Lots of Alienwares.

[alienware]

Now i want on even more noooo!

I'll pm you with any that show up.

Right now is a good time tbh. They've been discontinued so they are slowly trickling onto Ebay. They've also plummeted in price lately due to the influx of them but the prices rise again once they run short.

 

[dalewakelin]

I'll pm you with any that show up.

Right now is a good time tbh. They've been discontinued so they are slowly trickling onto Ebay. They've also plummeted in price lately due to the influx of them but the prices rise again once they run short.

So they are like shares? haha but yeah thanks, that will be helpfull.

 

[alienware]

So they are like shares? haha but yeah thanks, that will be helpfull.

Anything Alienware is always highly desirable on Ebay.

There were a few comments a few pages back about the earlier ones being horrific. When I came to sell them the prices were far from horrific. Alienware are very much like Apple in that regard. Even though they're standard PCs inside they hold their value like no one's business purely because of the outlay of buying one from Alienware.

So yeah, when a model is discontinued the price will drop on the elusive cases tbh. You have to remember that the case I have? it would have cost £2300 for the base model with a I7 930 in it. The regular Area 51 (non ALX) would have sold for a base price of £1799.

Whilst Dell were still making them and charging those prices? dude, I've seen a case sell for £650 no problems.

Though the insides are messy the ideas in there and the technology they have packed in doesn't come cheap. Just the daughter IO board is £200 as a replacement part from Dell

 

[Zoot]

I'm surprized you didn't have to mod the crap out of the cases to get them to accept standard motherboards given Dell's proprietry nature.

 

[alpenwasser]

I'm surprized you didn't have to mod the crap out of the cases to get them to accept standard motherboards given Dell's proprietry nature.

That's not just Dell though, I have an HP PC here (not from me ) whose M/B more or less
has MATX size but which is completely incompatible since it's switched around (it's built
into the machine BTX/reverse ATX style, but the PCI-E slots are still facing "down" if you
know what I mean, so you'd have to completely change the case's back side if you ever
wanted to mount a standard M/B in it).

 

[alienware]

Aside from the X51 which uses an ITX board with external PSU every Alienware made (both post and pre Dell) have had a regular sort of board in.

Dell have them made for their machines now by MSI but Alienware used to use Foxconn, Asus and EVGA with just a bios logo added.

Dell did away with BTX in the later of the XPS machines. They were using BTX for a time though. Probably Intel's most stupid idea ever tbh.

 

[Zoot]

That's not just Dell though, I have an HP PC here (not from me ) whose M/B more or less
has MATX size but which is completely incompatible since it's switched around (it's built
into the machine BTX/reverse ATX style, but the PCI-E slots are still facing "down" if you
know what I mean, so you'd have to completely change the case's back side if you ever
wanted to mount a standard M/B in it).

Which is why you should always roll your own if you want upgradability!

Aside from the X51 which uses an ITX board with external PSU every Alienware made (both post and pre Dell) have had a regular sort of board in.

Dell have them made for their machines now by MSI but Alienware used to use Foxconn, Asus and EVGA with just a bios logo added.

Dell did away with BTX in the later of the XPS machines. They were using BTX for a time though. Probably Intel's most stupid idea ever tbh.

They're not using BTX any more in the standard desktops?

I remember in the later XPS line, which they canned since they were essentially competing with themselves, their having a standard ATX motherboard in at least one model anyway. I think it might have been the XPS 630.

 

[alienware]

They're not using BTX any more in the standard desktops?

I remember in the later XPS line, which they canned since they were essentially competing with themselves, their having a standard ATX motherboard in at least one model anyway. I think it might have been the XPS 630.

Not as far as I know mate no. They last used BTX in the XPS 720 and the 730 (the very last one) was ATX.

It was Intel who designed BTX. They got a bit of a shock when the whole entire PC community said "up yours we're not going out and buying new cases" so it was a short lived affair. Dell probably did it for the monopoly factor but that has been changing in recent times as they've probably realised it would put a lot of people off.

Most of the OEMs now like HP and so on just get one of MSI's boards mass produced and put a stuffed bios on them removing all of the overclocking options. It's cheaper that way to take a model they already make as it saves paying for it to be designed.

 

[alpenwasser]

It was Intel who designed BTX. They got a bit of a shock when the whole entire PC community said "up yours we're not going out and buying new cases" so it was a short lived affair.

Thing is, some of their ideas weren't that bad, but they really should have made it compatible
with ATX, I think that should have been possible (some of the earlier BTX board actually
were compatible afaik). Similar story with Itanic/Itanium. There were some very nice ideas
in there, but breaking compatibility with x86 (even though it wasn't really targeted at that
market anyway) ruined those plans once x86_64 (or AMD64) was rolled out. A big chunk
of the former target market has been taken over by simpler (less expensive) chips, and
the really high-end mainframe type of stuff is still ruled by IBM and its system z10 these
days (90% market share in 2008, source).

TBH, I sort of wish for a new architecture to replace x86 in the marketplace, we really
should discard most of that at this point. I mean, it's a 45 year old architecture for
eff's sake (well, parts of it, anyway). There really are many things that can be done much
more cleverly than they're done in x86.

Just imagine how much computing power you could get out of a chip with a properly modern
architecture freed of all that legacy crap that's allowed to draw 100 W :dribble:.

I know, not gonna happen, but one can dream...

