Please, for the love of whatever deity you believe in, do not buy an Alienware computer. For that matter, do not buy a Core 2 Extreme.
The Core 2 Extreme is heavily overpriced, with an overclocked Q6600 soon overtaking it in terms of performance for a far lower price, and an overclocked Q9550 making it look like the worst choice in the world.
If you just have to have the most powerful processor around, get a Core i7 920 and overclock the shit out of it. Even from a base level, the i7 920 makes the previous Core 2 processors look weak, so when sufficiently overclocked, it kicks the crap out of a Core 2 Extreme. Of course, there's no point buying a Core i7 unless you're going to go with an NVIDIA GTX 280 or ATI Radeon 4870X2 to go with it, but I suppose if you're already considering a Core 2 Extreme, that those graphics cards would have already been considered.
Now, back to Alienware. Their computers aren't just
kind of expensive - they're overpriced to an insane degree. How about a comparison between two equivalent builds?
Alienware Computer:
ALX X58:
Intel Core i7-940 Processor
Alienware® P2 ALX Chassis
Alienware® 1200 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
Single 1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 280
6GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 3 x 2048MB
Alienware® Approved Intel® X-58 Motherboard
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate (64-bit Edition) with Service Pack 1
2TB (2 x 1TB) SATA 3Gb/s 7,200RPM 2 x 32MB Cache
20X Dual Layer Burner (DVD±RW) w/ LightScribe
Dual High Performance Gigabit Ethernet Ports
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi? XtremeGamer High Definition 7.1 Audio
22" Samsung 2253BW ? 1680 x 1050 (2ms) Widescreen Flat Panel
Logitech® Z-5500 5.1 505-Watt Speakers
Logitech® G15 Keyboard
Logitech® G9 Laser Mouse
Alienware® 28-in-1 Media Card Reader with Bluetooth
Price: $5,397.00 (ex. shipping & handling)
Home-Build - from Komplett IE:
Intel DX58SO, X58, Socket-1366
Intel Core? i7 Quad Processor i7-940
Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W, Modular
Thermaltake Armor Black, Aluminium Front
EVGA GeForce GTX 280 1GB PhysX CUDA
Corsair TWIN3X 1600MHz DDR3, 6GB, DHX+
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit
WD Caviar® Black 1TB 3,5", SATA
NEC DVD±RW burner AD-7201S, SATA, Black
NETGEAR PCI Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Creative SB X-FI Xtreme Gamer
Samsung 22" Wide Syncmaster 2243BW
Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard
Logitech G9 Laser Mouse, USB
Belkin SurgeMaster Maximum, 8-Way, 2m
Logitech Z-5500 5.1 THX, DTS
Price: ?3,097.98 (ex. shipping and handling)
Converting the euro price directly into dollars, to take account of the so-called "European tax", we come up with a price differential of:
$2,299.02.
There is
absolutely no way that the warranty and customisation of an Alienware system will ever be worth a price differential of over $2,000 over a home-built system. Note as well that for the Core i7 home-built system, I deliberately used parts that I'd never consider in my own builds, like the Logitech G15, which I consider to be an overpriced piece of elaborate nonsense (and it's rare for me to think that about a Logitech product, but it's going to be the Unicomp Model M keyboard for me), a 1200W power supply (that build shouldn't need more than a 750W power supply), and most prominently, the more expensive i7-940 processor, which has a puny 170MHz clock increase on the i7-920.
Indeed, my own prospective Core i7 build, without peripherals and software, would cost only slightly over ?1,500. I'm waiting for that price to drop as well, because there really isn't a game out there other than Crysis which requires a ?1,500 computer right now.
But whatever way you look at it, you're getting royally ripped off buying an Alienware system. I would beseech you to build it yourself. Please. If a gesture of begging could be accurately portrayed using ASCII text, you can imagine that I'd be doing it right now. Alienware sells overpriced (and difficult to upgrade - thanks for noting that, Aries) junk, and you'll be so much better off with a computer you built yourself.
