At the end of the day, I just don't see paying Alienware or Falcon the $$$ when I can build what they build. My current system I built about 9 months back:
Antec 900 case
Thermaltake 650W modular power supply
NVidia 680 SLI main board
BFG GeForce 8800 GTS video w/ 320 MB RAM
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33 GHz
2 GB of Corcair Dominator DDR2 memory
Toss in 2 x DVD R/W and 4 x 300 GB SATA2 drives in a raid 0+1 configuration and *bam* you have a gaming platform.
I figure this system will be good for another year to two and then it will be upgrade time again. For myself, though I can spend the $$ at an outfit like Alienware, I just don't see the value. After I built mine, I compared as close as I could with major manufacturers. I saved $600 as compared to a comparable Dell XPS and $750+ on a comparable Falcon. Plus I enjoy the "did it myself" feeling.
But whether you build your own or not, 2 months later a bunch of new crap ships that beats the crap you bought. Seemed as soon as I finished buildnig mine NVidia shipped the 700 series board, the quad core shipped, as did DDR3, etc.
Nature of the beast.
Moose

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