EDIT: Maybe a bit more realistic: A desktop targeted ARM chip? Not sure how well they
would scale if you allow them to draw more Watts though

EDIT 2: One of the most hilarious and sad cases of optimism I've ever seen:

 

[alienware]

I remember Itanium. What a sexy name to give a CPU tbh. The clock speeds were utterly hilarious though

Course, not being X86 they didn't matter but on paper to a gamer it looked totally lame.

 

[alpenwasser]

I remember Itanium. What a sexy name to give a CPU tbh.

+1 for that from me, that part they definitely got right.

The clock speeds were utterly hilarious though

Course, not being X86 they didn't matter but on paper to a gamer it looked totally lame.

I remember that I didn't really care about clock speeds that much. I was already aware that
different architectures can get same performance at different clock speeds, but yeah, that
would not have made it easy to market the thing to the general public (at which it wasn't
targeted anyway though).

 

[alienware]

Well at least they got it 100% right with the Pentium Pro.

 

[alpenwasser]

Well at least they got it 100% right with the Pentium Pro.

Never had one of those, but from what I've read they seem to have been quite awesome.

Ah well, I've got some six core Xeon goodness here, that will have to do for the foreseeable
future :lol:

 

[alienware]

:lol:

I don't think many people had one of those (P Pro).

Most had two tbh. That was the way to do it any way and then run Windows NT.

By the time I got mine they were getting on a bit but it was worth the wait as by then Windows 2000 was out and had Direct X.

The first few versions of DX 8 were hacked for Windows 2000. Mind you it made Microsoft stand up and take note and they were releasing official versions within the year. Good of them tbh, it almost made up for Windows ME.

 

[alpenwasser]

Good of them tbh, it almost made up for Windows ME.

Now that was a crime against humanity! :nono:

 

[Zoot]

Most of the OEMs now like HP and so on just get one of MSI's boards mass produced and put a stuffed bios on them removing all of the overclocking options. It's cheaper that way to take a model they already make as it saves paying for it to be designed.

Makes sense. Although I'd imagine the sales of basic home desktops can't be too great right about now considering laptop sales already eating into desktop sales and the overall slump of the PC market.

TBH, I sort of wish for a new architecture to replace x86 in the marketplace, we really
should discard most of that at this point. I mean, it's a 45 year old architecture for
eff's sake (well, parts of it, anyway). There really are many things that can be done much
more cleverly than they're done in x86.

Well x86 is only an instruction set really. It's not an architecture per se.

I'm sure you've heard the whole RISC vs CISC argument. ARM, PowerPC etc. would be RISC and the best example of CISC is x86. I'm no expert on CPU instruction sets (Analogue electronics are my speciality), but the RISC should always be more efficient and flexible than the CISC.

EDIT 2: One of the most hilarious and sad cases of optimism I've ever seen:

<offtopic> If you think that's funny, just look at some of the economic predicitions coming out of most European countries at the minute! </offtopic>

 

[alpenwasser]

Well x86 is only an instruction set really. It's not an architecture per se.

True, got my terminology mixed up there.

I'm sure you've heard the whole RISC vs CISC argument. ARM, PowerPC etc. would be RISC and the best example of CISC is x86. I'm no expert on CPU instruction sets (Analogue electronics are my speciality), but the RISC should always be more efficient and flexible than the CISC.

I have read quite a bit about it, and yes, that's what seems to be the general conclusion.
I've recently watched episode of the Computer Chronicles where they go into the question
of whether or not RISC could overtake the CPU market (it was from the late 80's I think,
not sure anymore). So much for that. :lol:

<offtopic> If you think that's funny, just look at some of the economic predicitions coming out of most European countries at the minute! </offtopic>

:rollinglaugh:

Sometimes I think economist is a job solely invented for entertainment purposes :lol:

 

[alienware]

Makes sense. Although I'd imagine the sales of basic home desktops can't be too great right about now considering laptop sales already eating into desktop sales and the overall slump of the PC market.

I went into PC world a few weeks ago and the PC has shrunk big time. It was pretty depressing really. They had about ten tiny little PCs and that was it. No components, no games, nothing.

 

[Zoot]

I went into PC world a few weeks ago and the PC has shrunk big time. It was pretty depressing really. They had about ten tiny little PCs and that was it. No components, no games, nothing.

PC World would be a victim of two declining industries really - retail and the PC one so it'd be a worse example than most.

On another note, I'm actually kind of glad I didn't get a job with Intel a few years ago (one of the reasons all my CPUs are AMD ) given the situtation with the PC market.

BTW, with the Dell XPS 730 it seems the case was totally DIY friendly. Given it has an inverted motherboard tray, I wouldn't mind picking up one if I could get it on ebay or adverts.ie or something.
http://www.my630i.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3682

 

[alienware]

PC World would be a victim of two declining industries really - retail and the PC one so it'd be a worse example than most.

On another note, I'm actually kind of glad I didn't get a job with Intel a few years ago (one of the reasons all my CPUs are AMD ) given the situtation with the PC market.

BTW, with the Dell XPS 730 it seems the case was totally DIY friendly. Given it has an inverted motherboard tray, I wouldn't mind picking up one if I could get it on ebay or adverts.ie or something.
http://www.my630i.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3682

Years ago we had an Intel rep who used to come around to our shop and sell us stuff he'd managed to bag. Seems like he had a pretty cooshty job tbh.

PC world is definitely on the decline. Not that they were ever very good for buying parts and stuff but at least it was somewhere you could browse. Only thing to see there now is a tumbleweed tbh.