Dell's Quest For Gaming Cool 126
Slate is running a piece looking at Dell's attempt to grab gamer customers via their acquisition of the Alienware brand. From the article: "Gamers want powerful computers, of course, but they also want stylish systems made by a company that they believe understands them. Dell's XPS line of machines certainly provides the requisite power. The PC giant's market clout earns it premium relationships with component-makers like ATI, Intel, and nVidia, often allowing it to be first to market with the hottest technologies. But devoted gamers have still stayed away from Dell. Halo obsessives are not IT managers: They ogle expensive, flashy machines ... and they buy expensive, flashy machines. That's where Alienware comes in."
Main Distinction (Score:5, Informative)
Here at work we purchase Dell laptops for our sales force and the first thing we always do after receiving the machine is to reload the windows disk, but not the auxillary software.
Crufty software doesn't belong on work machines let alone a gaming system. Some of the software bundled could even be considered offensive to gamers looking for high performance computers. Why not bundle software that is relevant to your target customers (i.e. quickbooks isn't it).
Re:Feh, premade machines... (Score:5, Informative)
In the last week, Dell has been selling QUALITY machines for prices that you can't beat by putting together the components from mail-order-madness from PriceWatch. At the low end, you could spend $370 and get a "basic" machine with a 19" LCD and a licensed copy of Windows. After that, the "basic" computer is free. $1000 machines have been 40% off for weeks, with stackable coupons, free shipping, free 19" flat panels...you're paying $600 for a solid machine, great monitor, licensed software, home delivery, and A YEAR OF ON-SITE SERVICE.
The answer to most people is, in fact, Dude, you're getting a Dell. [And you're getting it at a good price, with solid features.]
Some stuff is Dell specific (Score:5, Informative)
1. Power supply. The Dell (at least Optiplex and Dimensions I've used) power supply is not standard. You cannot mount an off the shelf power supply because the power cord connector will be blocked by the Dell case.
2. Case connector. The connector that attaches to the motherboard for power switch, reset, speaker etc. is in one solid block which plugs directly into the motherboard. Now the ordering of connectors on the block will not plug into an off the shelf motherboard. So you are generally out of luck if you want to use a non-Dell motherboard with a Dell case. You CAN cut the block off and rewire seperate connectors to allow connection to a different motherboard, but it's hardly worth the effort.
3. Fan. The fan connector that plugs into the motherboard is not standard. Replacing the fan with an off the shelf generic one will not let you connect the fan connector to the Dell motherboard. This means that the Dell bios will think the fan has failed.
Small things, but things that mean replacing a cheap part (power supply, fan) will not be as simple as going to the store. Also a major upgrade such as a motherboard swap is more of a pain than it should be.
You are correct in that add in boards and drives are not proprietary but you may find that Dell skimps in some ways on their motherboards. For example, the mid range Optiplex computers have no AGP slot and no PCI Express X16 slot. So no way you can add in a video card, you are stuck with onboard. Also most Dell desktops have only 2 DIMM slots compared to 3 or 4 on most standard motherboards. You also will need to pay a bit more if you want to get say 1 512MB DIMM versus 2 256MB DIMMS - in order to leave a slot open for future expansion.
I have no problem will Dell's in the business environment. At least their business sales and support is excellent. As a home gaming system, there are much better (and cheaper) options.
Re:Dell Support Sucks (Score:4, Informative)
From what I hear their standard support sucks ass. I guess it's a "you get what you pay for" situation.
Only one problem with Dell's Gaming Computers (Score:5, Informative)
From a harocp article a few months ago, the Dell XPS 400 gamers rig wont run Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Quake 4, or The Sims 2 because of conflicts with the bloatware.
After reading their out of the box experiences, and add in their additional customer support ordeal trying to remove the bloat, I think I will be staying away from dell and alienware for gaming purposes.
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=OTI0LDEsLG hlbnRodXNpYXN0/ [hardocp.com]
Re:Some stuff is Dell specific (Score:3, Informative)
1. Power supply. The Dell (at least Optiplex and Dimensions I've used) power supply is not standard. You cannot mount an off the shelf power supply because the power cord connector will be blocked by the Dell case.
