The Dellienware autopsy, part 265

[alienware]

Right. Got a few hours on my hands whilst peering out of the window hoping on a parcel, so let's get the latest one ripped to bits and exposed for what it really is, shall we?

A few months ago I decided to clear out some of my PCs. It was getting daft, especially considering that they were all crammed into a 2.5x3m room. The first to go were my older Alienwares, both the ALX and the black 2.0. This cleared up space, but more importantly funds to have some fun with.

It had only been about three months since I built my I7 950 based around a Bitfenix Survivor and so I swore up and down I wasn't going to buy any more computer parts for at least a year. Like an idiot I had a quick glance on Ebay, only to find a company selling X58 based brand new Alienware part builds for £325 shipped. Ugh.. Must.say.no.. Too late. Buy it now it was, and a few days later it came. I had managed to restrain myself for a few hours, having a look into what I was getting. I didn't overclock my I7 because in all honesty there was no point. The 950 is a ferrocious chip and doesn't need any assistance over its turbo function to bash any known game on the market today into submission. So, with this in mind (and my Bloodrage to back me up) I ordered it.

I did, however, see this before ordering. It seems that X58 Alienware parts were becoming abundant on Ebay given that Sandybridge was now launched and fixed.

It's an X58 micro !. But, it holds a secret. See if you can find that secret, and if you can't then later on I shall point it out. I knew what I was getting, and I knew it was a board in the same calliber and league as a Rampage Gene or whatever they are called. Not a cheap board by any means.

A few days later it came and I had a chance to look over it. Let's see if they're a bit pony like people assume, or, whether they actually carry quality parts.

So here it was. Brand new in all of its splendor.

And as promised it was exactly as described. Brand spanking new, flawless, still covered in plastic wrap inside. The case itself is usual Alienware fare. Triple walled side panels, weight around a metric ton and decked out with all sorts of loveliness that people can't "see". At first glance it just looks like a semi matt to eggshell finish, but, look a little closer and it reveals a secret.

It's not paint at all, but rather 'moondust' or whatever the hip name for it is, powdercoat. Outside the quality was beginning to match up to prior Alienwares, with Dell pushing the boat out. I will also point out that on the back of the unit near to the IO shield is a touch button. Press it and the entire back of the PC lights up with white LEDs so you can see what you are doing when plugging stuff in. It's squat, it's compact, and with my new solemn swear never to play with SLI or Crossfire again it was ideal. This was ruled out by my enormous triple slot Zalman GPU cooler any way, and a good thing. Moving on then the MSI thing was revealed once and for all.

It seems that MSI are making the boards for Dell to put into these Alienwares. Is that a good thing? Well, after the review prowess of MSI over the past two years I would say so yes. This isn't a new thing, MSI make all of the boards that go into the Acer Aspire Predators too and have done for years. Taking a closer look at the motherboard revealed an absolutely monstrous north bridge cooler with a large fan atop. So large infact that I had to remove it to have any hope of getting an NH-D14 on there, and still so large was this NB cooler than I had to chop three fins from the bottom of the Noctua in part so it could wrap over the NB cooler. Gone was the silly Asetek LCLC as I have had one in Corsair guise.

So, now it was time to find out where all of the fans are hidden. There is one hiding in a front duct and one hiding in a bottom duct. The front duct caters to the GPU/S whilst the lower duct takes care of the hard drives. They are both 92mm affairs, but when popping them out I discovered something else rather revealing.

Those are Deltas. They offer up huge RPM and CFM speeds and cost a fortune. About £25 each if memory serves me well. This did have me worried somewhat as they sound like jumbo jets taking off, but my fears were to be eased later. In the back of the unit is an obligatory 120mm unit that did not arrive with the PC (nor was it supposed to, it connects to the H50 thing) and again, is a Delta. I decided on Noctua, as always.

So, in went the said Noctua. This is the only way it would fit. If I turned it into normal business position it hit the top of the case.. It draws air downward, through the cooler and out of the back. It works well, offering the same exact temps as it did the other way in my Bitfenix. Now, going back to the top of the case you will have spotted a small circuit board that the fans connect to.

