Alienware

[Snowreap]

personally, I have found that it works well to buy a Dell that has a solid motherboard and a good CPU, then upgrade the power supply and the video card myself. generally, this means getting an Optiplex machine (but not one of the small-form-factor ones).

for example, in 2007 I bought an Optiplex 745 from the Dell Outlet. I don't recall the exact price but it was probably less than $800. this particular one, iirc, was 'unsold new' (i.e. somebody ordered it, Dell built it, but then the order was cancelled) but I've also bought refurbs (and unlike HP refurbs, the only visible evidence that a Dell refurb isn't brand new is the green 'REFURBISHED' sticker). it came with a Core 2 Duo CPU (E6400, 2.13GHz), 2GB RAM and 2 250GB drives. the video card it came with was a Radeon X1300 Pro 256MB, and I replaced that almost immediately with a Radeon HD3650 512MB which could run on PCI-E slot power alone (no separate power supply connection needed).

in late 2008, when we started playing a new game that the HD3650 just couldn't handle (keep battles in Warhammer Online is probably what pushed me to do it) I replaced the stock 305W power supply with an aftermarket 500W power supply and upgraded the video card to a Radeon HD4850.

that configuration has worked fine until now, but it won't run GW2 (probably because I need more than 2GB RAM for that game). at this point I will probably upgrade to 4GB RAM (or more) and if I can find a compatible CPU at a good price I may upgrade that too as long as I'm in there doing stuff. I will probably use this machine to give Windows 8 a try, as well.

I've gotten a solid 5 years out of this rig, and I can probably get another 5 at least (although it's usefulness as a gaming rig may not last beyond another couple of years). I *could* upgrade the video card again but if that really becomes necessary it will probably be time to replace the entire system anyway.

edit: Mona looked it up and the Optiplex 745 was just under $1100 from Dell Outlet. the extra cost over my $800 guess is probably because it came with a full copy of Microsoft Office (some kind of business edition that included Outlook and Access) and it had a second hard disk (which I wanted for Fraps recordings).

-ken