AlienWare Area-51® 5300

[Wolf68k]

The Platinum has a Firewire port already on the motherboard in the back near the USB ports, plus a port lower on the board for a Firewire header which is like if you have a case with a front Firewire port.

 

The other one only has the header port.

 

 

The Platinum using the nForce 4 Ultra chipset. The other only uses the nForce 4 (non-Ultra) chipset.

 

 

Pretty much the same after that, maybe a few differences here and there.

 

Personally I think you'll like the Asus A8N-E nVidia nForce4-Ultra Chipset w/7.1 Sound, Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0 PCI-E Motherboard better, but then I like ASUS.

[AshleeSimpson]

What do you have to say about this setup.

 

Power Supply ( Standard Case Power Supply )

Processor ( [939-pin] AMD® Athlon-64 3700+ CPU w/ Hyper Transport Technology )

 

Processor Cooling ( Certified CPU Fan and Heatsink + 2 Extra Color Lighting Case Fans )

 

Motherboard ( Asus A8N-E nVidia nForce4-Ultra Chipset w/7.1 Sound, Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0 PCI-E Motherboard )

 

Memory ( 1024 MB [512MB X2] DDR-400 PC3200 Memory Module Corsair-Value or Major Brand )

 

Video Card ( [PCI-Express 16x] Nvidia Geforce 7800GT 256MB w/DVI + TV Out Video )

 

Hard Drive ( [special !!!] 160 GB HARD DRIVES Western Digital 160 GB 7200 RPM Ultra ATA-100 2MB Cache Hard Drive )

 

2nd Hard Drive ( None )

 

Raid Controller ( None )

 

Raid Configuration ( None )

 

CD/DVD Drive ( 16x DVD-ROM Drive Beige )

CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive ( 52x32x52 CD-RW Drive Beige )

 

Sound Card ( Creative Lab Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit 7.1 )

 

Operation System ( MS Windows XP Home Edition w/Service Pack-2 )

 

IEEE-1394 Fire Wire Card ( None )

 

USB Flash Drive ( None )

 

 

[Wolf68k]

Keep $85 in your head for your total for the shipping. Or $65 if you want the cheaper slower UPS ground.

 

 

 

Certified CPU Fan and Heatsink + 2 Extra Color Lighting Case Fans

Do you really need 2 extra lighted case fans? The case already comes with atleast 1 mounted on the side panel. Plus you can get your own case fans that even you can install yourself (no offense).

 

 

 

Hard Drive ( [special !!!] 160 GB HARD DRIVES Western Digital 160 GB 7200 RPM Ultra ATA-100 2MB Cache Hard Drive )

The ASUS mobo supports SATA (Serial ATA) HDDs which are faster and the basicly the better way to go and it's only a $10 increase.

 

 

 

CD/DVD Drive ( 16x DVD-ROM Drive Beige )

CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive ( 52x32x52 CD-RW Drive Beige )

Try the "16x DVD-ROM + 52x32x52 CD-RW Combo Drive" (black since when the door is opened it's black inside). You'll have your DVD-ROM and CDRW burner all in way and save some money.

 

 

 

Oh BTW incase you're still lost as to what Firewire is.

Think of USB on "the juice". Super fast transfer rate than compared to USB 2.0. Great for external drives (HDD and CD/DVD-ROM/buner), iPods, external TV tuner/video capture, DV cams and more.

[r7av7en7]

How about this guys

 

P4 2.93

1.5 Gigs of PC2-3200 DDR2 @533 MHz

160 gig SATA Hard Drive

2 FIREWIRE ports, one on front one on back

6 USB 2.0 ports

Media Card Reader

Dual Layer DVD burner

ATI Radeon 9250 256 Meg Video card w/tv out

15" HP VS15 Display

 

for under 1 grand!

