renfes

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I'm looking to buy a new computer and I'm looking for suggestions on which companies I should look at. I'm basically looking for an affordable gamings system. I've looked at alienware and Dell and I'm wondering if anyone knows of a company that is perhaps cheaper or has a good reputation.

HIJACKER

Gaming... I suggest building your own or paying someone to build it for you with what you pick out.

If that's not an option, the two you listed are good. Personally, if I DON'T build a PC, I only buy Dell.

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Ryan

I used to build ALL of my PC's, regardless of what they were for... now, with discounts and coupons, I can get almost the EXACT same dell, with a one year warranty, for less money.

techbargains.com + DELL = cheap ass computers with warranties

oh, and I am the sys. admin for a company with 50+ workstations and 4 servers. Every PC in the building is a Dell, and we've had no failures in the last two years that I've worked here, so the build quality is pretty good.

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wolf68k

Dell sucks, stay as far away from them as possible

Alienware want way too much for thier systems. They use to be good, but thier head as gotten way too big

If you're scared of screwing up while building your own, try http://www.ibuypower.com
Start of with an AMD Athlon 64 PCI-Express for $528, then add another $60 to get 1GB of RAM making it $588. Then for the most part your set.
This system doesn't include an OS, however for another $89 you can get XP Home w/ SP2, this will take you to $677

I know how lazy some people are, so here's what you get for $588 at ibuypower.com
This case
Raidmax 268 ATX Mid-Tower Case w/350W Power Supply (your choice of colors: Silver, Black, Blue, Green, Yellow)
Mobo: Foxconn WinFast NF4K8MC-ERS nVidia nForce4 Chipset w/LAN, 5.1 Sound, IEEE-1394, USB 2.0 PCI-E
CPU: AMD® Athlon-64 3000+ (socket 939)
RAM: 1024 MB [512MB X2] DDR-400 PC3200 (comes as Corsair-Vaule or Major brand)
GFX: nVidia GeForce 6200 128MB
HDD: 80 GB 7200 RPM Ultra ATA-100
Optical drive: 52x32x52 CD-RW Drive (beige or black face is free, any other color cost extra)
Sound: onboard
Speakers: 600W PMPO 3 PCS Super Bass Subwoofer Speaker System
Keyboard: PS/2 104 Key Windows 98 Keyboard (color: Beige)
Mouse: Microsoft IntelliMouse 1.1A USB Internet Mouse (color: Beige)
Misc: 6-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer
Standard 3-Year Limited Warranty

Give me a grand budget limit and I'll give you some suggestions as to where to upgrade.


How does this compare to Dell, Alienware, or any other pre-build system?
You have more choices of what you can pick out. More cases, more mobos, more CPUs, more GFX and more. However you don't get an OS or extra software, that cost extra, but at the same time this is a good thing because you don't don't have to worry about about huge ammount of crap software pre-installed.

Ryan

Care to elaborate on this? Is it because you dislike the pre-install stuff, the build quality, or lack of options, or do you hate big corporations, or something else?

I'm not trying to start a fight or anything- I'm genuinely curious.

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tombb25

If you want to put some specs on here for what you are looking for or send me a email I will be happy to send you a quote from the place I work that way you will get an idea of what a computer company will build you a system for. The above machine that is specced is fine, but I would stay away from a cheap raidmax astro chassis that is pictured above if you are gonna be gaming, since it only comes with a 420w PS that is pretty cheap.

Anyway, let me know and I will send you a specced out quote.

m88dc

That's pretty much how I got my computer. I found a deal on krex.com, but I had never heard of them. I went to Dell and they gave me the same system and matched the price. The difference is that there is a warrantee and that Dell is more reputable. I'm very pleased with my product.

HIJACKER

That's almost identical to what my case looks like. I should snap a pic of it...

In fact... here's my setup. First pic is the PC obviously, second is the UPS, Modem and Wireless Router...

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renfes

Thanks for all of the suggestions.
Here is the specs for a system that I customized from dell:

DIMENSION XPS GEN 5:
Pentium® 4 Processor 640 with HT Technology (3.20GHz, 800 FSB) MX640H [221-8319] 1

Operating System:
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional WPXP [420-5246][313-7222][412-0721][412-0749][420-4927] 11

Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options:
3Yr Ltd Warr,At-Home Service,and Tech Support plus Nights and Weekends SQ3OS [950-3339][412-0359][950-5462][960-1882][960-6380][960-6090] 29

CompleteCare Accidental Damage (except NY and FL):
SAVE 10 %! Add CompleteCare Accidental Damage Svc to 3Yr Lim Warranty CCADP3P [982-5438][412-0358] 33

XPS Specialized Support:
Dimension XPS, Specialized Support XPSSUPP [960-2697] 31

Memory:
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 DIMMs 1GB62 [311-5029] 3

Hard Drive:
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) 250S [341-0988] 8

2nd Hard Drive:
160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ Native Command Queuing 160SB [341-1588] 23

