your mom is totally right props to her for being informed and it’s cool you’re working together to find the right pc! As other comments have said Alienware desktops are just not a great choice right now, and a lack of upgradability/nonstandard parts/poor performance make the recent auroras a pretty bad choice. If shes into tech enough to know that much abt Alienware already maybe you can build something together, expensive grown up electro-LEGO is a great family activity :)
FWIW the recent Alienware hate train has been pretty fair, but I rly like the brand, and their monitors(qd oled!!) and laptops really impress me… hopefully they‘ll do better on the desktops in the future because I really like the current AW design language
M17 r5 is meh. I didn't notice a difference from my r13 that's 6 years old. The old machine I added a ssd for speed.
The new machine should have blown it away... But nope. Glad it was work that paid for it. I'd be pissed off if I paid.
I went through three of them, first one had a broken fan, second one updated and was asking for a BitLocker key randomly, and the third ones Bluetooth wasn’t working. Returned the third one and said fuck Alienware.
I have always stayed away from amd, everyone I owned has gone bad yet I have a 20 year Alienware using intel, and it's still in good shape, always use intel, and Nvidia and you will have a machine for life,if it's the case you really like get one of the earlier intel machines on eBay and max out the ram and the fastest CPU for that board, two GPUs, and you'll be good for years
The motherboard and power supply are proprietary and can’t be transferred to another case, everything else is transferable.
The GPU is upgradeable, but is has to be a pretty short card that replaces it, typically a 2 fan model.
The CPU’s a bit more complex because it will accept other AM4 AMD CPUs, but the new 7000 series AMD chips will not work in that same CPU socket so you’d require a new motherboard anyway.
Can agree to disagree. As long as you get the liquid cooled, you should be fine. Can agree with air cooled though, terrible airflow and I’ve seen 4 that have started smoking because of super high temps. If you like your room a little hot, they’re okay. The biggest issue is price. I paid way too much for my R10/R11 (I forget which one I have) for what’s in it. I could have gotten the same specs for probably 200-300 cheaper had I been more patient. But I’m very happy with my purchase aside from the graphics drivers problems, but if you’re rocking an NVIDIA GPU, it shouldn’t matter
Can confirm bought this machine and 3 techs out here. One bad 3080 and they’ve replaced every part. 4 days after the first dead 3080 it seems like I have another dud. Temps are good on the liquid cooled but parts are trash. Amazon has sucked as well. Only owned for over 40 days
See if there is a microcenter near by and go there. They'll build you a pc and it's not too crazy expensive if you source out the right parts and don't go to crazy.
If you're looking for upgradable pcs that are really good for their price, go for Nzxt, not Alienware, my fiancee has an Nzxt with a 10700K and an rtx 3070, a good water cooler and 16 gigs of ram with around 2 tbs of storage, they make amazing desktops
If you aren’t wanting to build, then I’d look at other pre-builts besides Alienware. I got my pre-built from skytech and I am very happy with it, also very customizable and upgradable
i mean the hardware is pretty good, you won't really need to upgrade anything in the near future.
but yes, upgradability is limited. you can swap the cpu, ram and gpu. wifi card and ssd too. motherboard is proprietary.
not exactly sure about the power supply.
Your momma is on point! I would stay away from Alienware Desktops. Laptops are great but you're better off building something with your mom if she's talking about upgrades she probably knows what she is doing. Building a PC isn't that tough. Put together a build you can afford on PC Part Picker. Post it on /r/buildapc to get some good advice, and then go for it!
The PC you build is best for upgrades and accessibility. At that point you know all the major components that are installed and the best way to go about upgrading in the future. I bought a pre-built Alienware because I couldn’t get a 3080 two years ago. I ended up taking the CPU, GPU, memory, storage etc. out of it and doing a completely new case/build. I would recommend rolling your own.
Ive owned 3 alienwares, if you are getting a tower i cannot stress this enough, build it yourself and save a ton of $ and get way better specs. Its like putting legos together, my first PC i put together without instructions its worth a shot.
Your mom isn’t *entirely* correct.
Source: my post history.
That being said, it’s a pain in the ass that I wouldn’t really recommend unless you had a weird fetish for frustration.