Remember this, it will come into play later. A little while later the hardware was wired and fitted and looks like so. Not the tidiest PC I have ever seen and the cable management isn't fantastic, but it gets the job done and doesn't have a window. So unless you have case OCD and take your computer apart all the time it doesn't matter.

Time to close up the duct then.

And have a play. Once started something rather odd happened.

The bios listed did not exist. Hmm, odd. It turns out after contacting Dell via their support website that the bios that was on there is a engineer's bios used to program the onboard toys. This includes that board you saw earlier (which turned out to be an electronic PIC controlled fan controller complete with temp sensors and auto fan adjust software like Afterburner) and the lighting board that is also PIC controlled. This is how they set the default requested light colours and so on. I decided to update it to the newer bios as I had heard a rumour going around.

The rumour consisted of one rather irate American who didn't want to pay for Alienware to put a pathetic overclock on his new system and charge $250 for it. He threatened Dell with legal action and a couple of months later the newer bios revisions looked like so.

XMS control, frequencys, voltages it's all there. This is now a boggy standard MSI we are playing with and one that was indeed capable of getting my 950 to 4ghz (as I already tried and confirmed it). So there's nothing sinister or monopolised here.

Once into Windows I had a go on their software. Here is the thermal application. It offers full control over every fan in the system via the electronic board. This includes seperate fan adjustments, automatic fan adjustments per degrees C and as many profiles as you like. In the end I decided on 25% for normal use, with a 50% option for gaming. Trust me, you don't want to put them to 100% as it literally sounds like the PC is going to blow up.

And the next thing to play with was the lighting software. Again I got a couple of nice surprises here. Firstly you can change them to any colour you like. Whilst childish this is a lot of fun. Then you can have them morph, flash, pulse and all sorts of utter sillyness. However, where it becomes clever is how you can program said lights to react to certain things. If you get an email whilst gaming the lights can be programmed to flash a different colour. And so on and so forth. And whilst these lights are quite frivolous they are there, and I would bet they cost a pretty penny.

In action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66kh9jUgOP4

And when I got an email.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6x4Oqs7-i0

So that pretty much brings us to a conclusion. The first thing we need to do is price up the chassis itself. I can put a $350+ price tag on it from the off. Firstly let's consider than it contains $75 worth of fans. Then let's consider it contains two programmable PIC boards that needed to be designed and then have software written for them. Then the finish, the good quality parts, the power supply. There is nothing cheap in there, and everything is incredibly solid and heavy. There are even flashes of genius about it, like the LEDs on the back to light the way.

Are they worth the money? it depends. Firstly I will say that there is utterly no point to buying an entry level Alienware. The first problem is no matter what route should you choose you are always going to come back to that 875w 80+ silver PSU and the horrifically expensive motherboard habit that Alienware have always had. It's over engineered to the point of ridicule and excessive to the point of laughter. But, it is what it is. A tremendously high quality unit decked out in sheer luxury. Getting a high end one is a good idea, which, brings us to the ALX.

Is it worth getting an ALX (I noticed this was mentioned elsewhere). No, absolutely not. The ALX carries an extra £3-400 price tag for what is nothing more than a lovely keyboard and mouse (TACTX by Logitech) and some vents with a few extra lighting zones. However, taken into account that the case already has the frivolous lighting AND that the vents do absolutely nothing but look quite fun then that pretty much rules out the ALX. If you have the money and it's no object? then sure, go for your life.

It's also not a good idea to start upping the spec when on Dell's site. They do overcharge for 'upgrades' so it's far better to buy one with a good GPU and CPU combo and then add in any optical or hard drives yourself.

So in all honesty nothing has really changed since the takeover. You get a very high end board coupled with a love it or hate it solid heavy case and some pretty good software and ideas. You get a sterling warranty service sans risk and literally take it out of the box and game on it. No hassle, no headaches. Dell still maintain the expensive component habit that Alienware did, so once again speccing like for like would cost you like for like, especially when you price in Windows 7 (a genuine one) and an onsite warranty and the guarantee that your system should work.