For starters, http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/dellconverter. html [endpcnoise.com] fixes the pinout problem. PC Power and Cooling and a number of other manufacturers also make native dell power supplies. For space concerns, ok, you'll have to get a dell or dell-style replacement, but... it's not a blocking issue. My local tiwanese-run bars-on-the-windows PC store sells 'em.
2. Case connector. The connector that attaches to the motherboard for power switch, reset, speaker etc. is in one solid block which plugs directly into the motherboard. Now the ordering of connectors on the block will not plug into an off the shelf motherboard. So you are generally out of luck if you want to use a non-Dell motherboard with a Dell case. You CAN cut the block off and rewire seperate connectors to allow connection to a different motherboard, but it's hardly worth the effort.
Agreed. But, that means that the dell case / motherboard are mated. It's not the end of the world. If the motherboard dies, throw the case away with it - you're down what, $40 these days? If the case dies... whatever, get a real case, put the dell mobo in it, and pin it out. Read the PCB.
3. Fan. The fan connector that plugs into the motherboard is not standard. Replacing the fan with an off the shelf generic one will not let you connect the fan connector to the Dell motherboard. This means that the Dell bios will think the fan has failed.
F1 -> halt on... -> no errors. Plug fan into molex connector.
You are correct in that add in boards and drives are not proprietary but you may find that Dell skimps in some ways on their motherboards. For example, the mid range Optiplex computers have no AGP slot and no PCI Express X16 slot. So no way you can add in a video card, you are stuck with onboard. Also most Dell desktops have only 2 DIMM slots compared to 3 or 4 on most standard motherboards. You also will need to pay a bit more if you want to get say 1 512MB DIMM versus 2 256MB DIMMS - in order to leave a slot open for future expansion.
You are comparing machines with vastly different purposes. This [newegg.com] is probably better than the quality of motherboard you'd get in a standard dell cheapie business machine. Granted the one in the link has a PCI-E x16 slot, but it does only have 2 ram slots. Business people don't upgrade their graphics card. Those machines are the kind we buy for our computer labs here at VT - we need a fast processor, a good bit of ram, and then anything that will display 1280x1024 - 3D not required. And we buy 100 of them, plus monitors, at a time. Onboard graphics are great because they save money in these circumstances.
The high end motherboards you're talking about - ones with one, or even two, PCI-E slots and 4 ram slots - have you priced them lately? What's an SLI motherboard run? At least $115, and upwards of $160 to $200 if you want a good one or really good one. By comparison, that motherboard I linked to was made by intel, has onboard lan/audio/video/sata and only costs $65.
When dell makes a gaming machine (XPS or what have you), they use a motherboard with two PCI-E x16 slots and 3 or 4 ram slots. Dell is actually one of the only OEMs with advance access to motherboards which have FOUR x16 slots, and can do quad-sli.
So, in short, I'm not sure what you want them to be. You say their business support is fantastic, but then you say there are cheaper gaming PC's out there. Well... some gaming PC's suck, dell's high end ones don't. And Dell's high end gaming PC's come with the same support their shitty business PC's come with, which has to be paid from somewhere.
Re:Main Distinction (Score:2, Informative)
Not that I'm saying I agree with it, and yes, the first thing I do when I get a new machine is wipe it completely and re-install the OS -- just a little bit more info.
Re:Some stuff is Dell specific (Score:3, Informative)
In fact, after replying to your comment, I went to spec out a system.
Dell:
Pentium 930 (Dual Core 3.0 Ghz) + motherboard
XP home
Dual GeForce 6800 in SLI
2 GB DDR-2 533
160GB HDD
DVD-Rom/CD-RW
20 inch LCD
Sound Blaster X-Fi
Keyboard/Mouse
----------
$2,379
Configured at Newegg:
Antec P-180 Case
Intel 930 Dual core 3.0
Abit Ni8-SLI mobo
2GB Corsair valuram
2x Geforce 6800
windows XP Home
CD-RW/DVD
160 GB DiamondMax HDD
Samsung 20 inch LCD
Creative X-Fi
Keyboard/Mouse
-----------------
$1,985
Total Savings: $394, or 16%. BUT, now you've got to assemble the damn thing, install the OS, and support it for a year out of your own pocket (or deal with Abit's RMA service... shudder). It's only cheaper if your time is worth nothing.
So, you're paying $400 for the name, the assembly, and the support. For a $2400 computer, that's really not that bad.
~Will