CD or DVD Drive:
Dual Drives: 16x DVD + FREE UPGRADE! 16x DVD+/-RW w/dbl layer write DV16DVP [464-1556][420-5265] 16

Floppy Drive and Media Reader:
3.5 in Floppy Drive FD [340-8628] 10

Monitor:
19 inch M993 (18 inch viewable) Flat CRT M993 [320-4203] 5

Video Cards:
256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) nVidia GeForce 6800 NV6800 [320-4081] 6

Sound Cards:
Sound Blaster Audigy™ 2 ZS (D) Card w/Dolby 5.1, IEEE 1394 capability SBA2X [313-3041] 17

Optional Ports:
IEEE 1394 Adapter 1394 [320-0169] 85

Speakers:
Dell 5650 5.1 100 Watt Surround Sound Speaker System with Subwoofer D5650 [313-2246] 18

The price for this system was 2,218 after rebates.

This would be a good system for me. It would be great if I could find something better for about the same price or something similar for cheaper.

wolf68k

Ok I'll elaborate, and I'll try to keep it brief.

Pre-installed fluff; good GOD what a buttload of crap they install, but it's not just Dell, HP, Compaq, Gateway and others are also guilty of it. Apple use to be somewhat guilt of this back in their other days, but the difference here was that it was super easy to get rid of without some thing pissing and moaning about it later.
Go to someone's house that just bought a new Dell/HP/Compaq/Gateway machine and before they really even get it online and do anything online, just after they get it up and running for the first time. Bring over a disc with Ad-Aware and Spybot with both of their manual updates and don't forget about HijackThis. Install all and run all and watch large number of spy/adware that gets listed. Then run HJT and look at the HUGE number of BS that's running at start up plus the fact that IE is already jacked even though it does point to the maker's site.

Dell's tech support; what a F'ing joke. First you can't understand what the jackhole is saying because their are out sourced to India. To top it off they don't even know what the hell they are talking about. Example of that; on another web forum I go to in the PC Chat someone has a Dell (mistake #1) and he bought a new PSU (not a Dell PSU, but instead something that really works) that has a much much larger max wattage, but he had some problems so he called Dell tech support (mistake #2) how told him that the PSU he bought "exceed the limitations of the Dell system" which makes it sound like Dell mobo's can only support PSU with a max wattage of 300-350watts. Am I the only one that sees the problem in that line of thought.

Build quailty; I've seen how some of thei cases open which annoying as hell. A Gateway machine I had to work on for a neighbor was worse.

Dell/HP/Compaq/Gateway build-in limitations. Sure in many of the high end of the price range can easily support adding more HDDs, more CD/DVD drives and even more RAM. But most all of their system are extremely limited to what CPU upgrade you can do. Look at this ibuypower.com system I've pointed to; ignore for a moment the fact that yes from them you can buy a better AMD Athlon 64-bit CPU, the limit is with what the mobo can support. Because even the base mobo can support a bigger and faster CPU, someone can buy one later when their budget allows for it.

Customize limits; this kind of goes back to the upgrade I mentioned above. To keep their prices down they go to big name part builders to build downgrade parts, I know that HP does that with ASUS for their mobos. This limits what upgrades they can offer and that you can do later. And keep this in mind because this people pre-install the OS they use a recovery disc, after so many things are upgraded that recovery disc is nothing more than a coaster.

Believe it or not that really us brief for me....I could go on but I'm already feeling like I'm off topic to a point.



I have the knowledge and skill to build a system from the ground up, I've done it once before for my own personally system.
And I'd rather pick my own parts and build it myself, and when I sit down to start the build I'll spend hours reading everything to make sure I know what's going on before hand and still have those manuals on hand for referrence later. Then the build itself can take a good amount of time to make sure I check that everything is done right and then double, maybe even triple, check that it's done right....so many times I've seen so many people say they can build a system from the ground up in less then 1hour or 30mins or whatever, ask those people out of all of the systems they build in a quick amount of time how many of them started up the first try with no errors at all at any point even after the OS was installed, that number will be very low compared to the total number of builds.

From what I'm seeing here at ibuypower.com since the base system doesn't even include the OS, by spending the $89 for XP Home they are selling an OEM version of the disc which isn't really any differenet from the Retail version. The only difference is that detailers can only sell the OEM to customers that buy hardware. You can go to newegg.com and buy the OEM of XP Home w/ SP2 for $92 (including shipping) but you have to buy some piece of hardware, no matter how cheap it is. It's kind of like going into a Stop-N-Go and buying a coke at half price as long as you buy food-type item, so you get a piece of $0.01 candy.
Plus with ibuypower.com you can get a great system for maybe even a bit less they if you buy those parts at newegg.com, but yeah you're still limited to the parts but even those limits are something I could live with, but they also build it for you.
I will admit that some of the parts you can add on they do charge you more than if you bought them at newegg or some where else. 2 examples:
PSU: the Ultra X-Connect 500watt for $85-95. A great PSU with modular cables so you can plug in only the ones you need with no extra cables hanging around in the case doing nothing. But you can get the same PSU for around $70-80 shipped from other sites.
DVD Burner: NEC ND-3520A for an extra $39, a great DL DVD 16x burner. Here again you can get for less than $50 shipped from newegg, but they are ony charging you $56 total (this if you take out the CDRW drive which is $17, but add that to the $39; 17+39) so you're not that far off.
There are others but you'll save on the cost of others like the OS and maybe even the GFX.




