New Alienware PC an Overpriced Underperformer

Steve Kerrison writes "Alienware has jumped on board the Core 2 bandwagon and rightfully so, but their new Area-51 7500 loses out to cheaper and faster solutions from other companies. From HEXUS.net's review 'No matter which way we dress up the Alienware's performance and feature-set, it's relatively poor in comparison to SKUs that we've reviewed recently. Value for money may not be the greatest concern in this sector of the pre-built market but when you can get substantially more for less, it becomes impossible to recommend this particular Area-51 7500.' "

This isn't news

[grasshoppa]

Alienware isn't about the "fastest". True, they have fast systems, but it's more about the 'bling' factor.

They're target market is upper middle class, specifically the middle age men who like to game and have disposable income and the kids with rich parents.

What you pay for.

[ZachPruckowski]

You pay extra (over the XPS or the custom-built machine) in exchange for extra service/support and the style factor. That's all it is. Quality parts assembled by a quality manufacturer in a sleek case. For a lot of people who want to game, and have more money than computing knowledge or assembly and maintenance time, Alienware or XPS is worth paying more for. They get something that "just works" (as well as any Windows PC does) with a warranty, and insure themselves from making stupid component decisions (stuff that is non-compatible, or stupid bottlenecks)

Out of interest...

[Fred Or Alive]

When did everything start becomming SKUs? Recently it seems everything is an SKU now. I knwo what it means, I just don't know why it seems to be thrown around so much, like in this quote. Why not say "... it's relatively poor in comparison to other systems that we've reviewed recently." or something.

So was the old one.

[hal2814]

The old Alienware PC was an overpriced underperformer. The only difference is that they are owned by Dell now so you can get worse customer service from them if such a thing is possible.

Re:Custom Built way to go

[sqlrob]

If you want value, that is not necessarily true. Time is not free and needs to be factored in.

Re:Alienware customer service

[jackbird]

And you didn't do a chargeback with your credit card company?

the correct saying is "*couldn't* care less"

[Colin Smith]

Could not care less. i.e. you care so little that it's impossible to care less.

Think about it for a second, it doesn't make any sense to say "could care less". By doing so you are saying you care enough that it is possible to care less.

The irony of this saying is that it must have come from the UK because we all get it right, it must have been picked up by someone who didn't understand the meaning and now the senseless version spreads across the US.

 

Nah

[emarkp]

They were overpriced before Dell acquired them. Their customer service is probably better now (since it hardly could have been worse).

Price/performance ratios

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok so Alienware is overpriced and you pay a lot for a fancy looking plastic case.

This is news why exactly - it has been that way since they first started basically? Heck I wouldn't be caught dead with one of their machines, as people around me would be able to tell I dont have an ounce of sense and I'm not economically sane.

Do a lot of rich people do this?

[antdude]

I haven't seen any of rich people I met with this Alienware brand. Not even notebooks/laptops. I have seen a lot of Dell and Apple including high end models. How about the rest of you?

Re:Well Well

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. A little less than 20 years ago, I sold PCs, and was intimately familiar with the exact specs to get the ultimate in performance. (This was in th days of 30 pin SIMMs mind you.) This new company named Alienware appeared on the scene, and I figured they'd be like everybody else: Nope. Every single solitary thing I'd have chosen, their machines had. They had the fastest RAM, in a decent amount (2x what most PCs come with in other words.) fastest and best of everything.

I'm sad that they're not like that anymore. Their service sucks too apparently: Recently a coworker of mine ordered an Alienware, one of their mid-range models. There was a recall of this motherboard used, so they set his system to 'back order'. Over a month went by, they got the motherboards in stock, but - oops - they were now out of the video card! ('JIT manufacturing' for the loss, I guess.) At this point, it seems to me that to keep your disappointed customer happy you either refund a few hundred dollars of their money or bump them up to the next better machine for the same price. Alienware did nothing. My coworker held out another 2-3 weeks at least, and finally cancelled his order.

Re:Alienware customer service

[nanoakron]

And you didn't threaten to take them through small claims courts for (what you say are) obviously falsifiable claims?

It doesn't work as sarcasm either.