So the only surprise really is that the groundhog day shall continue. The haters will continue to hate, and those with very wide open eyes will see them for what they are. I couldn't care what PC my Left 4 Dead chums use at the other end of the internet, as long as it works.

 

[rwiuviberwVFIUBER]

You're completely missing the point that people have against Alienware. It's not just the computers that are overpriced, it's the performance as well. You're trying to tell me, that the insides of that machine are worth what you paid? It looks like utter shit. They don't put any effort into building their machines, it literally looks like it's been thrown together by a baboon. My first PC from 6 years ago looks exactly like that, and I put that together when I was 16. And since when doesn't cable management matter? It improves air flow, you know, like the CPU cooler you got does for the CPU. It may not be as big of a deal as the CPU cooler, but if it's the little things that matter, especially when it's such a high priced item coming from such a large company.

That's like buying a Jaguar with some shitty leather seats, busted dash, and trying to justify its high price tag and why Jaguar are a better company than so and so

 

[alienware]

You're completely missing the point that people have against Alienware. It's not just the computers that are overpriced, it's the performance as well. You're trying to tell me, that the insides of that machine are worth what you paid? It looks like utter shit. They don't put any effort into building their machines, it literally looks like it's been thrown together by a baboon. My first PC from 6 years ago looks exactly like that, and I put that together when I was 16. And since when doesn't cable management matter? It improves air flow, you know, like the CPU cooler you got does for the CPU. It may not be as big of a deal as the CPU cooler, but if it's the little things that matter, especially when it's such a high priced item coming from such a large company.

That's like buying a Jaguar with some shitty leather seats, busted dash, and trying to justify its high price tag and why Jaguar are a better company than so and so

It's good to know you read it over properly !.

Had you paid attention you would have spotted that I paid £325 for the case, PSU and board with all the fans in there.

As for missing the point? again, pay attention to detail. An Alienware can not compete with an overclocked system. That's pretty obvious. However if you are looking to overclock an Alienware then the options are all there. However, again a point missed, people who buy them don't know how to overclock in the first place, hence their place in the market.

Price? that all depends on how you look at it. Is an I5 system worth £899? again that depends on how you look at it. It's fully warrantied and fully ready to use. The support is good, more than you will get from an OEM who sold you the parts (and then charged you 10p a minute if you phone them for help). Fact is if something should go wrong during a build you ain't going to get much help as the margins on parts are small enough for them not to give a monkey's if you have a problem. Your option is return it all, and I covered that above. Go off to any PC builder out there and the chances are your price won't be far off. Go and try Origin, Falcon NW or any of the elite builders. Yes, their internals will be perfect, their customer service top of the pile and their prices will match. At last check on Origin a Raven with their logo on and Phenom 2/4gb etc was about $1300.

Moving on.

The wiring job isn't very pretty. I covered that also. However, if you like, actually use your PC you leave it closed. Airflow works, cooling is very good. Black internals with perfect CM are good for windows or if you continually keep looking inside your PC. Again, that's not something Joe Public would do.

You also do not get any restore discs with a self build. Which of course if you truly know your onions you wouldn't need. However, if you don't and you buy an Alienware you have it covered.

It's all well and good saying they are overpriced, pointless and so on. They have been around for a decade.

 

[rwiuviberwVFIUBER]

No I read it. You still bought parts that ALIENWARE use. I have seen videos of their pcs and their insides and it's appalling. You are completely missing my point of how they should actually care about what it looks like.

I also just did my first build on my own and I had a DOA SSD. It took me 1 week to get my SSD back from the place of purchase, which wasn't around the corner. Maybe you need to actually buy from respected retailers, you actually get good service and it isn't much hassle at all. It's also not a reason to try justify spending an extra 50%

And not just overclocked systems, and Alienware can't compete with any system. It's the same parts, at a higher price, they will overclock the same.

 

[alienware]

And not just overclocked systems, and Alienware can't compete with any system. It's the same parts, at a higher price, they will overclock the same.

Is it O RLY?

I had my I7 950 on a Foxconn Bloodrage GTI. The very same chip, with the very same ram and the very same cooler.