 

this is a Compaq SR1426NX I picked up at circuit city for 750 and upgraded the RAM and video card for 200 which brings me to a total of $950

 

and yes I know it's Compaq but I eat sleep sh*t and breath Compaq

 

I also have a Compaq Laptop

 

AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 64 bit

512 Megs of ram

32 meg Nvidea

DVD Burner

15.4" Widescreen

[vALKYR]

How about this guys

 

P4 2.93

1.5 Gigs of PC2-3200 DDR2 @533 MHz

160 gig SATA Hard Drive

2 FIREWIRE ports, one on front one on back

6 USB 2.0 ports

Media Card Reader

Dual Layer DVD burner

ATI Radeon 9250 256 Meg Video card w/tv out

15" HP VS15 Display

 

for under 1 grand!

 

this is a Compaq SR1426NX I picked up at circuit city for 750 and upgraded the RAM and video card for 200 which brings me to a total of $950

It sucks a bit and it isn't the best gaming pc for under the 1300 bucks.

[Wolf68k]

 

How about this guys

 

P4 2.93

1.5 Gigs of PC2-3200 DDR2 @533 MHz

160 gig SATA Hard Drive

2 FIREWIRE ports, one on front one on back

6 USB 2.0 ports

Media Card Reader

Dual Layer DVD burner

ATI Radeon 9250 256 Meg Video card w/tv out

15" HP VS15 Display

 

for under 1 grand!

 

this is a Compaq SR1426NX I picked up at circuit city for 750 and upgraded the RAM and video card for 200 which brings me to a total of $950

 

and yes I know it's Compaq but I eat sleep sh*t and breath Compaq

 

I also have a Compaq Laptop

 

AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 64 bit

512 Megs of ram

32 meg Nvidea

DVD Burner

15.4" Widescreen

There is one huge problem with it. That is it's a COMPAQ.

Compaq, HP, Dell, Gateway, and others all infest their pre-builds with crap you don't know and have no good way to get rid of...I wouldn't be surprised with Alienware does it too. Sure you can uninstall the major crap but it's the other crap that you can't get rid of without things going wrong.

 

I'll admit I have no idea exactly how ibuypower does it. But it does seem to me that they are basicly a company that sells computers for those that want a system that is as if they build it themselves without having to learn how to build a system.

The fact that they can include the OS and have it installed, I would think would be just like if you did build the system yourself and bought your own OS and installed yourself. In other words no bullsh*t you don't need and isn't part of the OS as it comes from M$.

 

 

With Compaq, HP, Dell, Gateway, and others, you don't own the OS...you own a bastardized version of the OS. Personally I would rather warez the OS and never be able to get updates than to use their bastardized version...not that I'm condoning warez.

[r7av7en7]

I have my own version of XP Pro on this not the version of home that it was released with

[Loman]

I don't know if you guys knew this, but if you are buying a computer from ibuypower.com and the price is over $999, type in "IBUYPOWER" (no quotation marks) in the Coupon Code box before you check out and you'll get an instant 5% rebate

[Wolf68k]

That just about takes care of the shipping cost....but that's about it.

You have to spend almost $2000 to make the shipping basicly free

[AshleeSimpson]

How well would those specs i posted earlier play battlefield2? Seems like enough memory, harddrive, and gfx card.

[AshleeSimpson]

You know what, shoot.

 

I think i might just want to fix up a laptop i got for free from my brother about a year ago. It wont turn on, but maybe it just needs a new motherboard or something.

 

I got a 900 dollar car insurance bill coming in the next few weeks.

 

 

[Wolf68k]

Slow down there.

You can't just replace the mobo in a laptop. It's not like a deskop.

 

I've never heard of anyone replacing the mobo in a laptop themselves. It's always been that they have sent it to maker or a repair shop, and I think that's about the only way.

 

Besides which you just said you want to play BF2 and I doubt that that laptop can handle BF2 very well if at all.

 

 

 

 

Which specs from before are you talking about?

Figure out how much you have to spend, after you car insurance, and if you want to try and build on top of your current system to play BF2 then I can still help.

Keep in mind that now this mean you're going to have to install parts on your own, or get someone to do it for you, but this is a good thing. Just learning how to correctly install a PCI/AGP card and RAM is a big step in learning how to build...after that would come installing a CPU correctly, including thermal compound and the HSF.