Save 20% at the Dell Home Outlet

Hi guys,

Can you help me decide whether this is a good buy? It's an Alienware X51:

Certified Refurb
Intel I7-3770
8gb DRR3 mem at 1600mhz
GeForce GTX 660 1.5gb
1TB 7200RPM harddrive
DVD burner
WIFI card
240W power supply
Keyboard & mouse
WIN7 home premium 64bit
1 year warranty


The whole system is $575+tax after 20% off. What's really weird is the 240W power supply comes with a GTX 660. Anyway, is it a good buy?
Thanks!

Guozzi

Anyone know when Dell usually restocks the outlet store?

Quote from aznsniper911 : Anyone know when Dell usually restocks the outlet store?

Nope
Just make sure you complain something ( wifi issue, hot , noise.....) they not going to check it or not. most of them will offer return if you complain hard ware issue.
they will give free label for return.
good luck

Quote from guozzi : Hi guys, Can you help me decide whether this is a good buy? It's an Alienware X51: Certified Refurb Intel I7-3770 8gb DRR3 mem at 1600mhz GeForce GTX 660 1.5gb 1TB 7200RPM harddrive DVD burner WIFI card 240W power supply Keyboard & mouse WIN7 home premium 64bit 1 year warranty The whole system is $575+tax after 20% off. What's really weird is the 240W power supply comes with a GTX 660. Anyway, is it a good buy? Thanks! Guozzi

if you planing to buy that system. I think in my opinion i will buy it immediately then when i get the system i would call them and report about the power issue. They should offer you upgrade for free.
I got free upgrade on my alienware x51

Hi, ken_e1407,

Thank you for the reply!
Now the question is: how did you make them change the power supply for free? Should I contact tech support and report that the power supply is inefficient? Can you describe it in details? Your information is really valuable ^_^

Guozzi

Quote from ken_e1407 : if you planing to buy that system. I think in my opinion i will buy it immediately then when i get the system i would call them and report about the power issue. They should offer you upgrade for free. I got free upgrade on my alienware x51

Quote from guozzi : Hi, ken_e1407, Thank you for the reply! Now the question is: how did you make them change the power supply for free? Should I contact tech support and report that the power supply is inefficient? Can you describe it in details? Your information is really valuable ^_^ Guozzi

Its an external power supply, like the one you get from a laptop, so you just plug it in and it will work

Quote from Nate650 : Picked up this one for $600 + tax: Processor: Intel Core 3rd Generation i5-3210M Processor (2.5 GHz 3M Cache, up to 3.10GHz) Operating System Windows 8 Base Dell Outlet Inspiron 15R Special Edition Laptop Hard Disk Drive 750 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) Memory 6GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz Media Bay 8X Tray Load CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW Drive) Video AMD Radeon HD 7730M 2GB System Color Aluminium Laptop Screen 15.6 Full High Definition (1080p) LED Display 15.6 Inch FHD and LED Display Laptop Battery 6 Cell Lithium-Ion Primary Battery Network Interface Card Intel Centrino Wireless 2230, 2x2 bgn + Bluetooth Keyboard Dell Chiclet Keyboard w/ Multi-touch Touchpad Hardware Upgrade 125V Power Cord 90W AC Adapter LCD Cover WLAN Daughterboard Software Upgrade Windows 64 Bit Windows 64 Bit

Wow Dell service is good. I just called to cancel my order because after sorting through past threads it looked like I could have done better. He asked me why I was cancelling and I said I was looking for a better price. He asked me what the price difference is and I said $60-75 and he immediately offered to take $75 off the order. I really wanted a Blu-ray player but for that price I couldn't resist. Final price was $575 including CA tax!

Quote from Nate650 : 99% chance he (or anyone) won't notice a difference.

99% chance he could use a P4. I mean what's aging about the 531? Bet it's junked up with crap adware and could be clean out to run like a scaled ape.

I'd love to know what people are buying an i7 for.. bet most people aren't using half the CPU. Oh well...

Quote from clearanceman : 99% chance he could use a P4. I mean what's aging about the 531? Bet it's junked up with crap adware and could be clean out to run like a scaled ape. I'd love to know what people are buy an i7 for.. bet most people aren't using half the CPU. Oh well...

Well the 531 is about 6 years old [cnet.com] so even basic tasks like email and web surfing would benefit from an upgrade. A reformat and clean install is a good idea though prior to shelling out the cash for a new system.

True about the i7. I saved some money and went with an i5 for that reason. The i5 should also result in better battery life.

Quote from Nate650 : Well the 531 is about 6 years old [cnet.com] so even basic tasks like email and web surfing would benefit from an upgrade. A reformat and clean install is a good idea though prior to shelling out the cash for a new system. True about the i7. I saved some money and went with an i5 for that reason.

