Dwight,
Alienware is one of several profile companies assembling computers (they used to be called clones, but this would be a clone of what?).
In addition to Alienware you can also have a look at:
Falcon Northwest
Hypersonic
and Canada's own Voodoo PC.
I'm sure I'm missing somebody, but these are the really 'cool' ones.
These companies pay partticular attention to the components chosen, the cabling and fit out of the case and then they all personalize them with Autobody paint. This group of vendors charge a very high premium for assembly burn-in and testing. Also included in this of course is some very vigorous tweaking of the OS and the drivers. If you're lucky the tweaking will actually take the applications you want to use into consideration. Just what is tweaked and how much is mostly not disclosed. The value-added services seem to cost somewhere in the realm of $600-800USD or more. This estimate is based on a comparison of online computer configurators for more vanilla systems.
The reviews on these machines will differ as they all submit machines for review selectively and not necessarily the newest thing they have coming out of the paint booth.
Less flashy although no less serviceable would be machines put together to your specs. NewEgg, Game PC are just two of many that do this. I'm in the middle of purchasing a system from the latter and will comment after it gets here. My online progress update announced that the hardware was built, the software installed and the 72hour burn-in process commenced. One of the things that was attractive about this comany was that they did advertise systems for applications other than games. They were also right up front about how much the human interventions cost.
What I found troublesome after much perusal of these sites in search of the world's greatest laptop (yes they all make laptops, too, cause that's what you really need to be a top flight LAN party going gamer) was that you have to find someone that speaks something other than 'gamer'. These systems yell speed and the highest frame rates at the highest possible monitor resolution. I still think finding the ideal system for a particualr type of work or a suite of applications is somewhat more nuanced than that.
widescreen is the new black!
Alienware is one of several profile companies assembling computers (they used to be called clones, but this would be a clone of what?).
In addition to Alienware you can also have a look at:
Falcon Northwest
Hypersonic
and Canada's own Voodoo PC.
I'm sure I'm missing somebody, but these are the really 'cool' ones.
These companies pay partticular attention to the components chosen, the cabling and fit out of the case and then they all personalize them with Autobody paint. This group of vendors charge a very high premium for assembly burn-in and testing. Also included in this of course is some very vigorous tweaking of the OS and the drivers. If you're lucky the tweaking will actually take the applications you want to use into consideration. Just what is tweaked and how much is mostly not disclosed. The value-added services seem to cost somewhere in the realm of $600-800USD or more. This estimate is based on a comparison of online computer configurators for more vanilla systems.
The reviews on these machines will differ as they all submit machines for review selectively and not necessarily the newest thing they have coming out of the paint booth.
Less flashy although no less serviceable would be machines put together to your specs. NewEgg, Game PC are just two of many that do this. I'm in the middle of purchasing a system from the latter and will comment after it gets here. My online progress update announced that the hardware was built, the software installed and the 72hour burn-in process commenced. One of the things that was attractive about this comany was that they did advertise systems for applications other than games. They were also right up front about how much the human interventions cost.
What I found troublesome after much perusal of these sites in search of the world's greatest laptop (yes they all make laptops, too, cause that's what you really need to be a top flight LAN party going gamer) was that you have to find someone that speaks something other than 'gamer'. These systems yell speed and the highest frame rates at the highest possible monitor resolution. I still think finding the ideal system for a particualr type of work or a suite of applications is somewhat more nuanced than that.
widescreen is the new black!
Still looking?
