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Dell fights Alien Invasion
Asakawa writes "With manufacturers like Alienware and Voodoo sucking up the low-volume/high-margin high-end gaming market, it looks like Dell wants a piece of the action. The machine that these guys have reviewed looks pretty awesome, but they reckon it's overpriced. It will be interesting to see if Dell can shake off its grey box image and entice the more fussy gamers and enthusias."
You mean Voodoo and Alienware are the Apples of the PC world?
It's just not the same if its not a clone. The only good gaming rig is pimped out, with glowing-thingimabobers and cooling fit for space shuttle components on re-entry.
Dell has too much work ahead of them for this really to be a feasible switch. Further, this isn't really that large of a market. I'll be surprised if they've got that much to gain by controlling another market.
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
If the max resolution is 1280x1024.
Dell can want to sell me a machine all they want, but they won't get my business because:
* The quality of their support has fallen through the floor due to offshore outsourcing it (the non-business support, at least).
* They don't give me the option of buying computers built on AMD CPUs, which have a better price/performance ratio than Intel CPUs.
* In most cases, they still force me to buy their systems bundled with Microsoft software, whether I want it or not.
Sorry, Dell. No sale here.
Gamers want the best - and right now that's AMD Athlon 64 (FX). Until Dell has that, they're stuff looks rather Dull. ;-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
'Nuff said.
Unfortunately for Dell, the market for the gamer revolves around the potential for business from the uninformed gamer. Every gamer I know (and indeed, myself) builds their own system for the fraction of the cost of buying an Alienware or a Dell that has the same specs. Indeed, as often as hardcore gamers upgrade their systems, none of these manufacturers can hope to provide the kind of support I'd need to make it worth my while. Perhaps if they offered free hardware upgrades for two years, I could see spending an extra 500-1500 dollars for the same exact system that I could build by surfing Pricewatch.com.
War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
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go to the apple store, go to store UK (since the article is in £ instead of $) pick the dual 1.8, add 512MB ram to get to 1GB, upgrde video card to 9800XT the upgrade to 250GB harddisk, add a 20inch flatscreen and hit 'update total'. Voila 3288£ compared to £3176 for the dell (with a 17inch monitor only, but 40GB. Okay, the dell has a 800X video card, but that's a mere 100£ difference)
and now you have a decent OS.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Seriously - what the hell is up with Computer equipment prices in England? Is their economy so strong that $5519.37 is a reasonable price for a 3.6 ghz P4 with a Radeon X800?
This isn't the first time I've noticed this absurdity - I've read reviews of English kit before, and it's always ludicriously overpriced. Hardware sellers are making a killing off of the lot of you.
English slashdotters, is there some sort of law or something that says you HAVE to buy computer stuff in the UK? Seriously, just buy all your computer stuff from the US, but buy an English AC adapter and an English keyboard that actually has the pound key on it. You'll save a ton of money.
What everyone has failed to mention is that the Dimension XPS is old. Been out for awhile. The only thing new about this is the review. But I guess since everyone has a hate for Dell, you just didn't notice and this is "news" to you.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes CmdrTaco to learn to spell "its".
... Headline I've read today.
.. then this one ...
...
First was this one on CNN.
And now another here on slashdot.
Someone would say there must be some sort of psy-ops going on, to soften us up for the headlines
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
How many people seriously play games over this res?
For one thing, computers that can play Doom III and the like at higher than 1280x1024 are not expected to exist until sometime in the 24th century.
For another, there are several things that make serious gaming waaay more enjoyable than straight-out resolution, including graphics card quality settings and refresh rate. Most decent monitors will still start to lose refresh rate above 1024x768... if you want anything close to 85-100Hz at higher than 1280x1024 you are talking about insanely expensive equipement.
IMHO most modern games are best played at 1024x768 on a decent gaming rig. You get beautifully high frame rates, and with a decent video card you can have all the quality settings absolutely cranked, whilst running at 100Hz or higher on your monitor to go extra easy on the eyes.
Anyone who claims they 'need' much higher resolutions is full of it.
Read Pynchon.
It looks like Dell is simply trying to offer up a games oriented PC on the cheap without upsetting their system too much. This would be sort of like building sports cars on the same assembly line as compact economy cars. The sports cars would get a different body and a few performance tweaks, but would essentially be the same old economy cars underneath with a significantly higher price. This sort of thing would garner some casual driving enthusiasts, but the hardcore enthusiasts who actually look carefully under the covers, would not be fooled by this.
It isn't really clear who they plan to sell XPS systems to. The hardcore market, as others here have commented, would likely build their own machines with higher performance for the same or less cost than the XPS. That leaves what I'll call the Mom and Pop market buying computers for their kids. This market might buy the XPS, but would be scared off by such a pricey machine that would probably be used to play games rather than doing homework. The kids would have to push them to buy this, and well, Dell just isn't cool right now (Apple is!). So I guess Dell needs to bring back that stoner dude to rev up those back to school sales!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
That is why dell is so looked down upon. If you ever have to work with them you just know you are dealing wich a "company/piece of hardware" were everything was done by the lowest bidder. Such tricks as finding out a 128mb machine had all its memories slots full (wich as you say makes it harder and more expensive to upgrade). Finding out that for some unspeakable reason yes this PC comes with only 1 IDE slot. That the case size means no expansion card fits.
It is not that Dell actually makes bad stuff. Just that if you are used to make your own cages or worse IBM style hardware Dell feels cheap. The biggest problem is that they feel cheap but often really aren't. If you buy your dell as is and never ever touch its insides then it is a decent enough deal. Else just don't. Friends don't let friends dell.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Quick little story:
;)
My girlfriend moved in (shocking, i know) with a hobbled together PC, same way i do mine - buy mobo-proc combo, case with decent psu, some video card that works with the mobo and some ram from crucial.
i normally repeat this cycle about meh, once every 2 years (recently graduated computer engineering student) and it worked out okay, but both of our machines always suffered from the old, *something* has gone wrong and died all the sudden.
With just one real workstation at any time to mess with for many years, i didn't mind all that much. Well, with two of them in house pulling that crap - it seemed like every month, i was buying some new component for either her pc or mine. It was getting old.
She scored a few contracts for her art (the Papa Roach cd and a slew of Brit albums from various artists that will hit soon have her stuff on them). Well, it was time to get a real machine. i wanted her to get a dual g5, but she wanted to stick with windows for all of her art software and plugins (well over $4k of x86 only stuff). Soooooo, we got her one of these...and here is the point of this post:
Blah, blah, blah as you will about Dell-this and Dell-that - i've not had *one* problem with that machine. i'll remind you, she is not doing light weight work. Not one problem. Er, and it kicks some serious ass with ut2k4 i might add
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