apparently you haven't don any research, yes as of right now, AMD has the performance crown, but in 2 weeks they will loose it big and it will stay like that for another few months. My advice, aim for a CORE 2 DUO(emphaiss on the 2 in there) if you can't aim for an athlon x2 or opteron 165 or higher(opteron for better performance if you OC) ibuypower is relatively well priced. Nott the best but pretty good if you want to save somewhere in the range of 1000-1500 for the same thing learn to build, it takes about 1 hour of readin(max) and 10-30minutes of actually doing stuff, then just pop in the windows CD and the rest is automated. after you have windows installed, pop in the CDs that came with your parts use common sense and you're done. it's VERY simple. typically individual parts get to your house sooner too. Also product waranties are typically better for individual parts(if something craps out on a factory PC you send in the entire thing mthey wipe your harddrive, and then they might charge you an outrageous price for it if they deem it necessary, note that you're paying a fortune in shipping) where you essentially just mail in oen part, they cross mail a replacement, and you're up to go in a few days(as opposed to a few weeks) Dell and alienware are one in the same, extremely overpriced for what you get.
Get Alienware great for gaming and running servers. Dell is also good but I say get alienware. Btw he asked if he should get Alienware or Dell not any of the other names you guys gave...
Both are crap.. We are giving him a bettter idea of whats out there, since he isnt really into the computer world, he wouldnt know any of the better companys.
and how did you come to these conclusions? been looking at all those Dell adds? you realize they fund those in part by skimping on components...
