Alienware. Worth it?

There are many reasons to buy a professionally built computer. Some people prefer a high end machine and others prefer the economic version to suit there minimal needs. For some of us who play video games though, the higher end personal computers are much more attractive. Whether it be the casing it is housed in or just the hardware inside, the high end machines like the Alienware ALX X58, a Falcon Northwest Mach V or the VoodooHP Blackbird are just what we need. There is one slight problem though, the cheapest one being the Blackbird cost $1,500 USD. Now, your paying for labor in these machines, but how much are you really being charged for said labor? As a forewarning, all numbers in the post are USD currency and are subject to change. Anyone looking to use these same parts should do the research themselves, as this is just a baseline.


Alienware ALX 58
The standard Alienware ALX X58 will cost you a staggering $3,699 USD. The most notable parts being the Intel® Core™ i7-940 running at 2.93 GHz with an 8MB Cache, one 1,792 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 295, and 3GB DDR3 SDRAM performing at 1600MHz. Since Dell acquired Alienware in 2006 they have been able to buy computer components in massive quantities, and rightfully so, prices have come down on these high end systems, believe it or not. The question is though, if you were to acquire all of these parts and assemble them yourself, how much would you save? Lets list them out.

"All parts are of equal performance to the ones inside said machine."

The XFX GTX 295 will run you $529.99, while the Intel Core i7-940 CPU will set you back $559.99. The set of 3 sticks of Patriot Viper SDRAM DDR3 will put you back only $79.99. Wow, so for the three main components, we've only been set back a third of the price. The ASUS Motherboard that seems to be a perfect fit cost $229.99 and the two hard drives adding up to 1TB of storage space will cost 139.98. A 1200W PSU from from Thermaltake cost $400.00, but in my opinion, this is way to much power needed for this system. Without Tri-SLI, this computer will never suck down enough power, but for the sake of being scientific, we'll go by the books and get exactly what you would with Alienware. Now funny thing here, Alienware requires you to purchase a gaming mouse and keyboard. Gone are the days when they just send you two pieces of junk and you bought your own separately. What I'm saying is, Alienware is requiring me to buy a peripheral that I haven't touched and isn't that the point of a peripheral? With the basic model of the X-58, A Logitech G-15 is included and costs about $80.00 and the RAZER Lachesis costs another $79.99. Now by this point, anyone with any knowledge of a computer is going, "What the Hell? What am I gonna put this thing in a shoebox?" Your right, but Alienware doesn't just sell there cases out to anyone. So a quick stop by eBay has them selling an Alienware P2 Full Tower(the commonly used and sold case for a ALX X-58) at $250.00. Now without tax or shipping(Alienware shows the retail price before both as well), this seriously only costs $2349.93. By ordering the parts, separately you save $1349.07, or enough to go out and buy a nice 1993 Ford Mustang with a 5 litre 8 cylinder engine, AND STILL HAVE MONEY LEFT OVER. This is a no brainer for anyone out there that doesn't have a trust fund. Go online, find a guide on how to build a computer step by step and save yourself the money.

Falcon Northwest Mach V
Falcon Northwest, known best for there amazing flash based website and rediculously cool hand painted cases, actually seem to be worth the cost. To the best of my knowledge, Falcon Northwest is privately owned, and this has drawbacks but at the same time had advantages. First, because they are privately owned, they provide better customer service, for example, they want to talk over the phone before you purchase the machine you built from their website to make sure your getting exactly what you want. There is only one drawback, as being privately owned, they can't tap into a massive pool of capital like Alienware can and buy massive amounts of part in bulk. This may, although not confirmed, drive up the price of their parts.

Now, to go over the prices again would bore you, the gist of this Machine is that it will cost you about $4,900.00, but that includes the custom paint job of your choice. Although, the case painting costs you near $1,000.00, but the main reason you buy a Falcon Northwest in my eyes is to get a custom paint job that looks bad ass that you can show off to your friends and brag about at local LAN tournaments. Obviously, you can't just order a case from them, that would hurt there sales. You end up saving about the same amount of money as you did with the Alienware and same with the VoodooHP Blackbird. It seems for these companies to stay in Business they must overcharge, which I guess is just business as usual these days.

