Changed my order from m15x to m11x + Aurora ALX (it's gonna be a BEAST!!)

Tragically my grandmother passed away (god rest her soul) and left me with quite a few things. Her wish was for me to graduate college that was one of the last things she said to me. I will miss her. I was left a sizeable amount of money and I no longer have to get an m15x alone and have that try to serve my portable and stationary needs. I can now do it properly. I will have to send the m15x back when it gets here and then I will get my new order in production.

M11x
-Soft Touch Black
-Core i7-640um
-Windows 7 Ultimate x64
-3 year basic warranty (will be replaced with something new by that time)
-4GB Ram
-500GB HDD (replaced by 256GB realssd c300, 500GB drive to upgrade PS3 HDD)
-Bluetooth
-No external drive purchased already own a 24x External dvd+/-R DL burner

After EPP and coupons I'm lookin at about 1400 after tax excluding the SSD. Sure this wont play hardcore intense games and full settings but since I will only be playing at its native rez when I use it it should do fine for 95% of the stuff out there.

Aurora ALX
I chose the Aurora ALX because the Area 51 ALX is such a higher price for almost the same hardware just more bays and more room for even more stuff that will just stay empty. It also weighs alot more and takes up alot more room. The Aurora ALX has plenty of room for upgrades even though its a smaller tower. The area 51 just has a ridiculous amount of expansion that most sane people will never use. Configured as follows:
-875 watt cosmic black
- Core i7 960 Quad (3.2GHz, 8MB Cache) (Will be overclocking that 3.2ghz to over 4.0ghz hopefully gogo cpu liquid cooling)
-Windows 7 Ultimate x64
-4 year basic warranty (CC extends to 5 years)
-Single 2GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon HD 5970 (this card will be a fun project over the years ie: liquid cooling it and really pushing it to the max)
-6GB Ram (Lowest from Alienware will be getting low latency high performance ram undecided on brand Any suggestions???)
-Primary Drive (OS, apps, games) 250GB OCZ Colossus 3.5" drive (Insanely fast 250GB more then enough for all my programs)
-Storage Drives 2x2TB 7.2k RAID 1 2TB total space mirror protected
-19in1 card reader
-Single optical drive 24x cd/dvd burner (will add a bluray burner if discs ever come down)
-Integrated 7.1 sound (Have Auzentech X-Meridian top tier card already)
-USB 3.0 controller
-Killer Xeno Pro Enhanced NIC
-No Monitor
-Wireless logitech keyboard MX 5500
-Logitech performance MX mouse (already own one this brand new 1 will be for sale)
-No wireless receiver will be wired 1gbit ethernet through killer xeno pro NIC
-Internal bluetooth

Total price after epp and coupons will be about 4,150 dollars after tax excluding the SSD drive

I am expecting this desktop to last me many many many years. I am sure I will get at least 6 years of good use maybe even up to 10. I've been using a pentium 4 extreme 4.0 ghz geforce 6800 gt desktop for like 6 years and its goin strong still just the graphics card cant handle alot but the ati 5970 is gonna be a beast for a long while. And later down the road I will add liquid cooling to it since alienware only liquid cools the CPU. Liquid cooling the 5970 and heavily overclocking it will extend the life of this system even more. I strongly believe even in 10 years a liquid cooled high oc'd 5970 will be able to play every game might have to take the res down or the detail settings down on a some of the new games 10 years from now.

It's a little crazy spending 4 grand on a desktop but I've always wanted to have the best in portability on the road and the best in power at home. Now I finally get to achieve that and even though it's a sad time my grandmother is gone. I can atleast have something to be very happy about and I will use this computer to type all my papers that make my grandma's last wish for me true

 

Does it really make sense to spend $4,000 of your grandmother's money on computers? Wouldn't it make more sense to buy something that will last, and won't ever become obsolete?

You can always get another $4,000 to buy computer hardware. You can't get another gift from your grandmother.

 

I have other things she left me to remember her by. A really cool stamp collection, an old school record player, and old inauguration pins of presidents collection, and her watch. And I'm not spending all the money she left me. A lot of it is gonna pay off some of my tuition

 

To be honest. I only recommend buying alienware products that are notebooks. Desktops are very overpriced and can be made with the same specs for at least $2,000 less.