-------
@renfes
Let's look at what ibuypower.com as to offer for a second

Case:
Raidmax Scorpio-868 ATX Mid-Tower Case w/420W

Power Supply:
Ultra X-Connect 500W ATX PS w/2 80mm Fans - Titanium Black(ULT31554) [$30 Mail-In-Rebate NOW !!!]

CPU:
AMD® Athlon-64 3200+ CPU w/ Hyper Transport Technology
The 3000+ can kick the crap out of a P4 3Ghz but I just wanted to drive the over all point home, keep reading and you'll see more examples of that

Motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-K8NF9 nVidia nForce4 Chipset w/LAN, 7.1 Sound, IEEE-1394, USB 2.0 PCI-E
This comes with IEEE-1394 (firewire) there is no need for it as an extra like it is on the Dell, infact all of the mobo's offered come with Firewire

Memory:
1024 MB [512MB X2] DDR-400 PC3200 Corsair

Video Card:
nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB

Hard Drive #1:
SATA 250 GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache (Maxtor or Western Digital, your choice)

Hard Drive #2:
SATA 160 GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache (same choices)

CD/DVD #1:
16x DVD-ROM Drive - Sony

CD/DVD #2:
NEC ND-3520A Dual Format/Double Layer 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive
Another to drive the point home, no idea what Dell is offering but I'll be willing to bet this NEC will kick the shit out of it.

Sound Card:
Creative Lab Sound Blaster Audigy-2 ZS 7.1
Dell if F'ing stupid. All SB Audigy-2 ZS cards are 7.1 not 5.1

Speaker System:
Creative Labs Inspire P7800 7.1 Surround Speaker + Subwoofer

Floppy:
Mitsumi 1.44 MB Internal Floppy Drive

Keyboard:
Multi-Media Keyboard (Black or Silver, your choice)

Mouse:
Microsoft Optical Intelli-Mouse Explore (color: Silver, Black, Blue, Green, Yellow)

Flash Media Reader/Writer:
6-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer

Operation System:
MS Windows XP Professional Edition w/Service Pack-2
Yep more of driving the point home

Warranty Service:
Standard 3-Year Limited Warranty

Subtotal: explained below
$1,940

Yes no monitor listed and I didn't care for the ones they offered, however for under $200 you can get a Samsung 997DF 19" flat CRT at CircuitCity or Newegg.com (ok so newegg wants a little more)

Total: $2,140 or $2,165 depends on where you go for the Samsung monitor.
And without being greedy, you can knock that back down to under $2000 including the monitor.

BTW, why I listed that monitor is because I have it and it's a damn great monitor and gets great reviews by both users and pros.



To everyone, sorry this went so long.

Greenfire

Hijacker, I like that case, who makes it?

As far as the rest. For my last PC, I took a list of the components I wanted in the system into our local computer stores. I wound up with custom built machine, under a 3 year warranty, and the statifaction that if I have tech support problems it's a local phone call to people that I know, know what they are doing. (Only reason I didn't self build was that for $40 more I got the warranty)

HIJACKER

I can't remember who makes it.

The front panel is a backlit (blue) display with the internal temperature of the case. I have a fan underneath that on the inside, one on the top, and one on the side. I installed a large fan on the backside underneath the power supply that already has one, video card has a fan, and the processor has a fan. The A/C in my place is about 72 degrees, and the case temperature usually stays between 79-82 depending on what I'm doing.

My favorite part is the 2 additonal USB ports on the top with a Microphone and Speaker out port. The power and reset button is on top next to them also.

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tombb25

Here's what I got from the company I work for, in comparison to your Dell Quote:

Intel Pentium IV 640 LGA775 Processor
ASUS P5GPL S775 ATX Motherboard
1GB PC3200DDR Corsair
Aspire X-Navigator ATXA8NW-BK Chassis with 500w PS
Dual 250GB SATA Hard Drives
16x Dual Layer DVDRW and 16x DVD-ROM
Floppy Drive
Samsung 997DF-T/T 19" CRT
MSI GeForce 6800 256MB PCI-X Video
Audigy2 ZS Soundcard
Altec Lansing VS2221 Speakers
Windows XP Professional O/S
3Year Warranty with Advanced Replacement

$2095.00

And that's what I got folks!

tazwolfe

Let the cat fight begin, a lot of good points are made on both side however what really matters is waht the individual needs and their level of expertise. If your novice stay with someone local who can build for you they wil be a great resorce, if your were accomplished you would not be postinghere you would have already built the system yourself with parts from all over the web.