First of all, I know that building a system is generally better, I have built rigs in the past.
Right now all I have is a laptop (couldn't bring my last rig with me when I moved to alaska) So I'd have to buy all the peripherals again (Monitor, speakers, mouse/keyboard, etc).
I probably would build my own rig, but shipping to alaska is the real killer. All those separate components in their own boxes can be a real money sink. Even ordering everything together, shipping would be about $200 to were I live.

I'm going to college in South Dakota next year, and I'd rather have something somewhat portable (or easy to ship) like the x51.
The model with the gtx 660 seems like it would be the best bet for me. All I would need is a monitor and the actual system itself.
From what I can calculate, building a PC with similar specs would actually be more expensive because of the shipping. (If I had all the peripherals and only needed the components, that'd be another matter)


So, before everyone just says "build your own" please think of all the circumstances.

I can't help you out too much but I bought an Alienware a few years back and it was a huge mistake. Very overpriced and definitely not worth the money.

Things might be different now but that was my experience.

I thought of the circumstances, and you should build your own. Don't look for us to justify your purchase of an alienware.

Try ibuypower they will build your rig any way you want and are way cheaper than alienware.

But still overpriced compared to building the same rig yourself.

OP, if your mind is made up, go for an X51, but I don't think anyone here is going to tell you it's a good deal. You can get a lot more for your money and have a system that will last a good deal longer if you build your own. I would recommend that you figure out the most powerful system you can build for the same cost of that X51 (subtracting shipping from the budget) and then decide which PC you would really rather own.

This.

But hey, it's your money and if you want to waste it on an over-priced rig then who am I to tell you no? I've also go a bridge in New York if you're interested.

I will not tell you to build your own, but I will tell you not to buy an Alienware. There's plenty of good websites (though I don't know any in the USA, but I'm sure someone else can help you out with that) that sell excellent pre-built PCs that just as good, if not better than Alienware products, and are a lot cheaper to boot. Often you will also be able to select the parts and have them built it for you. In either case you only have to pay for shipping once, so you're definitely not forced to buy Alienware.

Alienware appears to be top of the line, but they come with a huge price tag. I can guarantee atleast 25% of that price comes from the brand name, possibly 35% with the rest being the price of the parts. Bought me a Dell XPS one time and it was a mistake costing me $3200. About $1200 to $1400 of that was for the Dell XPS name with the leftovers being for the parts.

There are plenty of good pre-built systems out there that you can buy or go to a company that won't charge you out the [censored] for. I think ibuypower might be decent because when I checked their prices against components they were only $20 to $30 which wasn't too bad. When I assembled the stuff on their site and compared it to the same parts on Newegg there was only $300 in discrepancy with $200 to $300 for shipping and handling.

Would it be worth waiting til you are in college then having the components for a desktop shipped to you there or is this one of those situations where you "can't" wait?

Never buy Alienware. NEVER!

Maybe you could get somebody you trust (family) in the US (you know what I mean) to get them for you then ship them to your address. Not sure if that would cost less but it seems like it'd be cheaper to do than have a website ship them to you.

Whats so wrong with Alienware? The x51 seems to be a pretty good deal to me.

Buying EVERYTHING (Win7 oem, monitor, keyboard, etc) I need for a rig with a Zambezi 6100 and GTX 570 would be around $1,240 AND around $180 for shipping. Thats aproximately $1400.

If I got the x51 which has an Ivory Bridge i5 (not sure exactly which model) and a GTX 660, plus a monitor from newegg, would only be around $1200 in the end.
Plus the portability is a major plus since I'm going to be moving around a lot (gonna be living in 4 different places over the year next year) it'd save me a bit on shipping and hassle.

I know how stubborn the PC community can be when it comes to companies like Alienware, but they wouldn't be in business if they weren't doing something right.

http://i.imgur.com/H4CK4.jpg

Did you read anything I've said? I built rigs before, I know the advantages, it just seems like the x51 is a pretty good deal. I wouldn't purchase anything else from alienware because I agree, it is really over priced. Its specifically the x51 I'm talking about, not their stupidly expensive "full sized" desktops or WAY overpriced laptops.

Still, I priced it out and the x51 would be $200 cheaper with than building one with similar specs (zambezi 6100 and gtx570)
Plus the small size would save a lot of hassle and money when shipping to the places I'm going to be living.

I'm not worried about upgradability, since I rarely upgrade my PCs anyway, more often I just build a new one.

Seriously, the elitist side of PC gamers is really starting to annoy me.
I've heard it all, Macs/Alienware/pre-built/etc svcks.

If you need portability the X51 is a cool little rig. The previous gen one performed about like my desktop with a Phenom II X4 955 @ 3.6 Ghz with a GTX 460 1GB. The latest one with a current Ivy Bridge processor and GTX 660 will be much better still. For $1,050.00 it looks like a good deal if you need to haul your gaming hardware around with you. Its about the size of the original XBOX. You could stick in a carry on bag. I know there are a lot of Alienware haters out there but the X51 is a unique proposition that is nothing like their ripoff desktops. I would love to have one.

Exactly.
I'm only thinking about getting it because of the gtx660, if it just had a gtx555 like it used to, I wouldn't even consider.
I'd never buy any of their (IMO) stupidly priced "full sized" desktops and laptops.
It just seems like the x51 is a good deal for what I need.

It's taking forever to get into the configuration section of the site, but I did have one concern looking at the base specs- the 330W PSU. It looks like a nice, small, portable PC, but the small size also means close to 100% proprietary hardware. If it gives you the option of a larger PSU, I don't see a real problem going this route until you stop moving around and can build a better one.

edit- Finally got to the configuration, and it looks like it's using an external power brick, like a laptop. My concern has diminished.

I noticed that the GPU is only a regular gtx660, not a ti.

All I can find are ti benchmarks, anyone know how to would perform in relation to the ti?
I usually game in 1600x900, so take that into consideration.

Plain 660 is a crippled OEM only 660ti.
http://thedroidguy.com/2012/08/geforce-gtx-660-specs-released/
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/08/23/nvidia-geforce-gt-660/1
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/GeForce-GTX-660-OEM-gk104-Kepler,17066.html

I think it'd be fine for what I do.

I don't plan to play very demanding games like Battlefield 3, mostly just MMOs and RPGs maybe next call of duty game (don't know how demanding that will be though). I also don't mind turning down the options a bit aslong as its not to horrid. If I have to turn down the resolution, I'd just play it in windowed mode.


I'm also planning to build a better pc probably in my sophomore year of college (2014-2015) since I'll be in college and won't have the shipping penalties and will be established in one place.

Edit; I've also read people who have installed a gtx 670 in the x51 and it works fine for them, so I could do that if I find the performance lacking.

Check the power requirements before dumping in a bigger GPU.

I know, I've read the Alienware forums and they have posts about what GPUs are able to run in the x51. The gtx670 being among them.

I probably won't overclock this (since the cooling ability is obviously a little lacking).
Don't worry, No way I'm dumping that much for a GPU and not making sure my system will be able to run it.

I remember when my girlfriend (she was a mutual friend's friend, its how we met) tried to put a gtx 480 in her crappy dell. (It had a pentium single core lol)