 

they look cool and are built all nice and neatly. If I built it myself it would look ghetto. Tangles web of wires. Crap airflow cause wires everywhere. I'm not good building desktops they get messy, just aint my thing. I dont think it's that badly over priced considering the liquid cooling the special controlled vents that open up when more air needed. Efficient cable management to maximize airflow. Everything nice and neat and in its place. The really nice looking design and colorchanging fx lights. Premium fans.
and its about 3800 now cause i'm gonna do the ram myself with some performance low latency ram. and you gotta take into account the 4 year + 1 year from cc warranty that i wont get with my own build

 

I'll second that.

 

10 years ago this November the Pentium 4 came out at 1.4ghz. Crysis's minimum requirement for a P4 processor is 2.8ghz--double that speed. Even still, the CPU isn't the biggest problem; having a video card that supports game APIs like DirectX and OpenGL is. Crysis needs DirectX 9.0c, which didn't come out until 2004. Crysis itself came out in 2007--meaning any computer with a video card three years old or older couldn't play it. It is a very nice system, but computers become obsolete faster than you're thinking when it comes to gaming.

I'm not saying don't spend the money because I bet your grandma would want you to enjoy it. I just don't think you should go into it with false hopes.

 

Desktop is way over priced buddy. I'd take the suggestion and only buy a laptop, and build a desktop on your own.

 

I would also recommend building your own desktop, much more fun, and cost effective. Youc an spec however you want which is over course a good thing.

 

nah i like the ALX i could never build one as clean as that. I wouldnt have a 5 year warranty on it. I wouldnt have liquid cooling or automatic vents that open up. my cables would look ugly. Stuff would be all ghetto rigged. screw that. anything messes up i dont have to deal with it dell does.

 

holy you're insane to spend $4,000 on a desktop from dell.

if i had that kind of money to blow, i'd go with a real gaming boutique like a falcon northwest fragbox or something.

 

A really nice case like that + 875 watt psu + rly nice mobo + 2x 2TB HDD + 12GB ram + killer xeno pro NIC + radeon 5970 + i7 960 + cpu liquid cooling + no 5 year warranty + anything goes wrong you have to fix it yourself + no cool alien fx lighting + no automatic top opening vents + no airflow optimized cable system + USB 3.0 controller + internal bluetooth + card reader + win 7 ultimate + optical drive + all mounts

When you factor it all building it yourself may be a bit cheaper but then you are responsible for everything working. For all the drivers. No 5 year warranty over everything. No techs to come fix the stuff. You got to do all the labor yourself

 

and what about the laptop. It's gonna be cream of the crop in portability i dunno why so many people hatin. I've always wanted an alienware desktop/laptop combo it's like my dream system to have an awesome alienware desktop for home power and an awesome portable laptop for on the road power. It's the best combo in the world imo and it makes me hella happy. Not really asking for other suggestions as this is my dream. I'm finally able to afford it. Why wouldnt I get something I've wanted for like almost a decade

 

Get the laptop, build the desktop. If you're willing to spend the time on cable management and get a case with support for good cable management, it will be much better money spent. System 1 in my sig was about 1,000 cheaper than that ALX desktop, and it's faster. Alienware's liquid cooling is subpar, anyway. A self built swiftech loop or a Boreas loop from Coolit is so much better.

 

Why make the post if you don't any suggestions?

 

rather go for the 5870's...5970 is like overkill..

 

Bro, seriously and honestly, skip the desktop. The water cooling and looks have you fooled. First off, the water cooling installed in these AW desktops is not true water cooling. A similar unit, the Corsair H50, can be had for a little under $70 retail. That is what's going into your system, not a full function loop with performance radiators. The top cooling vents? The total lack of front and side fan intakes? Worthless. Performance over looks. Even better if you find performance with looks. Unfortunately the AW has none. You will not be able to OC any component much with their water cooling before it hits it's thermal threshold and crash out on you. Similarly the looks that have you hooked on will cause you more trouble than good. Thankfully you'll have your 5 year warranty, you're gonna need it.

I built a desktop that cost me $3k give or take a few hundred.

E8400 @ 4.5HGz
SLI GTX 275 OCed to beyond GTX 285 specs
4GB (not useless 8GB or 12GB) 1600 DDR3
Corsair HX850 PSU
3 high quality radiators
Etc Etc.

My vantage on High Setting is H18575, this beats out a lot of i7 and DX11 rigs out there, and will probably beat out yours in gaming performance.

Number of problems in the first year? 0

Looks? Well, it's work in progress but it certainly looks nicer than the ALX.



