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$2100 for the following specs: Good deal?

D.Final

Banned
So there is currently a sale on the Dell website (canadian version).

I can have the following Alienware desktop for $2799CAD, which equates to about $2100USD:

Ryzen 7 5800x
RTX 3080 10GB
16GB DDR4 3200mhz
512GB nvme SSD
Aurora Chassis with liquid cooling and 1000w PSU

SSD capacity and ram could be higher, but I already have another 512GB SSD lying around and I can always upgrade the ram later.

So what do you think? With the current climate/shortage, would you consider this to be a good deal?
I guess so.
Surely a good choice
 

Rikkori

Member
Windows 10 Home $139 (or around $30 if you go the shady CD key route)
Shady? lmao. There are straight-up legit keys from MS and they go for about $10, and pro version to boot.

Don't be smooth brained to pay fucking $140 for a win key wtf is this shit, this ain't 1999 anymore bud.

lucious lyon wtf GIF
 

Jigsaah

Gold Member
Given that you don't have to build it yourself and the fact that nobody in the DIY community can get these with any regularity $2100 isn't terrible. I mean you're spending $1400 alone for the 3080 if you buy from a scalper, so yea. Harsh reality. go for it man.
 
Amazing reply. Don't think, just post!
It was a very thought out reply, i don't know what you're talking about.

Just the plain truth. Simplified and presented to the master race in a way that's there's no mistake about my feelings about you. master racers.

If you want to discuss something about it, why just not discuss it? You got any arguments to discuss my apparently "amazing reply"?

Nothing?
 
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D.Final

Banned
Given that you don't have to build it yourself and the fact that nobody in the DIY community can get these with any regularity $2100 isn't terrible. I mean you're spending $1400 alone for the 3080 if you buy from a scalper, so yea. Harsh reality. go for it man.
The consumer choice
 

OverHeat

« generous god »
I mean depending on when you bought it this will already have firmware installed to lower the spec so that its throttled by default...

I believe they switched out there origenal 2080 Ti in later models with a weird hybrid liquid cooling solution that while less effective than a stock 2080 Ti still allowed it to preform decently if somewhat noisy.

E5B6aDp.png


If the back of your alienware has 4 PCI slots in use, its the newer model, however that does not mean they didn't fuck over a load of consumers with what is essentially an overpriced dell Optiplex in a cheap plastic shell that cooks its components for a majority of the 2080 Ti's life.

Unless you want to explain how a case with 3 120mm fans somehow has magically good airflow when cases with 2x 140mm intakes 2x 120mm outakes can struggle with better airflow designs, and at least a rear out, while also using a single 120mm CPU AIO coolers and now a 3080 with two fans? This thing runs hot, and depending on your local ambient temp, too hot.
pbJTRqT.png
bht6UBX.png

Second screen is 15 min of playing cyberpunk.
 
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Aphantallica

Neo Member
I found myself wanting to build a PC at the worst time. I couldn't find a GPU at an acceptable price, so I got a pre-built with a 2 year warranty at Microcenter. I plan to return it for a refund when parts are more readily available and not so expensive.
 
I've started looking around for my own build and jesus the prices...
Yup, you can get a 2060 (not super) for around 600$us on newegg right now, this is if you're not buying a 1660ti at that price.

You can get a 5700xt for 996 $ if you are willing to wait for the shipment from Israel of all places.

The 3080 is not even an option. Neither are AMD s 6000 series cards!


I should have stocked on video cards while people bought all the toilet paper 😂
 
Wake us up when PS5 or Xbox can do everything or more than a pc can. PS5 can´t even run more Playstation games than a pc.
Your phone can do pretty much everything a PC can do if this is your goal, even playing more PlayStation games than the PS5.

At the moment a console gives you access to more performance than you can hope to get on a video card that you pay twice as much before you even put a PC around the card (even an upgrade to an existing PC is questionable if your main goal is to get more gaming performance.
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Your phone can do pretty much everything a PC can do if this is your goal, even playing more PlayStation games than the PS5.

At the moment a console gives you access to more performance than you can hope to get on a video card that you pay twice as much before you even put a PC around the card (even an upgrade to an existing PC is questionable if your main goal is to get more gaming performance.
Which phone can run every single pc game with whatever resolution, framerate, controller, mod I want? Run every emulator that exists? Depending of the price I will sell my PC and stick with this phone only.
 
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Which phone can run every single pc game with whatever resolution, framerate, controller, mod I want? Run every emulator that exists? Depending of the price I will sell my PC and stick with this phone only.
I said pretty much everything, obviously it's not a 1 to 1, but the phone can do other stuff as well.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Anything north of $1800 should have at least 1TB of storage and 32 GB of DDR4 3200 RAM. But getting your hands on a RTX 3800 for that price is good. You could add a second 1TB NVMe down the road for about $120 (I assume for $2k you're getting a solid motherboard with a few NVMe ports ...) and if 16 GB turns out to not be enough then that's a cheap upgrade as well.
 

evanft

Member
Let me make this as plain as can be, when you buy an Alienware you are not getting a "real PC"

Now what do I mean by this? I don't mean this in a snobby "the only real PC is a self built one" but the fact that Alienware and Dell tend to put there own special cards in them that you cant get anywhere else.

