Originally posted by TER-OR Dell has been allowing Alienware to have a bit more of a free hand recently. They're trying to claw back up. Certainly they're not on the top tier of game rigs with the likes of Falcon Northwest or Origin, but they're good mid-upper tier. Whether they're worth the price is questionable unless you're gaming. Most will build rigs for you, and the likes of Cyberpower survive on custom builds from fairly broad hardware choices. I bought one from them back in 2006 (I think) and it was pretty good.
Origin always makes me think of EA's game service and I'm not a fan of the cases... if you're going the custom route, it's all about the looks right? Maingear, Digital Storm and Puget all make nice systems as well, but I'd still rather build a system myself.
Quote: Even though it's a bit more expensive, I generally have been building my own rigs for a while now. I tend not to overkill on processor though the motherboard must be capable of substantial mid-life upgrades should they be required.
I didn't know buying stuff yourself was worth more than having an expert build and test the hardware for you... a pre-built PC will always more expensive in some way, and the difference can grow to over $1000 on high-end machines, but the service could arguably be worth it.
Quote: BTW the closed-loop water coolers have taken over for two reasons - they're not expensive anymore and they put FAR less stress on the motherboard during shipping than a big air-cooled radiator block. That assurance alone is worth the purchase.
If you're building the PC yourself, then there is no stress during shipping to worry about, but you could always zip tie the cooler to the top of the case if you're really worried about this. Or buy a horizontal case like a Case Labs Mercury, and then nothing will sag or apply undue forces.
Air coolers have their own advantages. There are less parts to break (just the fan vs. fan, pump and sealing) and if the fan does break, the tower can continue to cool the CPU from the air being moved by the case fans, while the water unit will stop cooling immediately. Also, a top-end cooler like the Noctua NH-D15 is cheaper than most 240mm AIOs, while also offering about the same level of performance even under overclocking.
Water cooling can be stuffed into an ITX case though, so if you're going the compact route, which is the one also more likely to see movement stress, then a closed-loop cooler is the better option. Additionally water cooling can be applied to the GPU as well, which I think is a more interesting endeavor as GPU temps will drop from 80ºc to 50ºc, versus a few degrees for the CPU.