Save your 1K for something worth spending on.

 

Oof that looks really good, Villosa! You kids today don't know how easy you have it without wide IDE cables and with boxes that come with a window so you don't have to take a dremel to the case and screw on some lexan...all the while wheeling the computer cart up hill both ways to and from, uhh, Best Buy to get that heatsink compound you forgot to put in your CDW order

 

The parts that you buy are covered by a warranty anyway aren't they?

 

Thought I would drop in and give my 2 cents. First off, shame on everyone in this thread for crapping on your parade. While it is true you could save money building it yourself, there is really something to be said for getting a computer with warranty prebuilt and perfect from the factory. This is the same kinda thing as buying a new car, sure I lose $5000 by driving it off the lot, but I OWN A NEW CAR. There are people who always buy used, always buy closeout, only buy what is on sale. Then there are people who walk in and want this color and these features and this car and are willing to pay the extra money to have what they want and not just get whatever happens to be cheapest.

I have always built my own computer, but there are times when I am tinkering with it or something goes wrong when I think "Man, it would be worth the cash to not screw with this!". It is also hard to put a value on a warranty and the peace of mind of knowing you push the button and have a computer for the next X years. There are also lots of little issues that will pop-up with building it yourself. You might find yourself messing with it every once in a while to get things right and that can get annoying.

With all that said, if you wanna spend that kinda cash on a pre-built I HIGHLY recommend something like: Product Configurator - Reactor X

I recently built my own submersion PC, and man, I doubt I will ever go back to air cooled or water cooled. However, building your own submersion computer is not something an average joe can do, so since you wanna buy a prebuilt and have the cash, grab something you could never build yourself. Plus, you wanna talk about overclocking and performance? You can buy cheaper parts on a submersion PC and overclock them to the moon. It is very similar to having a Vapochill back in the day (7ghz on a pentium 4).

Anyway, I would encourage you to give a Submersion PC some thought while you can still cancel, you have already made it clear you don't want to build your own, and if you decide to stick with your Alienware I am sure you will love it and get many many years of use out of it.

 

imo it would be more cost efficient to spend like 1k on a desktop which will play everything for the next 2 years, and buy another 1k desktop then (or even hold out for 3 - 4 years)
This way you will have hardware that will not be obsolute after 5+ years which will happen no matter what.
Also, you said you want the newest of the newest. Guess whats gonna happen after 1 or 2 years when new hardware will be released? Exactly...you will want that new hardware instead of the things you use at the moment.
Try to be realistic, no pc wil last you 10 years. Even half of that is an overstretch, especialy if you like new things like yourself.

Basicly, wether it will be caused by outdated hardware or your never ending 'wanting' for new hardware, you will grow tired of your desktop a lot faster than you expect. Aside from that, your budget is something which some people wouldn't even spend on a car.

(Here in Belgium you can get a decent car starting from 2000€ that will get you were you need to be, without falling apart, and even with nice accesoires like airconditioning. Why would one ever pay tenfold just to have it new and shiny? A decently maintained second hand car can last you 5-8 years just as easily, and it won't hurt that much when you wreck it, or when a newer model will be released.) You can do soooo many things with money, and once you start working to save up for a house you'll start to value every grand you get.

 

Lets move the desktop discussion to here please:

Alienware Forums - Alienware Desktop Computer Forums and PC Discussions

Feel free to continue discussing his M11x specs...

Thanks.

 

my take is quite straight forward. technology move really fast these days unlike the pentium 4 age. in very short of 3-6mths you will likely notice something out there that is better than what you have. especially desktops since they are upgradable easily. so imo depending on how much you think you want or capable of spending. first get a notebook that suits you needs. this is one important thing as many ppl these days just buy things and not knowing even if what they buy is really what they want then end up ing over small little things since they can never see the good side of things as what they have is not suppose to be something they are suppose to begin with. opinion from other owners can be useful just to let you know more before buying but not entirely a decision that you should take. so just get what you think is really what you want. remember notebooks in most cases is quite limited in upgrades. unless you are someone who can change notebook every 3mthss then well you can get anything you want then. for desktop just buy something that is sufficient. they obsolete too fast. your "most powerful"wont last as long as you think it will. but all in all its your money. do what you think best for you since mine is just another opinion. there is no right or wrong to such.

