heheh.
wowza, that’s a lotta dough to throw down for a computer. im sure it runs pretty smooth though. enjoy your purchase 😊 and yea, unfortunately, its gonna be obselete in the next 5 minutes, technology is a bitch like that.
isn’t dual core coming out sometime soon? dual core w/ht= fast. maybe you should of waited scylint, lol. jk jk. 😛
[quote author=“antman22”]wowza, that’s a lotta dough to throw down for a computer. im sure it runs pretty smooth though. enjoy your purchase 😊 and yea, unfortunately, its gonna be obselete in the next 5 minutes, technology is a bitch like that.
isn’t dual core coming out sometime soon? dual core w/ht= fast. maybe you should of waited scylint, lol. jk jk. 😛
That system will be top of the line for 3 months and high-end for at least a year. Next year it will be mid range and the next year, BUY A NEW ONE!!!
Alienware is working with Intel to work out a deal to get those new chips on their PCs.
Scylint, that’s an awesome system. Unfortunately, it will be out-dated in the next coming weeks. :( It’s ok though, the whole point is that you like it and works like a dream now. 😊
Alienware, a maker of high-performance PCs, on Thursday announced a breed of desktop and workstation computers with Intel?s forthcoming dual-core microprocessors. Surprisingly, the company positions its computers with dual-core chips for gaming.
?The Alienware Area-51 5500 desktop, Area-51 ALX desktop, and MJ-12 5500 workstation will come loaded with the highly advanced power of two execution cores on a single chip to deliver breakthrough performance for gaming, digital content, and other demanding applications,? the company said in a statement.
Alienware?s Area-51 and ALX desktop series are generally designed for hardcore gamers and professionals, especially designers, who create various digital content. Previously Alienware supplied its ALX-series computers with overclocked processors and with premium configuration that included top-of-the-range graphics cards, fast HDDs and a lot of memory.
The MJ-12 5500 workstations from Alienware come equipped with professional graphics cards from 3Dlabs, ATI Technologies or NVIDIA Corp., professional displays from Viewsonic as well as Intel Pentium 4, Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron processors.
Having two processing engines instead of one Intel Pentium D and Intel Pentium Extreme Edition processors will be capable of running many applications at the same time more efficiently than the Pentium 4, but the latter is likely to have advantage over the former in single-threaded apps, primarily games, because of higher clock-speeds, as the first dual-core microprocessors from Intel Corp. will work at 2.80 ? 3.20GHz speeds, much lower compared to 3.80GHz of single-core processors. Digital content creation (DCC), primarily 3D rendering, software is likely to get the most significant performance increase because of dual-core chips over single-core chips.
Intel?s first dual-core processor that is expected to be formally introduced shortly and become available in May is Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840 which runs at 3.20GHz, features the Hyper-Threading technology, which allows it to execute up to 4 threads in parallel, uses 800MHz processor system bus, integrate 2MB (1MB per core) L2 cache and utilizes LGA775 form-factor. Later during the year Intel Corp. will introduce dual-core Intel Pentium D processors that operate at 2.80GHz, 3.00GHz and 3.20GHz and do not feature Hyper-Threading capability. All desktop dual-core chips are expected to sport EM64T, Virtualization, XD bit as well as Enhanced Intel SpeedStep technologies. The volume of Intel’s dual-core chips will not, according to a company’s official, be significant in 2005, but is expected to be enough to meet the demand.
Precise date of dual-core processors-based computers from Alienware and their pricing is unclear.
Dell and Velocity Micro also proclaimed plans to ship systems with dual-core processors.
Personally, i like AMD. So if i were to buy a computer, id get one with an AMD chip in it. I have owned a pentium, celeron, and Athlon. I have to say the Athlon has brought me the greatest joy.
