New Pc Suggestions

Alienware costs a LOT more than that, unfortunately. Upon trying to reconstruct that PC using individual parts, I ended up getting the price up to 2284$, although, that's with some fairly significant upgrades that aren't really required I suppose.

850 watt power supply - 180
ASUS Motherboard + i7 930 processor bundle - 570
Corsair liquid cooling system - 80
Corsair 32GB SSD - 95
Seagate 1.5 TB HDD - 80
Corsair 12GB DDR3 Triple Channel RAM - 360
5.1/6.1 Sound Card - 20
NVidia GeForce 480GTX 1.5GB (x2) - 490 (980)
Total: 1875 (2365)

I have the money, I just want to be sure it's a good investment in the long run. The extra 400ish dollars for a few upgrades seems worth it to me, but I'm not very savvy when it comes to PC part shopping.

Sugesstion: Wait for Ps3 release because the game isnt worth buying a PC for atm.

I figure my PC will run FFXIV ok, though I may have the chance of getting my hands on another 768MB GEFORCE 8800GTX and setting up SLI with the one I have.

Looking for some advice form the more technicly gifted of you out there... do you think I'd be ok to do this given the spec of my machine as is? I have no idea if there is enough power there to run 2 cards and then some?

Intel® Core™2 Duo E6850 (2 X 3.00GHz) 1333MHz FSB/4MB L2 Cache
ASUS® P5N32-E SLI+: Quad-core CPU Ready, NVIDIA® Dual X16 SLI
4GB CORSAIR XMS2 800MHz
768MB GEFORCE 8800GTX PCI Express
400GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE
800W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
ASUS SILENT KNIGHT II PURE COPPER ULTRA COOLER
64 BIT WINDOWS® VISTA Home Premium

cheers in advance for any pointers

800W is overkill I think. Overclock your E6850 to run 1:1 with your ram and you should be fine.

Thanks. Never overclocked before, searched the web for some info but I'm still not 100% on the ram to processor ratios.

Anyone here run the E6850 with 800mhz ram? Any idea what I could get away with or at least give me an idea of how to achieve the 1:1 Slade suggested?!

again cheers

Alienware makes fantastic systems, but there's a premium penalty that falls off with overall cost.

In other words, if you build a $4000 Alienware system, it's probably roughly the same cost as building the same system on your own, because the parts will be so cutting edge that no supplier is getting a bulk or OEM discount.

However, if you're building a $2000 Alienware system, you're likely paying a $500+ premium for the brand alone, which is questionably worth it.

Hey Boss Man J, would you happen to know if Alienware sells their trademark glowing alien face chassis separately?

Couldnt of said it better, to buy/upgrade PC for one game is insane esp ff14 thats even more insane. PS3 cheaper will run as good i think, if wanna play it that bad get that one wayy cheaper less u got money to throw away for 14. lol 14

Alienware is awful Jaerik :/
Overpriced crap, with run-of-the-mill hardware, which is "shown off" by the name Alienware

Alienware wants $2,889 to make a PC featuring an i7 930 2.8GHz, Dual 1GB GDDR5 GeForce GTX 460, 12 GB RAM, and a 750GB HDD.

2,889 vs. 1,875 -- the only differences being the case, the name, and the sound card. In fact, even if I got dual 1.5gig GTX 480s by building it elsewhere than Alienware it'd still be $500 cheaper.

I bought an Alienware which I'm in the process of returning at the moment. Got an Acer rig for 400 less with higher specs. They're nice if you don't want to build one yourself, but meh.

Aye, I'm in the process of returning my $3,400 Alienware laptop right now, too. I am NOT satisfied with its performance compared to what I paid for it.

Jesus, 3400 laptop? That would get you an awesome desktop lol. M17x? They do make the best gaming laptops I'll give them that much.

You guys aren't also factoring in the cost of your time building a system. That's a pretty big deal for me. I would gladly have someone else build the system and guarantee it for an extra $500.

Throwing together a custom rig with an i7 980x, two ATI 5970's, 12GB RAM, liquid cooling, etc, I would have only saved about $500 by building it myself. I certainly ran the numbers. Not worth it to me. Your mileage may vary.

So basement dwellers should just build their rigs :P

Well yeah, if you can't spare the time to do it I'd buy an assembled rig, which is what pushed me into buying Alienware in the first place. The value of 500$ does vary person to person though!

Am I that much of a nerd when I can relate this scenerio to crafting in game?

Not at all. It's why I get annoyed when people call other players "stupid" for spending say, 80k on an item at the AH when an NPC sells it for 78k. Or the inverse, for selling stuff. It's not stupid if you've made a calculated decision that walking over there isn't worth 2k of your time.

Arguably, factoring your time investment into crafting decisions is smarter than the guys criticizing them for it, because it implies a second-order awareness of how these things work.

I can have the parts in 3-5 days, and have it built 1 or 2 days after. Alienware wants 3 weeks to build it. Time certainly is money, and not money I'm willing to spend.