just something personal to share. i stop buying or even upgrading my desktop for a long time. the last time i change was 8800gtx. think thats long enuf. but my life just change a lot as of late. i no longer have so much time seating around with my desktop and thus i decided to go with just a laptop that can fulfill my needs. previously had a 14"laptop wiuth c2d p8700 2.53 and gt130m, 4gb ddr3. quite decent decent laptop allow me to do my work, encode my video fast and play some decent games. its obvious that this is not much powerful than my desktop but since i am more to mobile i just live with it. more over my dream is to get a laptop that can easily let me carry along while able to execute most of what i want i'll be happy. my previous notebook does almost all except the battery suck and even for a 14"with just 2.1kg i find it quite bulky to carry along at most time. at work i am working with laptop everyday. i use a 13"" dell e4300 at work and i have to carry it everyday to and back from work. so i am just so tired if on other occasions that i want to bring my own laptop for something personal and its big and bulky or heavy. until m11x came along. this is really what i want. something small enuf yet powerful enuf to run what i need. i went straight to it. havent regretted anything. its replacing all my stuffs. to ppl it may sound silly but thats what i need. i dont need a super big screen. i dont need a super computer that super desktop that i can go brag to ppl everyday how much my 3dmark score is. i just needed something portable that i can use be it at home or outside yet decent in what i throw at it. i am happy.

btw i used to feel the keyboard too small on m11x. but over days after using i am starting the system more. this baby is far from perfect since there are still issues hanging out there waiting to be resolve if it ever will. but most importantly it does me more good than bad. i cant ask for more

 

Wow, I didn't know about submersion pcs.. Uh, any manuals on how to make one??? (sorry off topic, i was kinda interested.)

@laststop311 - I am deeply sorry for your loss. And I am sure that your grandmother only wants you to be happy.

 

Absolutely right. When you buy a pre-made system, you're paying for warranty and support. If anything goes wrong, you just make a phone call, and a tech comes over to fix it.

If you build your own system, you need to troubleshoot it yourself, and RMA your own parts to the part manufacturer. Troubleshooting can be a time-consuming pain in the butt. RMA'ing your part and waiting 2-3 weeks for it to come back is a pain in the butt. Some people love to troubleshoot (me included). Other people don't have the patience for providing their own support, and are willing to pay not to deal with that whole mess.

 

Sorry about your grandma. Congrats on the m11x. I wont comment on the desktop, other than to say if you wanna drop that kind of cash on a prebuilt listen to YodaGoneMad and get something like that.

 

I personally believe in the want for both an Alienware supreme desktop, and mobile gaming. I personally would just get an M17X with maxed out specs. But at any rate, if you are going to go with the desktop+gaming netbook, then go with a desktop other than Alienware, Falcon make A+ desktops. M11x is a good thing to go with, just look around for different companies for desktops, because frankly everyone knows the desktops are the main reason as to what have given Alienware their bad name in overpricing.

 

The most simple versions are a computer in a fish tank doused in mineral oil. You can see an example here: Mineral Oil Submerged Computer; Our Most Popular Custom PC

That website also tells how to build one and I think they even sell kits.

However, the more evolved version is to build one in a sealed case, putting it in a fish tank you get oil wicking up the wires, dust gets in the oil making it cloudy, water can get in and will pool at the bottom of the case, etc etc. With all that said, the Pudget systems people have had several rigs running for several years on their setup and they still have it working great. They also have a V2 that solves most of the problems and looks quite awesome, supposedly they are also coming with a V3.

The one I built was more along the lines of: Strip Out The Fans, Add 8 Gallons of Cooking Oil : Dousing Your Athlon FX-55 With Eight Gallons Of Cooking Oil?

The main difference being I used mineral oil rather than cooking oil. Other than that I just made a laser cut acrylic case, put it all together and made sure it was sealed with the top closed. Then put all the parts in, seal the top, and voila. That is a simplified story, but you get the idea. I actually ended up putting my submersion computer in a minifridge, since all the components are in oil and the case is vacuum sealed there is no condensation inside the case, thus the fridge keeps the whole rig cool, and my Mt.Dew goes in the door.

Anyway, submersion PCs are really very awesome, super unique, and for a good one like the Reactor they are not at all easy to build yourself. If I was in the market for a 4K+ pre-built I would buy one of those Reactor computers.

 

Wow, that desktop is such a waste of money, but hey if you want it do you buddy....Same build including monitor and accessories could run you half that..consider building your own rig. Each individual part will have at least a 2 yr warranty and you can overclock like hell if you want without worrying about voiding.