No way. I can surf and email just fine on a computer that is 10 years old. I've got a P4 with an HD3850 that my youngest plays world of warcraft on and it even plays that, not on max settings but it works. A clean P4 with a fast hard drive will surf the net and do email as fast as anything available. Put a SSD drive in a buddy's 11 year old P4 and I bet it will beat anything with a conventional hard drive for websurfing. Same connection, he wins. Surfing takes almost no CPU at all, it's all hard drive and internet speed. You could put an SSD in his 531 and it would smoke that i5 in web surfing.

Quote from clearanceman : No way. I can surf and email just fine on a computer that is 10 years old. I've got a P4 with an HD3850 that my youngest plays world of warcraft on and it even plays that, not on max settings but it works. A clean P4 with a fast hard drive will surf the net and do email as fast as anything available. Put a SSD drive in a buddy's 11 year old P4 and I bet it will beat anything with a conventional hard drive for websurfing. Same connection, he wins. Surfing takes almost no CPU at all, it's all hard drive and internet speed. You could put an SSD in his 531 and it would smoke that i5 in web surfing.

Generally true but some websites are very heavy. Also you are ignoring RAM amount. A system these days with 512 MB is going to struggle even with a P4 and fast hard drive.

"as fast as anything available" is obviously an exaggeration.

It depends on what kind of "browsing" you're doing too though-- I've got online work apps that have weird system requirements and my i5 occasionally grinds to a halt on various flash games and sites. And, if you're in a "creative" field, who knows what kind of browsing that entails. Photographers tend to have the worst sites I've ever seen.

Quote from clearanceman : No way. I can surf and email just fine on a computer that is 10 years old. I've got a P4 with an HD3850 that my youngest plays world of warcraft on and it even plays that, not on max settings but it works. A clean P4 with a fast hard drive will surf the net and do email as fast as anything available. Put a SSD drive in a buddy's 11 year old P4 and I bet it will beat anything with a conventional hard drive for websurfing. Same connection, he wins. Surfing takes almost no CPU at all, it's all hard drive and internet speed. You could put an SSD in his 531 and it would smoke that i5 in web surfing.

Quote from Nate650 : Generally true but some websites are very heavy. Also you are ignoring RAM amount. A system these days with 512 MB is going to struggle even with a P4 and fast hard drive. "as fast as anything available" is obviously an exaggeration.

Quote from amc1870 : It depends on what kind of "browsing" you're doing too though-- I've got online work apps that have weird system requirements and my i5 occasionally grinds to a halt on various flash games and sites. And, if you're in a "creative" field, who knows what kind of browsing that entails. Photographers tend to have the worst sites I've ever seen.

Did not mean to start a flame my friends..... but the differing opinions are informative.

The 531 has a 3.00 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core, 4GB, Win7 64bit. Yes he can surf and email "just fine". I told him as much. But he wants more "pop".

The 531 system is kept "clean". I think the system bottleneck is the FSB and RAM speed,. True an SSD upgrade for it would put some zip back into it. But I have replaced all the desktops around him with newer faster systems in the past 5 years. The budget can afford about 1 desktop upgrade per year. His is now the oldest and slowest. He wants one as fast as the others. And he is the boss.

Don't fret, the 531 will be "cycled" to one of the classrooms (as the other old computers have been) and will be put to good use by the students.

On a side note - Granted the 20% Off Outlet Coupon helps. But as far as the 8500 deal prices went I think they were not that good. Without the 20% off some of the Dell Deals on NEW 8500 bundled configurations were as good as the Outlet prices.

Quote from Nate650 : Generally true but some websites are very heavy. Also you are ignoring RAM amount. A system these days with 512 MB is going to struggle even with a P4 and fast hard drive. "as fast as anything available" is obviously an exaggeration.

Yeah but even my old P4 has 3 gigs, that 531 has more than 512megs it probably has 2 gigs.

Quote from Muad Dib : Did not mean to start a flame my friends..... but the differing opinions are informative. The 531 has a 3.00 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core, 4GB, Win7 64bit. Yes he can surf and email "just fine". I told him as much. But he wants more "pop". The 531 system is kept "clean". I think the system bottleneck is the FSB and RAM speed,. True an SSD upgrade for it would put some zip back into it. But I have replaced all the desktops around him with newer faster systems in the past 5 years. The budget can afford about 1 desktop upgrade per year. His is now the oldest and slowest. He wants one as fast as the others. And he is the boss. Don't fret, the 531 will be "cycled" to one of the classrooms (as the other old computers have been) and will be put to good use by the students. On a side note - Granted the 20% Off Outlet Coupon helps. But as far as the 8500 deal prices went I think they were not that good. Without the 20% off some of the Dell Deals on NEW 8500 bundled configurations were as good as the Outlet prices.

The key word is boss. Just make him happy who cares if he is getting what he needs, just give him what he wants.