There it is. I then took those parts and put them into the MSI motherboard in the Alienware I bought, using my ram and cooler and so on. And the benchmarks were the same. And, when overclocked to 4ghz the results were within the margin of error.

I don't think you seem to be able to comprehend that it's not Alienware who make the parts for their computers on the inside and it never was. The first one I bought which was a cancelled order (for peanuts) carried an EVGA 680i. The second one here carried an Asus M3A32-Deluxe wifi.

Yes the wiring is awful but when you are running quadfire plus an 8800 ultra on two power supplies it would do.

Alienware have in the past used Patriot memory, Elpida, Hynix and so on. Their motherboards have included Foxconn, MSI, EVGA and so on. Their PSUs are manufactured by Newton labs, who again are a stand alone company. Their coolers were either made by Foxconn or Asetek.

So quite how you seem to be under this belief that an Alienware will not perform at the same clock speeds and memory speeds as any other system seems to be a complete mystery.

The older 'real' Alienwares out of Florida were wired much more tidily. However, they cost more than an Origin so it's not surprising. Here is my older ALX system that I sold off a while back, wiring looks good to me !

 

[rwiuviberwVFIUBER]

Is it O RLY?

I had my I7 950 on a Foxconn Bloodrage GTI. The very same chip, with the very same ram and the very same cooler.

There it is. I then took those parts and put them into the MSI motherboard in the Alienware I bought, using my ram and cooler and so on. And the benchmarks were the same. And, when overclocked to 4ghz the results were within the margin of error.

I don't think you seem to be able to comprehend that it's not Alienware who make the parts for their computers on the inside and it never was. The first one I bought which was a cancelled order (for peanuts) carried an EVGA 680i. The second one here carried an Asus M3A32-Deluxe wifi.

Yes the wiring is awful but when you are running quadfire plus an 8800 ultra on two power supplies it would do.

Alienware have in the past used Patriot memory, Elpida, Hynix and so on. Their motherboards have included Foxconn, MSI, EVGA and so on. Their PSUs are manufactured by Newton labs, who again are a stand alone company. Their coolers were either made by Foxconn or Asetek.

So quite how you seem to be under this belief that an Alienware will not perform at the same clock speeds and memory speeds as any other system seems to be a complete mystery.

The older 'real' Alienwares out of Florida were wired much more tidily. However, they cost more than an Origin so it's not surprising. Here is my older ALX system that I sold off a while back, wiring looks good to me !

You just quoted me saying that Alienware use the same parts and overclock the exact same, only to argue against it by saying they overclock the same. Thanks for informing me that they use the same parts (which I already stated and you quoted) and they are overpriced.

You are trying to justify such a large increase in price for one thing, and one thing only - So you do not have to make it yourself.

 

[cerbrus2]

I dont know how old your alienware rigs are AlienALX. But the site manager at work brought in his brand spanking new Alienware that he had just paid over 3k for into work to show it off.

And I can tell you this much. The Motherboard, Ram, and PSU are all clearly stamped DELL.

It seems as though Dell have ruined alienware as we all knew they would. They took the alienware brand, Slowly got their own hardware inside of them. and kept the price the same as it was when alienware used to source half decent hardware.

I worked out the exact same system the site manager brought from alienware, would cost no more than 800 quid. if you used Asus motherboard, corsair ram and PSU. and EVGA graphics card.

To say he felt a bit sick was an understatement.

 

[hmmblah]

It's fine to disagree guys, but please refrain from the name calling.

 

[alienware]

And I can tell you this much. The Motherboard, Ram, and PSU are all clearly stamped DELL.

Yup they sure are. They even have alien heads on them too.

However they carry MSI serial numbers and newton labs part numbers.

Yoyotech do a great computer with their logo stuck on a Bitfenix. Doesn't mean that they manufactured it

 

[tonkin97]

it was good insite on how alienware do things. before they went to dell they where the dogs testies but, the only thing you get for paying soo much for alienware is the custom case, light control etc. i can do it my self at fraction of the price.

but

we build our own machiens, overclock them love them, even cable manage them.

if someone doesnt have a clue how to build a computer and want something that is very powerfull, and had a known name (trends like apple etc) people will buy it and there is a market for it.

even though we know the truth how alienware works, its still going and people who dont understand how to build computers etc will still buy them.

