Alienware vs. DS...Answer inside

Lately there have been lots of thread comparing DS to other vendors. So I decided to draw a comparison between Alienware and Digitalstorm, partly because I was curious and mostly because I was board. And I was pleasantly surprised by the result.

OK... tried to configure a PC's from both vendors that normal enthusiast would buy, which meant no fancy watercooling, no tri-sli gpu, and no fancy SSD. Sometimes one component from one vendor was unavalable from another vendor, in which case I chose the component that were as similar to each other as possible.

                                        ALIENWARE                                                     DIGITALSTORM   

CHASSIS	Lunar Shadow, Alienware Area-51 Chassis	Coolermaster HAF 932
PROCESSOR	Overclocked Intel i7 920 (3.2 GHz)	Overclocked Intel i7 920 (3.3 to 3.9 GHz)
OPERATING SYSTEM	Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English	Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
WARRANTY AND SERVICE	1 Year Basic Service Plan	3 Year Parts and Labor Warranty
VIDEO CARD	1x 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5870	1x 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5870
MEMORY	6GB DDR3 1333MHz	6GB DDR3 1600MHz
PSU	1000 Watt Dell PSU	1000 Watt DigitalStorm Certified PSU
HARD DRIVE	1TB - SATA-II, 3Gb/s, 7,200RPM	1TB - SATA-II, 3Gb/s, 7,200RPM
ADDITIONAL HARD DRIVE	2x 1TB SATA-II, 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM	2x 1TB SATA-II, 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM
COOLING	Alienware High-Performance Liquid Cooling	Noctua nh-u12p
OPTICAL DRIVE	24X CD/DVD burner	22X DVD, 48X CD burner

ALIENWARE:   2769 USD
DIGITALSTORM:        2499 USD
ALIENWARE IS 270 USD MORE EXPENSIVE THAN DIGITALSTORM

So to break it down.

ALIENWARE:For 270 dollars MORE you get
-Fancy looking Case with little Airflow
-A lower overclock
-Cheaper Slower RAM
-Generic PSU
-Cheap Asetek LCLC
-OEM Intel "Tylersburg Mobo"
-One Year Dell "Basic" Warranty

DIGITALSTORM: For 270 dollars LESS you get
-HAF e.g. "High AirFlow" Case
-Faster overclock
-Better RAM
-Enthusiast Grade PSU
-High performance Air cooler
-Overclocking/Enthusiast EVGA Mobo
-3 Year DigitalStorm Part's and Labor Warranty

I'll stop here, and let folks like yourself come up with a conclusion to all this...


Edited by sirsiddius - 01 Mar 2010 at 2:32am

Don't quote me on this but AW may charge for shipping as well.

Oops missed that, I'll fix it now.

@AndydViking

Every once in a while (especially during holiday season) they'll drop a 'free shipping' banner on their website to lure more customers, or they'll leak a free shipping coupon on the the internet.


Edited by sirsiddius - 01 Mar 2010 at 2:36am

Originally posted by sirsiddius Oops missed that, I'll fix it now. @AndydViking Every once in a while (especially during holiday season) they'll drop a 'free shipping' banner on their website to lure more customers, or they'll leak a free shipping coupon on the the internet.

Ahhh yes but Digital Storm is much more upfront.  Shipping costs a bunch on a strict budget so really another +1 for DS IMHO. Cool comparison though.

Edited by AndydViking - 01 Mar 2010 at 3:02am

As a former Alienware owner i agree with DST4ME. There is no valid comparison.

Originally posted by DST4ME honestly speaking, crappy case, low oc, joke of a LC system, horrible customer svcIMO.

I hear ya, joke of a LC system .
3.2 Ghz? With a LC System? Seriously? I have a 3.33 using stock

Customer service reps have no clue wtf their doing. Honestly. My friend's parents had  trouble with a BD drive. Couldn't operate the BD's menu with the computer. Called Dell. Couldn't resolve the issue. They were sending over a new BD drive. I came over. What was the problem? DVD's/BD's on a pc are KEYBOARD navigable


I just compared Alienware's PCs to DS myself. Obviously, I can see the DS system has an easy potential for exceeding the Alienware's product choices (along with price) and having massively more performance. The current "gamer" Alienware case is bulky, looks completely unappealing to me, and has completely horrible airflow. The case, is made, of STEEL. Static conductivity magnet much?

The CPU is only overclocked up to a MAX of 3.85 Ghz. Digital Storm using the same CPU (i7 975) and their LC system? I don't even wanna know xD at least 4.3+ i know that.

They REQUIRE your first HDD set to have RAID 0. Wtf?

Their phone service costs $60. For a year. (Self-explanatory -> wtf)

Level of customization pales in comparison to Digital Storm.

Conclusion - Restating DST, even cyberpowerpc.com is better.


Edited by ablahblah - 02 Mar 2010 at 4:36pm