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| Ordered an Alienware 17R3 Screamin Deal! What do you think? |
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| knave:
I've never thought I'd want an Alienware. Too expensive and too much Bling. I stumbled on this for $1200 (all the others in this class were much more expensive) Intel quad core i7-6820HK, Nvidia 980m (4gb), 16gb DDR4 ram, 128gb SSD and a 1tb Sata drive 1080p IPS display, Thunderbolt/USB-c, All the Alienware backlighting and fancy wifi/Bluetooth and other features. Plus it comes with an Xbox controller. (I can use another one.) Tell me what you think. Anyone here have any Alienware products...Hate them etc? I wasn't really looking for a 17" display nor something that screamed "Look, I Play Games!" but...I was sold by the CPU, GPU and RAM for such a low price. The only feature it doesn't have that I was looking at is touch...But I can live without. Just as I can live with it being big and heavy. It is time to replace my aging daily use laptop from 2009. Perhaps I will try out Fallout 4 and the Division. |
| Howard_Casto:
It's a pretty good deal. It's a laptop though, so in terms of gaming you will have a paperweight in a year or so. Not that I keep up on the latest games mind you. For general use it should last quite a while though. |
| dkersten:
A few years ago I would have agreed with Howard, but honestly, today games aren't increasing their need for hardware at an exponential rate like they used to. Most games are developed on consoles and ported, and the hardware in consoles is relatively static. I had a year old GTX760 when Fallout4 came out, and it ran the game perfectly at max settings. I did upgrade to a 980ti, but frankly I couldn't see a difference even with nearly triple the frame rate, so it was more a vanity upgrade than to gain anything in gaming. The only argument for upgrading graphics cards today is to move to 4k, and I could go on for days about why that is not only a bad idea but adds nothing to gaming. I am sure some people would argue it, and more power to them. I can't see the difference between 1080p and 2160p on a 10 foot screen, so why would I notice it on 27 inches (let alone 17)? Anyway, the days of software needing massive upgrades in hardware every year are gone. Unless VR takes hold in gaming, just about any mid-tier gaming rig today will be a viable platform for the next several years, at least until the next gen consoles come out (which could be far more than 3 years). The ONLY upgrade worth doing in a PC gaming rig for the past 2 years has been G-Sync, and with G-Sync you can keep your old graphics card for twice as long. Frankly, that laptop sounds like a pretty good deal. I haven't shopped the RoG laptops lately, but 3 or 4 years ago I picked up a pretty beefy one for half the price of similarly spec'd gaming laptops, so you might want to shop Asus before pulling the trigger, at least for a comparison (That old RoG laptop is 1080 IPS, i7 cpu, 480m graphics, 128m ssd, 500gb platter drive and cost about $1050 after the price of the SSD was added in) . In December I bought 20 Dell Latitudes with gen 6 i5's, 1080 displays, 8gb ram, and regular HDD's for around $900 each, so just based on hardware alone I would say that is a great price. The other bells and whistles makes it a pretty good deal. |
| BadMouth:
I still love my m14x R2. (i7, 550M) IIRC, I paid $1,300 for it and don't regret it at all. Before it, I would buy a cheap underpowered $250-$300 laptop every couple years and was always disappointed. The alienware still kicks butt after 4 or 5 years and I expect to be satisfied with the performance for years to come. It may not run every new game with the graphics maxxed out, but it runs them all at a high resolution and decent frame rate. Circa MAME v.152 it was still running Ridge Racer at full speed in MAME. They're not exactly light so I wouldn't want to lug it around, but it's perfect for the couch. It hasn't been perfect. Mobo was replaced under warranty. I had to tear the entire damn thing apart to replace a soldered cmos batter after only 3 years. Replaced the battery last year. Vents got clogged up with lint in a way that you couldn't tell from the outside. I tore the whole damn thing down when all I really had to do was blow compressed air through it backwards. Even with that, I'd buy another one. I will never own another laptop without a top of the line processor or backlit keyboard. |
| knave:
Looks like I will get a $120 gift card from the Dell Rewards program too. Not too shabby. (I just got off a chat with Dell to confirm) Given my track record on using PCs (I still game on my 2009 laptop) and that I'm usually about two years behind the curve on new games (Thanks Steam) This new computer will be relevant for at least 3 years. Not to mention that most of the games I play are not too system heavy. I just want have a few years at high or medium settings. (been on low for the last 2 years) At the 3to 4 year mark I'm sure it will still play most of what I'm interested in...just not the newest games. If I want, in a few years I can pick up the graphics adapter and play around with that to increase performance...but then again I wouldn't have on my current system even if I had the option. This is a bit of a stretch for me budget wise...But I am excited. I'm counting this a Birthday Present and it's worth it because of the huge amount of hours I sit in front of the thing even if I don't get 7 years out of the thing. I will be getting a year or two more warranty when the time comes...usually for about $100. |
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