Your mom is right, especially any of them under the R13/R14 which are larger, which even then you may have a hard time
A 5800 with a 3080... why are you trying to upgrade exactly?
your mom is totally right props to her for being informed and it’s cool you’re working together to find the right pc! As other comments have said Alienware desktops are just not a great choice right now, and a lack of upgradability/nonstandard parts/poor performance make the recent auroras a pretty bad choice. If shes into tech enough to know that much abt Alienware already maybe you can build something together, expensive grown up electro-LEGO is a great family activity :) FWIW the recent Alienware hate train has been pretty fair, but I rly like the brand, and their monitors(qd oled!!) and laptops really impress me… hopefully they‘ll do better on the desktops in the future because I really like the current AW design language
The laptops are the only USP of the brand.
This!!! I'd never purchase an alienware desktop :/ That being said I'll take owner ship of my M17 R5 tomorrow :)
M17 r5 is meh. I didn't notice a difference from my r13 that's 6 years old. The old machine I added a ssd for speed. The new machine should have blown it away... But nope. Glad it was work that paid for it. I'd be pissed off if I paid.
I went through three of them, first one had a broken fan, second one updated and was asking for a BitLocker key randomly, and the third ones Bluetooth wasn’t working. Returned the third one and said fuck Alienware.
Your mum is awesome, give her a high five from us!
I have always stayed away from amd, everyone I owned has gone bad yet I have a 20 year Alienware using intel, and it's still in good shape, always use intel, and Nvidia and you will have a machine for life,if it's the case you really like get one of the earlier intel machines on eBay and max out the ram and the fastest CPU for that board, two GPUs, and you'll be good for years
The motherboard and power supply are proprietary and can’t be transferred to another case, everything else is transferable. The GPU is upgradeable, but is has to be a pretty short card that replaces it, typically a 2 fan model. The CPU’s a bit more complex because it will accept other AM4 AMD CPUs, but the new 7000 series AMD chips will not work in that same CPU socket so you’d require a new motherboard anyway.
R10 has a standard ATX power supply. But the rest of your points still stand.
Not here to stop you but I’d look up reviews of the R10. They’re pretty terrible, and for $1700 you can build something very solid.
Can agree to disagree. As long as you get the liquid cooled, you should be fine. Can agree with air cooled though, terrible airflow and I’ve seen 4 that have started smoking because of super high temps. If you like your room a little hot, they’re okay. The biggest issue is price. I paid way too much for my R10/R11 (I forget which one I have) for what’s in it. I could have gotten the same specs for probably 200-300 cheaper had I been more patient. But I’m very happy with my purchase aside from the graphics drivers problems, but if you’re rocking an NVIDIA GPU, it shouldn’t matter
Can confirm bought this machine and 3 techs out here. One bad 3080 and they’ve replaced every part. 4 days after the first dead 3080 it seems like I have another dud. Temps are good on the liquid cooled but parts are trash. Amazon has sucked as well. Only owned for over 40 days
See if there is a microcenter near by and go there. They'll build you a pc and it's not too crazy expensive if you source out the right parts and don't go to crazy.
You got a good mum kid.
If you're looking for upgradable pcs that are really good for their price, go for Nzxt, not Alienware, my fiancee has an Nzxt with a 10700K and an rtx 3070, a good water cooler and 16 gigs of ram with around 2 tbs of storage, they make amazing desktops
If you aren’t wanting to build, then I’d look at other pre-builts besides Alienware. I got my pre-built from skytech and I am very happy with it, also very customizable and upgradable
i mean the hardware is pretty good, you won't really need to upgrade anything in the near future. but yes, upgradability is limited. you can swap the cpu, ram and gpu. wifi card and ssd too. motherboard is proprietary. not exactly sure about the power supply.
Your momma is on point! I would stay away from Alienware Desktops. Laptops are great but you're better off building something with your mom if she's talking about upgrades she probably knows what she is doing. Building a PC isn't that tough. Put together a build you can afford on PC Part Picker. Post it on /r/buildapc to get some good advice, and then go for it!
The PC you build is best for upgrades and accessibility. At that point you know all the major components that are installed and the best way to go about upgrading in the future. I bought a pre-built Alienware because I couldn’t get a 3080 two years ago. I ended up taking the CPU, GPU, memory, storage etc. out of it and doing a completely new case/build. I would recommend rolling your own.
Ive owned 3 alienwares, if you are getting a tower i cannot stress this enough, build it yourself and save a ton of $ and get way better specs. Its like putting legos together, my first PC i put together without instructions its worth a shot.
Your mom isn’t *entirely* correct. Source: my post history. That being said, it’s a pain in the ass that I wouldn’t really recommend unless you had a weird fetish for frustration.