Monday, April 20, 2015

How Overpriced is Alienware? 2015


Alienware is a popular site for custom built computers but also notorious for its price and premium.  If you are looking to buy an awesome new gaming machine, then you are no doubt at least curious about this brand.  Can you get the same functionality somewhere else for less?  What about the trimmings?  Let's find out.  We will take the current known specs of these machines, and buy similar parts in a vain to recreate the hardware and then compare the price of the two machines.

Know that Alienware has unique selling points outside of hardware
  • Customer Service / Warranty Protection
  • Exclusive deals for additional purchases during PC customization screen for peripherals.
  • One of a kind case designs.
  • Payment options such as pay over time "apply"


Using base models of the highest tier for comparison.

Laptop
Alienware 17 $1499.99










What We Compared

Provides identical performance but with a more ergonomic design and more external ports.

Exact price but far thinner and only a bit slower.  Still, despite it being smaller provides more ports.

At this price point we can either get a much thinner gaming laptop that runs slightly slower or one of a similar bulk and almost identical specs.  Essentially, the Alienware laptop is actually not a horrible deal in the laptop gaming space.  You will come out even if you decide to make the purchase.  However know that in most cases "literally most other laptop CASINGS" you will get more ports or comfortable design.  

Console
Alienware Alpha $849.99








The Alienware Alpha is one of the most unique pc's to be built of recent, though, come soon far more competition will arrive with other Steam Machines on the horizon.  For now, it is very hard to compare this machine with others, especially since you can add one of these guys at a huge discount when purchasing a full priced Alienware PC.  Just know it is extremely small, smaller than your gaming console and  It also runs on a modified OS.  This is to be used as a media machine and since it's selling point is its small size, you would be hard pressed to find something similar. "Once the OS (steam machine) and gameplad are released, this will be the smallest, least expensive, most capable Steam Machine." - Frank Azor, Alienware General Manager.  However, if you were to take the budget for an Alienware Alpha and put that into an ATX form factor build, you would certainly get a better bang for buck performance.
  
Micro
Alienware X-51 $1649.99








What We Bought
Processor - Same
Memory - Same
GPU - GTX 970 4GB vs GTX960 2GB
Wifi - Yes
SSD - Same
HDD - Same

The X-51 is a small PC, but still a complete PC unlike its younger sister the Alienware Alpha.  We ended up saving money, getting better performance, and still getting an incredibly stylized case with our purchase of iBuyPower's Revolt.  This price doesn't include all the free stuff you get such as entire games and peripherals you receive when buying from iBuyPower.  Overall we did more than just save, so if I had to recommend one over the other, hands down it would be the Revolt.  

Full Size











What We Bought 
not including sales/shipping 



Windows 8.1 $99.99
Because we don't have a pc without an OS and Windows is the gaming platform.

Cream of the crop, you don't get better performance even on games that don't run all cores.

3 GTX 980 $569.99 *3
A great card alone, 3 will push this build to the extreme.

16GB of ram at this speed is probably overkill but good future proofing.

This is either for very fast boot times or silky smooth loading during games.

4TB HDD $159.99 *2
We went with 2*2TB HDDs because performance is better and safer.

Couldn't get a slot loaded drive which in itself is actually worth a lot for aesthetics.

1600w PSU $399.99
This will power everything in the pc safely for a long time.

If we are spending this much money on parts, we want something that can bring it all together.


Total: $3920.68
Difference: $579.31
We haven't bought our case yet but...as you can see there is still room for even the most expensive cases and you will still save money.  If you aren't looking for a ludicrously priced case, then you might just end up saving 400-500 dollars.  Keep in mind also, that we opted for parts that exceeded the Alienware's.  We essentially saved enough to go ahead and get a new monitor or two.  Seriously, if you took the sales/deals/combo's, you could save so much money it isn't even funny.  If you are considering using Alienware to configure you a very high end machine, just don't.  Look somewhere else or better yet, get on newegg and put it together yourself.  

If you want to buy from Alienware for their unique items, that is what they do best so very likely you will get a fair deal but give time, and other companies will emulate the form factors better much like what we saw with iBuyPowers Revolt.  Still, many people enjoy paying over time with Dell's preferred account.  Keep in mind that Alienware is a premium brand, and you are going to pay that.









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