 

[alienware]

In all honesty other than the case revisions Dell made (which were overdue in all fairness) and the original big mistakes they made they're not far removed now from the original Alienware. I mean, they still have some of the original designers in place

The fundamental basics haven't changed too much. I mean, you've got an MSI motherboard who are definitely in the top three right now (with Asus and Gigabyte). You've got a very good PSU (made by Newton Labs, not Dell, Alienware used Newton also) and the rest comes down to personal preference. Yes, I definitely agree with you on the user who has no idea. However, Alienware have an aura to them and a 'cool factor' that IMO will be very hard to beat. That was what made them popular in the first place and Dell knew it all too well.

Putting it into very simple terms, the name sold them. The references to aliens and Roswell sold them, the model numbers helped out also. They came around right at the same time as the Xfiles, the idea was perfectly timed and IMO shone of genius.

The main difference of course is that the newer Dell units are more generic. Not in design, but in the way that they all seem to use MSI boards where as Alienware picked and chose the top shelf boards and parts that were the most popular at that time.

As for the lighting? Well, I have yet to see another single PC, even heavily modified ones, that can do what it does. RGB LEDs controlled by an electronic PIC chip is no mean feat, especially when you consider they needed to write serious software to control it. Sure, if you know how to program C++ and you have an immense understanding of electronics and how to program that controller to mix and blend the LED states to create colours? then you would pull it off.

I can honestly say I have owned every single brand of PC case there is to own. Silverstones, Lian Lis (I built one of them fish tank things about seven years back lol) right down to SGI workstations. And none have come close in the way of technology to any of the Alienwares I have owned (all of them).

They are as geek as geek gets. Sure, there are very different opinions on what a case should look like. For instance, some one who likes the steralised clean look of a Fractal is going to hate an Alienware. And that's fine of course. It's a reasonable thing

I don't think the Alienwares are what could be considered tacky. And they're certainly not flimsy or poorly built, nor in bad taste.

You need to remember that from the word go Alienware did have stiff competition. Falcon NW and Voodoo were there right at the beginning. Voodoo fell to the wayside (HP did a Dell and thought that if they took them over they could beat Alienware - fail) and Falcon cost about twice as much.

Of course, you may see everything they offer as pointless. Which is perfectly cool of course.

Ah yes, here's something of interest. In a quite stark U-turn Dell unlocked their bioses. Furthermore, they even had one of their techs post a full run down on how to overclock your Alienware, with every setting it needs.

http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/t/19310782.aspx

Sure, they are quite conservative, but then what manu is going to encourage you to blow up a PC they have to warranty?

 

[Lollipop]

Why did you change your name and avatar?

 

[JesseLactin]

I too think that Alienware is overpriced. Not so much in the base model, the gouge in the upgrades. 980X->990X is like $1000, not the $15 price diff between chips. If it was up to me, that wouldn't happen. I've also read a few (read: many) horror stories about their recent customer support. I'm 99% sure it was on the Better Business Bureau's website, not a good thing.

 

[alienware]

I too think that Alienware is overpriced. Not so much in the base model, the gouge in the upgrades. 980X->990X is like $1000, not the $15 price diff between chips. If it was up to me, that wouldn't happen. I've also read a few (read: many) horror stories about their recent customer support. I'm 99% sure it was on the Better Business Bureau's website, not a good thing.

The price is what you are willing to pay. If you weren't willing to pay it then you wouldn't pay it, it's as simple as that.

If they were really that badly over priced then they would be out of business.

Talking of business... Wherever you have a business you are going to have disgruntled customers. It's just a fact of life.. "You can't please all of the people all of the time".

There are plenty people annoyed at plenty of companies. That includes basically all of them. I don't like Scan yet I hear others love the place.

