Alienware X51 R2 gaming pc for my tv monitor.

[Smoke&Slide]

Hi folks, i have found a Steam machine for sale with the following specs:

The monitor doesn't come with it.

Intel® Core™ i7-4470 3.9GHz (8MB Cache) with Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost Technology 2.0
Screen:15.6" Touch Screen Display 1366x768
Operating System:Genuine Windows® 8 (English)
Graphics Card:1.5GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 660M Graphics Card
Hard Drive:2TB Hard Drive 5400RPM
Memory:8GB Memory 1600MHz (2 DIMMs)
Optical Drive:Blu Ray Combo Drive (BD-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
Network & Wireless:Dell Wireless 1506
Keyboard:UK QWERTY Keyboard
Colour:Matte Stealth Black with Dark Chrome Accents
Battery:N/A
Power Supply:Alienware™ 330 Watt Power Supply , UK 3 Pin Lead
Manufacturers Warranty:Next Day In-Home Service Support UK and Europe until 11/2014
What's Included:Power supply, UK Plug, Documentation, Dell refurbished box.

To me this seems quick enough.The price is £789 free delivery.This is a refurbished one.What do you think ?.

 

[MHPALA]

Not bad. It'll make a great starter setup (especially with the included peripherals). Cost is acceptable imo unless someone else finds a better deal.

Only thing that irks me is the PSU setup in the X51. It does not comply with the ATX standard, which means that you are currently limited to upgrading to a R9 270x/GTX 760 (reference designs). These cards are affordable too. I do love the design of the PSU though, and I wish they would advance the design to ouput a higher wattage. That PSU design is perfect for small form factor setups since a power brick is involved (DC input DC output).

Your processor is locked (not a K SKU), so no overclocking can be done (Nothing wrong with that. i'd rather not overclock a unlocked processor with a stock x51 heatsink anyways). Still a good processor imo. I would not upgrade the processor (to a unlocked counterpart) until research is conducted on whether the processor is overclockable through the BIOS. After owning a few Alienware devices... I've learned that they love to lock stuff for quality assurance .

RAM is going to be a hassle to upgrade since the optical drive is going to be obstructing the space for the heatsink of any new kit you buy. Still, 8 gigs of ram is good enough to run any games. Don't let the speed fool you when upgrading though.

If I were to buy this. My first upgrade would be upgrading the HDD to a drive that runs at 7200rpm. A SSHD would be great too.

 

[TB]

Unless you're actually going to use the horsepower, the i7 isn't necessary.

More importantly, the graphics card sucks, returning a 3DMark score of only 2500. For reference, the $125 650Ti almost doubles that and the $186 660 almost triples. Well, more of a two and a half.

Coupled with a 330W PSU and a power hungry CPU, that doesn't leave you much overhead for an upgrade.

Personally I'd skip it, and I know some of us are getting to sound like a broken record, but I'd build my own.

 

[Smoke&Slide]

Sorry about the delay, so that's not that brilliant then ok.

 

[MHPALA]

To really gauge if it is a worthy a buy, it depends on what you will be using it for, and the types of games you play. If I were tight on money, i'd get it and save up for a GTX 760 or a R9 270x for $250. Those two cards have been tested with this PC (pretty sure you can buy a new X51 with one of those two cards at retail right now).

What you get with it makes it a worthy buy too. I like it. It will make a great starter setup.

 

[Bram Turismo]

For £800 you can build your own PC with far better specs than that. An i7 isn't necessary, a current i5 4670k is all you'd ever need. The graphics card is hopeless, and I'd wager theintegrated graphics in the i5 and i7 processors to be almost equally, if not equally, as fast as the 660M. Any nVidia card ending with an "M" is a waste of money. And a 330W PSU will not be enough to power it if you ever replace any parts. I'd get a 450W minimum for any build these days. And the HDD should be a 7200 RPM option if you can get one.

Personally, I would take those £800 and put parts together that includes a better PSU, a better HDD, an equal processor and almost equal graphics. I think you can get away with a build of your own for £600, excluding a decent graphics card, a monitor and peripherals.

The current PC I'm typing from is my first ever own built PC. And it really is as easy as people make it out to be if you read the manuals decently. I'm currently running the i5's integrated graphics, and so far I've never even needed a dedicated graphics card because I've only played Diablo III and LoL in terms of gaming.

 

[DQuaN]

This may need a bit of tweaking as it's currently at £877 but take a look here. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2N1im

 

[TB]

This may need a bit of tweaking as it's currently at £877 but take a look here. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2N1im

I can say with extreme confidence (as it's very similar to my PC) that this will absolutely run any game extremely well into the near future. 👍