So that 3080 won't really be a 3080, what will happen is it will sound like a jet engine after 5 minutes of play and then thermal throttle down to much lower preformance just to keep operational. Every other component will be the cheapest it possible can be, the motherboard will most likely be some unknown cheap board, the PSU most likely won't even be rated and the ram will be a single stick and look 20 years old.

I won't tell you to build your own, but have a look at a local system builder as they will always use consumer parts, which at there absolute worst will be superior to whatever is in an alienware.

Alienware-Aurora-R11-Desktop-PC-3-7a87edbb11b041818dbf44880e3c79fd.jpg


Does that look like the inside of a machine that costs 2000+ bucks? No, that's the reason Alienware don't have glass panels because they literally arnt, the plastic shell will look nice, but I can guarantee what ever performance you should be getting on paper, slap 10-25% off it and that will be what your really getting. You will struggle to upgrade this in future because you will require special shortend versions of GPU's just to fit in the case. etc etc.



2080 Ti but this is the quality you are getting here, from review of the current R11 I would advise you look for a version with either the 5600x or the 5900x, the reason? The 5800x runs exceptionally hot for an AMD product and the Alienware liquid cooling cant keep up because it sucks, it sucks so much that the latest firmware update to the MB disables the boosting feature of the chips to try and stop the machines shutting off. Which dell states as "Enhanced the thermal stability of the system" yeah at the cost of no more boost to 4.7Ghz your stuck at the 3.8Ghz base clock.



make sure to watch this official video advising you to download said firmware which TOTTALY is a good thing that is not slashing your brand new chips gaming performance to below 3800x performance, oh and also make sure to then "stress test" the system using the official Alienware tool.... you know rather than something third party like OCCT which would actually stress the system guaranteeing a thermal throttle. Wait why would a company put a video out about how to avoid thermal throttling on there new PC's and never advise to open the case up but instead download new firmware? Remember when Apple where patching in lower performance to make sure the "battery's lasted longer" on older devices, yeah kinda like that.



This appears to be the 3080 Alienware uses:

desktop_aw_aurora_r10_mlk_mod_2.jpg
 
Just to give some context. I've been building my own PC since the end of the 90s. I didn't intend to buy this Alienware machine because it was already pre-built, but because it's nigh impossible to build the one I'd like with the parts I want right now on my own. 5600x, 5800x and 5900x are impossible to find in Canada, same goes for 3080 or 6800xt/6900xt. I currently have a good gaming laptop (Zephyrus Ultra Slim S GX531GX with a 2080 max-q 90w and a i7 9750H). I sold my mid-tower which had a 1080TI and a 3900x last summer. I love my laptop but when I looked at the price on the Dell website, it seemed like a good deal for 5800x and a 3080.

In the end, since I already have the laptop, a Series X and a PS5, I've decided to not purchase. I was about to buy the machine but then I've read some post in this very topic about the built quality of the Aurora R11 and the downsized Dell specific graphic cards, and got cold feet XD

Any any case, thanks everyone for all your inputs. But yeah, I guess I'll just use my laptop and play on the next-gens instead like I intended to begin with.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Hey man, if you do change your mind of a gaming PC look into iBuyPower instead. They’ll give you a better system for that price.

Also nothing wrong with buying prebuilt. I worked a shitty desktop support IT job while in college, had to constantly build and repair PCs. Then in my first few years out of college I had to build servers and SAN solutions. It’s a pain in the ass an entirely not interesting. So no shame in paying two or three hundred more for someone else to have to deal with that work.

Fuck it.
 

Durask

Member
Hey man, if you do change your mind of a gaming PC look into iBuyPower instead. They’ll give you a better system for that price.
I specced one, it will be a few hundred more. Same for Maingear.

If I were buying premade, i would get ibuypower or Maingear. You choose the parts you want for a bit more money.

I had a bad experience with Alienware laptop (you probably could fry an omelette on it thanks to Dell's "efficient" cooling solution).
 

kurisu_1974

is on perm warning for being a low level troll
It was a very thought out reply, i don't know what you're talking about.

Just the plain truth. Simplified and presented to the master race in a way that's there's no mistake about my feelings about you. master racers.

If you want to discuss something about it, why just not discuss it? You got any arguments to discuss my apparently "amazing reply"?

Nothing?

I own and enjoy a gaming PC, PS5, Switch, Raspberry Pi 4 with Retropie, and a room full of retro consoles. You're a closeminded fool. See the difference?
 
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