About to be a new alienware owner..Just some questions..

[toshibala]

Hi, I'm new to the Alienware community as well as gaming laptops.
I received a quote from a Dell rep for the following:
1 Alienware 17 Base
340-ABEU
1 Documentation, English
370-AANN
1 16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
408-BBBV
1 256GB mSATA SSD Boot + 1TB 5400RPM SATA 6Gb/s
429-AAFS
1 Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVDRW, CD-RW)
490-BBGQ
1 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5
619-ACMQ
1 Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, English
658-BBOD
1 Broadcom 4352 Driver
954-4175
1 Dell Hardware Warranty Plus On-Site Service, Initial Year
954-4207
1 In-Home Service after Remote Diagnosis, Parts and Labor On-Site Response, Initial Year
994-3730
1 Warranty Support, Initial Year
950-9797
1 No Warranty, Year 2 and 3
338-BCHW 1 4th Generation Intel Core i7-4900MQ Processor (Overlocked, 8MB Cache, up to 4.0GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
391-BBEM 1 17.3 inch (439.42 mm) WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-Glare Display

Price after tax is about $3,080, but after discounts it is around $2,750.

I was wondering is it recommended that I get extended warranty? And if so, how many years would you recommend.

Also, I'm not quite too sure what the difference is between 2TB RAID 0 (2x1TB 5400RPM) + 80GB mSATA SSD Cachin VS. 256GB mSATA SSD Boot + 1TB 5400RPM SATA 6Gb/s.

Only reason why I chose the 256GB mSATA is because it was only an additional $50 at the time I configured my machine, but now it is an extra $150.

Will this machine be able to play games that are available now and also 3-4 years in the future?

Thanks!

 

[Alienwulf]

First welcome and that is one fine machine..gee think it's in my sig..lol It will play games pretty much like a desktop as far as high to ultra setting on it's screen. And yes for the next couple years maybe more. The dual 1tb drives in raid 0 cached to the mSata will load pretty darn fast, thats what it's for. The programs will strip back and forth so it will almost double the read times. Now the 256gb mSata will hold Windows and you could put a few of your best games on it. It will be the fastest. To save money and if you can do some work your self you could replace the hard drives and the mSata your self. The catch is the mSata is buried under the keyboard and takes a lot of screws and unhooking stuff to get to. If you have never done anything like it I would say go with the factory installed and be safe. If you can afford it warranty warranty warranty it's a 3 thousand dollar system I spilled coke on my 3 year old machine and under complete care Dell shipped me the one in my sig..great joy. Thats about all I can think of good luck and let us know how it all works out.

 

[toshibala]

Thanks man! I wasn't going to get the 256GB hard drive but when I figured out it was a glitch on the website that allowed me to get it for only $50 dollars instead of $150!

Do you think I will be able to play games and stream it at the same time with no lag?

And what do you think about the price quoted? Is worth it?

Edit: And sorry the the loads of dumb questions, I'm not very good with tech.

 

[Alienwulf]

Your welcome..yes it will do all you want it too. It's top of the tier they don't get better that that unless you went with 18 dual graphics. And that is a lot of money and unless your a hard core gamer. I think you will find the 17 plenty.

 

[shankc]

Nice specs m8 welcome to the club

 

[toshibala]

Thanks guys, I just realized i posted in the wrong section =( forgive me!!..