Workable,
Don’t be too fast to discount Alienware. The purists and pros don’t like them because they believe they can do better…and perhaps they can. But for a beginner I think it’s better to get a complete package out of the box that comes, in the case of Alienware, with a one year in-home warranty if something goes wrong. I was in the same spot as you a few years ago and decided to go the Alienware route.
Firstly, they have great sales from time to time if you watch for them…the machine you’re looking at is an example. When I bought the first one, I couldn’t buy the parts and assemble it myself for the sale price they were asking. So if you look for the sales you’ll do OK. I wouldn’t buy one at their list price.
Secondly, I had always been a Mac guy and didn’t know much about PC’s, windows, etc. I liked the idea of having tech support if I needed it.
I have two of these things now…the original R6 7700k/1080ti/16mb and an R8 9900k/2080ti/32mb. The first one did arrive with a motherboard glitch, but after checking it out with tech support, they sent a guy over and replace the board at my home in accordance with the warranty. The second one has run flawlessly since new.
So…should you buy one now? The first compelling reason might be that it’s the only way you’ll get a 3080 any time soon! And…it’s Black Friday season and the prices are good…hundreds off list price on some models.
Things to be aware of:
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these things are very picky about memory upgrades. You have to closely match what is already installed. I would go with their 32mb upgrade…it’s only $150 or $200 and you know it will work.
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storage updates are pretty easy. My R8 has a 512nvme boot drive, 2x1TB sata SSD’s in raid 0, a 2TB Nvme SSD on a pcie card and a 2TB hybrid spinning drive.
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don’t think either of my machines would take a 3080, either due to the power supply (850w should be enough, but you never know) and due to the cooling. The cases are designed to manage the heat of their standard configurations at the time and there aren’t a lot of options to increase it (add fans etc.). Obviously they’ve made some mods to the R11 to cool the 3080. So these are not a good choice if you think you might become a mad over-clocker some day.
With the machine you’ve described…I would go up to the 1TB boot drive or at least 512, delete the HDD (you can buy these for peanuts these days), increase the memory to the 32mb dual channel option. At the Dell site, click on the options that they are allowing for the machine and have a look at the updates you might want.
Once you know what you want…either click on the annoying “how can I help you” thingy or call them. Tell them you like the machine and the discount and ask if you can make changes to the config without losing the discount. If so, spec it out like you want and click the “empty my wallet” button. They may try to steer you away from modifying the sale machine, but just keep insisting that that’s what you want and if you can’t get it you’ll go away. In my case, this took some minutes and some “sales agent consulting somebody pauses”, but eventually got the machine I wanted and retained the $900 discount. Who knew buying a 'puter could be like buying a car!
Final thoughts: I don’t think buying a prebuild is necessarily a bad thing, especially if you’re a newby in the PC world. My experience with Alienware has been pretty good and when the time comes I’ll certainly consider buying another. If you’re a flaming-haired overclocker and massive tinkerer…these aren’t the machines for you. If you just want a reliable machine to FLY…then worth considering.
Dell.ca
Cheers