And the sad fact of life is that you will read more about people's bad experience than good. When you get something that works first time and have no problems then the chances are you wouldn't go around telling every one how happy you are. Not unless you wanted to post a video on Youtube of a "review" which is usually anything but. It's just some tosser unpacking his computer and telling you how much he spent. That's not a review.

Have a problem however? then you will hear all about it. Most of the humans in the world only open their mouthes to complain sadly, that's just how it is. The happy ones just keep quiet.

When I phoned to get legal advice over what happened with Scan I was told that they had had plenty of other complaints filed against them that were very similar to mine.

Nothing is ever perfect. When I review or write about things I will point out the good bits. I will also point out the bad bits, no matter if I own the product. I am not the sort to think that because I own something that it is perfect. Infact, the only thing I have bought in the past three years that was literally perfect was the NH-D14. Well, I didn't buy it, I won it in a competition on here.

 

[JesseLactin]

That is sad when people have nothing nice to say. The base model is a great value for what you get (980X, GTX 580/590/ whatever they have,12GB of meh-RAM(1333MHz)). I also really like their cases. I've only really seen people have issues with the laptops, not so much Alienware desktops. I'm not saying their evil (I think Dell is though- $1800 for a Dimension C521 w/ Telus DSL), or that they shouldn't exist as a company (Alienware), but their system can double in price pretty quickly when you select anything outside the base model. The do definitely have a well earned place in the OEM PC market.

Edit: the # of negative to positive reviews are NOT representative of reality. However, when these issues occur, they should be dealt with promptly.

 

[alienware]

However, when these issues occur, they should be dealt with promptly.

Sadly there's the human element in that. You're always going to get the call center rep who just doesn't give a crap. Some will take things to the supervisor in order to get them cleared up and fixed, others just get you off the phone and then forget all about it.

 

[JesseLactin]

Thats what bothers me, when someone doesn't give a crap about the job their doing. It sucks to deal with people like that. When they hate their job, the don't bother to care about it.

 

[alienware]

It's definitely changed in that department sadly. Back when Alienware were Alienware they were based in Florida, as were their staff and call centers. They were enthusiasts who loved computers and loved their jobs.

Now Dell have done a Dell. However, you just need to know how call centers work. Insist on being raised a tier, insist on speaking to a supervisor, record the phone calls (they do it, just point out to THEM that you're recording).

Although I will say that Dell have definitely made them more reliable. It's made them more boring of course, but at least with Dell the hardware is all tested and researched quite generically. Alienware would just pick out all the new stuff and put it together in a PC before any problems had been discovered. They relied on, for example, EVGA's first bioses.. And we all know they are about as reliable as a perforated condom. They have gotten better over the past year or so though.

 

[JesseLactin]

Man, thanks for saying what i was trying to say all this time

. This sorta thing happens to me alot. I'm pretty articulate, but I can't seem to find the right words to match what I'm thinking. When I say what I want to, it comes out kinda funny. It sucks to get those crappy call centre guys not knowing what they're doing. I've never had an Alienware PC, and I won't cuz I kinda hate Dell. They manage to inject "blah" into everything they touch. They're the Activision of the PC world.

Edit: Still cool that they have a *minor* OC guide. Activision would charge $15 for it, like everything else. LOL.

Edit 2: I know C++. I bet, given enough coffee and some *very* low level hardware info (ie. machine addresses for LED controller, LED states, etc.), I could get the LED controller to work.

 

[alienware]

They were charging for it lol. Then some American ('MERICA, EFF YEAH !) threatened to sue because they had locked down the options in bios lol.

So they released a revised bios, unlocked, and even went so far as to helping you OC. You can't blame them for keeping it conservative really tbh. Last thing you want to do is encourage people who have no idea what they're doing to blow up their PC.

It's kinda like graphics cards. The 570 Phantom has beefed power circuitry, massive cooling, yet has a weeny OC on it. Same with the 470 Zotac Amp !. It has like a 50mhz OC.

And don't sweat it on the getting things out mush. I'm terrible at it.. There's a reason for it mind, but yeah, I tend to go on and on and on trying to get it out and just wandering miles from it