Alienware

[PeteSB75]

Originally Posted by Snake Hips

As others have said, Alienware makes a fine machine, but they're very overpriced for what you get. As for desktops, it's much much cheaper to build your own or have someone do it for you. That option isn't really there for laptops, but WoW will work on a basic computer just fine. My friend has the really barebones Compaq laptop and plays WoW all the time.

For college and gaming, go for a higher-end regular laptop. A good processor, lots of RAM and a good independent graphics card will give you a rig that will be up-to-date for years with good gaming compatibility as a bonus.

I built the rig I used before this one. The cost savings is really only there when you can recycle parts from previous rigs. Once you are replacing everything, which generally needs to happen after 2-3 years, things start adding up. I priced out the parts to build a box similar to the one I bought from Alienware at a cost savings of less than 10% of the total price. To me, that extra couple hundred bucks is just not worth the time and aggravation of building it, troubleshooting and RMAing at least one part off every PC, then rebuilding, installing the OS, drivers, etc.

WoW just needs a pc with a video card to be playable. The lag is most often a factor of all the addons that people run with their WoW.

Originally Posted by BigFrank

One of the biggest issues my friends have encountered was after the warranties dropped, too much crap went wrong. Now I know this does happen from time to time, but three people with three separate pcs tells me something. Also two of them had issues with 3 months of purchasing.

Hmm, I think I only got the 1 year on mine and it's been about 18mo since I got it. No problems with the PC itself. BTW, missing you down in the Pumping Iron thread. Not seen you there in a while.