I am just in the final stages of purchasing on of these great systems.I am looking form any user feedback to sway me.They both have pros and cons did alot of research and just looked at C-NET PC_WORLD and it is still a tossup.I am going with a P4 3.0 512 Corsair XMS PC3200 LOW CAS LATENCY SATA no RAID 0 with ALIENWARE,but with ABS it comes with.The Alienware uses the intel MOBO with 875P chipset and a FX5700 ultra,the ABS I would get the ASUS P4C800E with the FX5900 256 ultra or the ATI 9800 256 .The only differcne is the ABS runs about 70 U.S. more out the door with a few more bells and whistles.The reviews favor Alienware for support,workmanship,and neatness in their cases.ABS gets thumbs up from a performance perspective by a small margin.Just unsure the nice thing about Aleinware I can go with 6mths same as cash and that does help.I would appreciate any user response to help me with their inputs.BTW I decided not to build my own ....ThanksAndy

Save a boatload of money and build a comparable system yourself... Get the Radeon 9800 instead of a GeForce FX - the image quality is better.Ryan

Agreed.

There are pros to building one but the delta in price ~ $250 does not offset the headaches.Thanks

What headaches? You plug the componets together, turn the thing on, nothin to it, its easy. Lots of people here willing to help.

More of a time thing and I have looked into using NewEgg.com.How many of you have home built vs mfg.

Home built here. I have never bought an OEM desktop, just laptops.

Time? Do you not have 10 minutes so sit down at the table and plug in a few parts?

I have an Area51 machine. Great systems and fast cause they come without all that junk software on em'. Definitely get a 9800 Pro card. Way faster than a 5700. My suggestion. Go to the nearest Bestbuy and have them build you an Alienware. They will service and support the thing for you. If you buy it from the Alienware Depot online it'll take a month to get it and if you have problems with it, you have to box it back up and ship it back. They do not come to your house regardless of what their warranty claims. Then you get it back a month later reformated and it might get fixed or might not. Probably broken in shipment. Odds are you won't have any trouble as they do make an excellent machine at prices that are competitive with Dell. But you never know?? I just recommended one for my sister-in-law. She's going to Bestbuy and have it built. She'll have it before xmas.

Andy,I've built/upgraded systems for many years now and it's always been much cheaper than buying an OEM system. I'm not the most mechanically inclined person, but putting together computers are a snap.One route I've also gone is to get a "barebones" system built, then add the additional components I want. The barebones system usually has the CPU, case, ram mb, and HD checked out and running stable, you just add the extras.I've used a place called AccessMicro to build barebones system at a fraction of the cost. Threw in my CD-RW, video and sound card and called it a day. You would save a lot more than $250. Alienware makes great systems, but your are paying a premium for their name and repuation. The components in the box are the same as ones everyone has access to. And if I can put together a quality stable system, that tells you how how much real workmanship goes into it. :) Remember, your Alienware PC is going to depreciate and become obsolete just as fast as everybody else's P4 3.0/800 fsb system. Is it really worth the extra jack?ed

>I have an Area51 machine. Great systems and fast cause they>come without all that junk software on em'. Definitely get a>9800 Pro card. Way faster than a 5700. My suggestion. Go to>the nearest Bestbuy and have them build you an Alienware. >They will service and support the thing for you. If you buy>it from the Alienware Depot online it'll take a month to get>it and if you have problems with it, you have to box it back>up and ship it back. They do not come to your house regardless>of what their warranty claims. Then you get it back a month>later reformated and it might get fixed or might not. Probably>broken in shipment. Odds are you won't have any trouble as>they do make an excellent machine at prices that are>competitive with Dell. But you never know?? I just>recommended one for my sister-in-law. She's going to Bestbuy>and have it built. She'll have it before xmas.I was at a local Best Buy here and they claim they don't sell Alienware anylonger. what are your specs on your Area-51 ??Thanks

One factor to consider in the cost structure that is never mentioned is resale value- go try to sell your homemade PC on eBay in two or three years when you want to upgrade. An Area 51 from Alienware will get you some good $$ even in a few years if you take care of it, money you can put toward your next machine... the depreciation on a homemade box is a whole different story.Having said that, I'm thrilled with the performacne of my Area 51 (bought it in May) but their customer service and delivery dates are a total joke.Best,Joel

captandy; I got my Alienware in September, 2002. It's a PIV2.53, 512mb PC1066 ram, Audigy Sound Card with an ATI9700Pro video card and WinXP Home. It's been awesome. Not a single problem and runs exceptionally well. Very good machine; but I've read horror stories on the Alienware Forum about customer service nightmares for those who've had problems. That's a closed forum, BTW. You only get to access it after you've bought a machine. I have no complaints. Money well spent. Last time I was in our local Bestbuy, they were still custom configuring Alienware machines for retail and providing any needed service on site. That's been a couple months ago. Don't know if every Bestbuy store does it or not. You might want to call a couple different stores if the one you contacted doesn't do it. As I'd recommend you not use the online order method unless you have no access to a Bestbuy.

With most PC's, it's usually a lot more cost effective to upgrade the box you have than try to sell it after a couple of years.I upgraded my old Athlon 1.8 to a P4 2.8/800 FSB machine for FS9. Grand total was less than $500. Kept my old Radeon 9500 Pro, soundcard, DVD-ROM drive, etc and have a machine that'll fly for another 12 months. However, it's your money - to each their own.

I built the machine online and called them directly to place the order.I felt the sales staff were informative and they answered my questions without being pushy.I know CS is another story and I hope I wont have to use them.Their prices are high and I hope that is a result of good wormanship and solid performance.I only can afford the FX5700 ultra 128 but as time goes on I might upgrade to the FX5900/5950 or the ATI 9800.Never was a big ATI fan and from what I have experienced in the last week with a 9800 pro on my older achine I am leery to get another one.Thanks