Should I make my own, or..?

i7 920
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115202

Asus P6TD Deluxe
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131403

OCZ CAS 7 1600 RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227381

Noctua CPU cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835608014

Cooler Master HAF
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811119160

Corsair 850HX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139011

OCZ Vortex 120GB SSD
http://www.microcenter.com/single_ [...] id=0304106

Caviar Black 1TB ((X2!!))
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822152185

5870 ((X2!!))
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121346

OS:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6832116762

Security:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6832108429

$2700 W/O monitor




OR should I get an alienware custom.. Same CPU, I'll overclock it, graphics cards. 875 WATT power supply.
Comes with security, a warranty, and comes already build.
They look similar, (Mine and alienware,) but idk which to choose. I'll be spending the same for both, but the alienware has the above pro's listed above. Which one do you guys think?

One of the things about alienware is that you dont get a choice of mother board.... they slap a cheap motherboard in there, give sub par cooling and no after market cooler, and occasionally a clamp to prevent the addition of an after market cpu cooler (couldnt believe it when i saw it on my friends xps system) Also if you want to upgrade for a 3rd graphics card, or throw a 6core gulftown in there in the future the psu would most likely need upgrading, not to mention motherboard compatibility issues.


LOL EDIT: When i went to the custom built dell site my price was much lower than yours, I accidently did duel 5770's instead of 5870's, a 1400 dollar difference 0.o

Ehhh, maybe we are looking at different prices, but the one that is about equivalent to haildafire's build is between 3919 and 4539.

ehh guess im a little biased.

I havent ever had a part go out aside from the stock cooler on my old intel p4, let alone a part pricey enough to warrant warranty cost.

My friend on the other hand has had to have the MOBO HDD and PSU replaced in his dell xps.

Just not a fan of more expensive pre built systems when you can get a cheaper home built one that you can customize in the future. And half of the fun to me is building it.

If you are going to get the Alienware you have to be smart and do some of the upgrades yourself. Get the 920 and overclock it, go ahead and get the video cards from them since those are cheaper than you can buy them from newegg, but get the minimum specs on everything else. You can replace their cheap Ram with 6GB of 1600mhz ram for about $120, and get your own hard drives for about $80 per TB. Your total cost between Alienware and the upgrades you make from newegg will only be about $2500, not counting the monitor you can also get cheaper elsewhere.

Not according to the specs you listed above. You get a better computer with higher quality components if you build it yourself.

Yes, originally. But I'm sort of modifying everything as I go.

Again, I'm new at all of this. I want a gaming PC, though. I know Alienware is a gaming PC brand. Idk about cyberpower.

What's HSF?
And just for the record, I do not care at all about noise. All I care about is performance.
AND, do you think I should get Zone Alarm instead of Norton, or what do you recommend?

Its hard to label one company as just a gaming computer company these days. You know what parts you want right? Well either google custom computers and find the lowest price or find the parts on the internet and order them.

Regardless In my personal experience and opinion I would avoid pay anti virus software. Free anti virus software generally runs on par or better than pay software and requires much less system resources.


The 1tb caviar black western digital drives were amazing a year and a half ago, but newer drives are out that are faster cooler and quieter.

I would never buy a core i7 processor above the 920 model, simple because you can overclock it easily to the 950-975 clock rate, generally without voltage increase. A good after market air cooler will perform as well if not better than cheaper water cooling solutions present in the alienware computer. In fact toms hardware did 2 articles on the subject.

A power supply used to be "just a required part" now with pc components using more and more power, a high quality power supply is VERY important.

You may want to read up a bit more on modern pc components and performance before you drop 3k on a new computer.

But still, we're always here to answer more questions =-)

You could do that. You're just asking these questions in the wrong forum. You're not going to find many people suggesting pre-built computers around here when you can get a better computer for your money if you build your own.

I more inclined to recommend against Norton, McAfee, and there's one more slipping my mind atm (someething micro). As for ones I recommend, yes the Zone Alarm Suite is what I use but Bit Defender has a nice package as do many others. One of the big bargaians and most unobtrusive AV's I ahve ever used (and am still using it for the last 17 years) is F-Prot......$29 for 5 puters.

Ahh just remembered....TrendMicro