Hey all,
I used to build my own gaming PCs way back in the 90s/early 2000s but I fell out of the habit when I realised I’d rather kick back on the sofa with something that “just works” than constantly chasing framerates etc, and I switched to exclusively console based gaming. Now that I own a Steam Deck, and with Xbox going down the shitter, and my kids becoming of the age where having a static family PC makes a lot of sense, I’ve decided to move back into PC gaming.
I started looking at self builds again but everything’s moved on so much since I last dipped my toes into that space that I struggle to know where to start. Then I saw an Alienware A51 in the refurb store with a decent early Black Friday discount code and very-nearly top-end specs so I pulled the trigger yesterday:
£2525
- Core Ultra 9 285K
- Geforce RTX 5080
- 64GB RAM
- 2TB Gen5 SSD
- 1500W platinum PSU
Retail, this spec is currently going for £3600 so it’s a sizeable saving, but now I’m getting cold feet on the basis of the Intel chip not being the best choice for gaming (and will possibly never see the BIOS fix that Intel rolled out to address this), the odd PSU that’ll likely need swapping out at some point in the future, and the sheer size and weight of the thing.
On the plus side, the reviews I’ve seen say that it’s very cool and quiet, which is pretty important to me, and I do like the case design itself - it’s very understated compared to most of the off-the-shelf options out there. On the downside what looks like a huge discount on the surface is mostly just wiping out the Dell premium, and similarly specced AMD options are available elsewhere for similar prices - albeit with the aforementioned off-the-shelf cases and a big question mark over noise levels.
All of which is to say: Help this former DIY builder feel a bit better about dropping this much money on a Dell of all things! Odd CPU choice aside, this is still a decent system at a decent price, right?
Dell has always had good warranties on parts. Its half the reason Alienware was held in such high regard for so long after they were aquired in the early 2ks. Even though enthusiests will scoff at the prebuild, if you dont intend the PC itself to be the project, you did good.
Thanks. I always manage to do this to myself with any expensive purchase. Yesterday I watched a ton of video reviews of it and came away pleased with my decision, and then this morning I started second guessing the whole thing. Been telling myself all day that the CPU thing isn’t a big deal, it’s leaps and bounds more performant than any console, and could still get fixed if Dell releases Intel’s patch, but there’s always that little nagging demon on my shoulder!
Eh, dont let it get to you. This horse will serve you well and it affords you room to grow. You will hear it a lot on lemmy, but get a second SSD and give linux a go. I game on Pop_OS and its the closest thing to “It just works” ive seen out of the community (debian for most everything else… because home lab).
Plus, you put the effort into researching the model and its parts. In 6-7 years time, look into building the next one, further your learning and figure out what each component does and why a the manufacturer picked what they did.
If you need help with things/troubleshooting, the Lemmy community is here to help. Welcome to the club!
I do already plan to shrink Windows down to a bare minimum (or possibly just clone it to an external SSD) and use something Linuxy as my daily driver. I’m mostly a Mint guy but I’m interested to give ZorinOS a go since they’ve just released v18. Might even try Bazzite for shits and gigs.
If you do plan to dualboot I’d suggest picking up another ssd to run the other OS on. Just less of a potential headache installing Windows and Linux on their own drives, and using bios to select which drive to boot off of at launch.
This video shows how they do it, and you can skip to the 3:30 mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yimjBuzAqOo&t=215
So they basically just install linux unplug the drive and plug in another one to install Windows. And then plug them all in once done.
You can share an NTFS partition between all of your operating systems (which is what I do for stuff). You can even put DRM-free games on it, and the same files will run on Windows or Linux.
Good to know. Last time I tried to share a partition between Windows and Linux it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing but that was a number of years ago now.
Just beware the Linux and Nvidia GPUs don’t go together well.
Bit of a catch-22 for me there. I want to run a local LLM for Home Assistant voice stuff and most of them are heavily optimised for Nvidia. At least the ones that don’t take a ton of effort to setup.
Also if you want to avoid the nightmare of win 11 and dont want to change to linux (which you should!) , install the win10 iot ltsc. There is a very easy install script out there. It makes windows bearable.
Looks like a very good pc tbh. There’s next to no point in building your own pc anymore, as pc building shops can build and sell them cheaper than you can buy the parts, and you get a warranty.
The nice thing about building a PC yourself is you can choose the components and therefore control costs *a lot*. I put together a competent gaming PC last December for US$1400.
My GPU is not as fast as yours (yours has a PassMark score of 36002 and mine’s is 24250), but it still runs everything at 60fps and is half the price.
At what resolution? What settings?
You definitely didn’t build an i9 + 5080 gaming PC for $1400, given a 5080 can cost more than that by itself.
You can’t really control costs any more than you can with buying a “prebuilt” these days, unless by “controlling costs” you just mean skimping out on something massively.
Yeah agreed, and that’s what I always used to do when it was just for myself. I did actually have a grand plan of buying parts and trying to get the kids involved in building it, but I’m in my 40s and out of the loop, and really I need something that kinda “just works” and that the rest of the family can use without me incessantly tinkering with it.
That’s why I talked myself into a pre-built, with the mindset that a project PC that takes time and effort to spec out and build just right can come later. But the fact that that pre-built isn’t exactly how I would spec it is likely causing some of this angst!
Heh. My story is basically the opposite of yours.
I was thinking I’d get a pre-built so it’d just work, but I couldn’t find anything pre-built whose price and components I considered acceptable except one builder that had been widely panned for shipping broken computers.
So, over a couple of days, I gradually became resigned to having to build it myself.
I did not end up regretting my decision. The machine came together without a hitch and works great.
10/10 would build again.
I do have one regret: I wanted a more retro-style case, both for fashion reasons and because they’re easier to work on.
Sadly I couldn’t find one that would ship in a reasonable time, including a nice-looking one from Antec. (I used their cases for my builds back in the '90s. Fond memories!)
So I went with a fairly standard glass-sided case from Corsair.
It just occurred to me that, if I had not thrown away my old '90s Antec cases, I probably could have used one of them for this build.
But the airflow would have been atrocious. PC components didn’t dissipate a thousand watts in the '90s. I’d have had to drill a bunch of vent holes and somehow attach fans and a dust screen. Would’ve been a major pain.
On the other hand, it would have had an optical drive bay—several, in fact—which I really wanted for this build…
Silverstone made two retro-like cases recently, with space for optical drives, here’s the vertical one with three 5.25" bays: https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/computer-chassis/flp02/
The other one is horizontal and only has space for one optical drive: https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/computer-chassis/flp01/
I think they look nice.
OMG the tower even has a lock and a turbo button! My first (self-built) media PC was in a Silverstone case with a VFD display. They make some good stuff.
Yeah I’ve recently got back into buying and ripping physical CDs so an internal optical drive would’ve been great, but it seems the fronts of modern PCs are dedicated to massive RGB fans. Gonna have to make do with something external.
