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Spec a desktop PC for teen who wants to game?

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  1. #21

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    Original Post Deleted
    No need be such a dick about it.

    I stand by the rest of what I said. Poor company with poor quality controls and overpriced. In fact I would be even less enthusiastic about their desktops and say go with a nextgen console or a custom. You can google a build on a budget tier and it will give you the full list of parts.

    But yea, if you're going with a prebuild I would spend the money on an xbox or ps5 first, even paying hawker prices, though before you do it might be worth checking what games your relative is into, and of course if you're hoping it will double for productivity that also makes a difference. Good luck~

  2. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by jgl:
    I skipped through that, and yeah, it looked like a shambles inside. I'd be pretty pissed to find a stock cooler on a machine sold for a premium, and odd how it wasn't even from the right CPU manufacturer.

    Still, unless OP is interested in becoming responsible for tech support, I'd recommend a (well researched!) prebuilt that comes with a professionally staffed service desk and has one place for firmware downloads for all system components- I have spent too many years fixing other peoples' computers to have much patience for adhoc tech support anymore.

    I only know a handful of people IRL with Alienware, as most my tech friends are geeky enough and cheap enough to DIY. We tend to rag on the owners for having too much money to spend, but to be fair, none of them have complaints.
    The problem is that finding which pre-builds are "well researched" has the same pitfalls as learning the needed tech support. There are firms that do good pre-builds. There are also small companies in HK that do good custom-PCs as well and are prepared to follow-up with proper tech support. What would be useful to the OP is learning which of these pre-build/custom built companies are good and which to avoid.

    As for those who are happy with Alienware - all fine and dandy. But as we've seen on this thread, there is one person on this thread who is happy to recommend Alienware even though they've already had a motherboard failure and for which the design flaws are such that they should expect more hardware failures in the not-too-distant future.

  3. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by greenmark:
    As for those who are happy with Alienware - all fine and dandy. But as we've seen on this thread, there is one person on this thread who is happy to recommend Alienware even though they've already had a motherboard failure and for which the design flaws are such that they should expect more hardware failures in the not-too-distant future.
    Hell no. Parts failures are part and parcel of tech, I would not begrudge Dell for that. What was far more important was how it was handled, and the account sounded exemplary. At work we see motherboards blow out on a monthly basis on machines with far more engineering, in climate controlled and power-conditioned environments.

    The reason I buy a specific brand of laptop is for warranty support, I think it's critical for a high-importance bit of kit where I don't have the ability to fix it myself. I've had personal laptops need motherboard replacements, and the way they were handled gave me further trust in the brand, and I have stuck with them as a result- I literally will not use any other brand for my personal laptop.

    When it comes to desktops, I am happy to roll my own, but I am not willing to do so for anyone outside my immediate family.