My advice to anyone reading is to go out there, and seriously consider building your own personal computer. For myself, I did it, and I couldn't be happier. I've been using this computer I'm sitting on right now to game and I still haven't had any major problems. OK I switched to Vista, but other than that, no problems! Save yourself a ton of money if your going to purchase a high end machine and build it yourself.

Until next time, Mgrigs is signing off.

Hrm? Haomarush? Not again surely...

So some back story, as your probably wondering what I'm talking about. When I originally started playing World of Warcraft, I switched servers constantly never going over level 15 on any one server. Finally, when the group I started playing with did settle down, we decided for the server Haomarush playing on the Alliance side. I of course as I've stated before played a Warlock. Me being the fastest leveling character in the group left them in the dust and I started playing with people my level. Any who, that's a walk down memory lane that I should discuss later with you. To the original point, after the server basically died because the best guild, and the second best alliance guild (i.e. the guild I was a CoGM) transferred off the server to Kil'Jaeden and Black Dragonflight respectively. Hence the "Not again surely..." But this is different this time, I'm sure of it. I know, your wondering how can going back to the server you despised be different. It's because I'm ditching Stormwind and going to Orgrimmar. Yep, I've rolled horde.



Why you might ask? Simply for the fact that I have good old fashioned hordie friends who still play on Hao, and real life friends and family have recently transferred there. Finally, I'm shedding the loneliness of a Warlock on some random server. Yes, I'm leaving behind some good friends on Black Dragonflight, but even they have recently started rolling horde on different servers. Anyways, he next few blogs I'll be posting are going to be about leveling as horde, and playing through the different content that is has to offer. So enough blabbing, lets get some good old fashioned reactions to the zones I've played in so far.

Tirisfal Glades

So for those that don't know The Glades is the starting zone for Undead. I hit level 6 and went off to Brill. As I arrived, a ton of question marks were popping up all over my minimap. But I didn't stop, I was on a mission to hit up Durotar. It's not just me who really dislikes the darkness of the zone. Also, Durotar is a much easier zone to quest in and lessens the travel to the Barrens.

Durotar

Home of Orgrimmar and starting zone for the Trolls and Orcs. I skipped going to Org and went straight to Razer Hill, but when I got there I realized I only had one yellow quest to do. How could this be?! Well I then realized that I would have to head down to Sen'Jin village. Durotar in my opinion other than Eversong Woods might be the best starting questing zone. The quests are relativity bunched together and the mobs aren't too difficult to take down. The barren look it has is such a contrast from the lush forests of Elwynn and the snowy plains of Dun Morogh. I must admit, I do like the Alliance starting zones better, but Durotar isn't far behind.

The Barrens



Ahhhh! The dreaded Barrens general chat... Actually seeming as how Wrath of the Lich King has come out and Ulduar just released, not many people are leveling. It's quite nice, no respawn timers, no craptastic Chuck Norris jokes, no terribad your mom jokes either. As for the quest, Crossroads is filled with them and most of them consist of go kill X for X amount of items. The mobs are easy to kill and the rewarded amount of experience seems to be worth doing them. Being a longtime player, as you and I expected these zones won't give me a problem, but as I progress into the more advanced content of the 30's and 40's I'm quite excited to see how it differs from the Alliance content.

So, as I was running out of easy quests to do at the Crossroads I decided to head over to Ratchet to see what was up at the Goblin HQ of The Barrens. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the quests were just as easy here. I'm beginning to wonder how the Horde "noobs" at 70/80 kicked the Alliance "noobs" ass at bg's. It's quite obvious to me now that they don't get any special training at the low levels. Maybe Orcs just have some sense of battle or maybe its the goddamn racials they had when the best one we had was 5 expertise to swords! Sidetracked again... Well, that about sums up what I've been able to do in my side time.

Keep checking back for my next update! Mgrigs signing off.