[Colin Smith]

It doesn't make sense as sarcasm either, as a statement it has no direction. Sarcasm is used on statements with a emphasis of direction, like "Another /. language lawyer. Great.". The "Great" has a definite positive emphasis which can be interpreted sarcastically, "I could care less" has no emphasis, it has nothing. A sarcastic version of "I couldn't care less" would be "I couldn't care more". "I could care less" is just bleh.

 

Speaking as an upper-middle-class middle-age man

[Moraelin]

Speaking as an upper-middle-class middle-age man with disposable income... oh, gawd, these bling cases make me want to puke. So I'm not even convinced that they're targetting people like me.

I mean, seriously, if I want to willy-wave, I might go buy something expensive and over-performing. Like, I don't know, I might get a second X1900 XTX and run them in SLI... err... CrossFire (TM) for benchmark sake. But it seems utterly stupid to buy a case which just _looks_ high-tech and funky, but doesn't actually _do_ anything for the performance.

It's, if you will, the computer-equivalent of Rice Boys [riceboypage.com] and their sheet iron wings and fake disk brakes. Something that's just a sad attempt at _looking_ fast, without actually being so.

And just like those, I'm drawing blanks as to who their target market actually is. _Maybe_ kids, ok. But middle-aged men? I can't imagine many upper-middle-class middle-aged men actually wanting such a monstrosity in their room. We're talking people who, precisely because they have the disposable income, can have a nicely decorated home. Would anyone actually want a case looking like a cross between a funky toy and a bad acid trip next to their expensive furniture? Why?

Plus, as with those cars, if you actually _are_ rich, you can just buy the real thing. People with lots of disposable income just buy an expensive car. They don't just take the cheapest Honda and tack a wing and fake disk brakes on it. When you can actually afford a fast car, you don't go and try to make an el-cheapo one just _look_ fast. And in this case, if I can just build a computer that actually _is_ fast and high-tech, I don't need a sad clown case that only _looks_ "high-tech".

So who is the real target for these cases? People with a really bad case of mid-life crisis, maybe? Or what?

Re:What did you expect?

[fotbr]

I've got a Dual PIII 1ghz setup that will run everything I've thrown at it exept FEAR (which kills everything, regardless of CPU specs from what I've read) at 1600x1200 with few problems as long as I lock all the windows stuff to the 2nd processor, and let the game have the first all to itself.

I've got a 2nd machine set up similar to Grym's except with a 2.2Ghz P4 that will also run everything I've thrown at it.

Contrary to AMD & Intel's propaganda, you usually do not need $LATEST_AND_GREATEST to play $GAME unless you absolutely insist on seeing refresh rates 3 or 4 times what the human eye can distinguish. In which case, you're simply chasing higher numbers for the sake of chasing higher numbers -- not that there's anything wrong with that, I won't tell you how to spend your money.

Re:Custom Built way to go

[ravenshrike]

Actually, except for the second to last, all of those are true. Car - For general purposes, aftermarket venues like AMG, Ruf, Mopar, etc... Can be considered custom built outlets. Think of it as having a friend build your computer for you and charging for his time. Home - The more closely you supervise the work and participate in the build of the house, the more likely you are to be happy with the final product, especially if you make sure they use higher qulity materials. Furniture - Custom built furniture is generally better than standard furniture, albeit more expensive. Clothing - All of the finest suits dresses shoes etc... are custom built. Wristwatch - See clothing Television - Um, TV is a standardized medium. This means that something either meets a standard or doesn't.

Re:Cooling

[cswiger2005]

Seconded. Lian-li makes very nice aluminum cases which can be entirely disassembled by hand using the thumbscrews (also used for the PCI/AGP/PCIe/etc slots), they've got a solid ventilation pattern (usually two intake fans in the lower front blowing across a removable bay which'll hold 1-4 hard drives, and a rear exhauster fan), and as a bonus, their black models have a look which reminds me of NeXT hardware (which also used anodized black paint on aluminum).

Having more intakes than outtakes tends to give the case positive pressurization compared to the ambient room, which means that they don't tend to accumulate dust inside. The front intake fans have a removable, washable dust filter.