We're not claiming that the suits in Round Rock really have a 187 on their hands just yet, but the evidence is mounting. For
quite some time, Dell's XPS 730 gaming PC was the outfit's
flagship unit, throwing down
insane benchmarks and garnering boatloads of cash from those willing to pay the premium for cutting-edge hardware. Now, however, it seems that the lesser
XPS 720 is the only classmate remaining, with all links to the 730 leading to soul-crushing "We're Sorry..." pages. To make matters worse, Dell CSRs have apparently been telling inquisitive consumers that they have phased out the 730 and are pushing folks to select an
Alienware machine instead. So, do any of you folks know of some backdoor way to keep ordering this here beast, or should we really break out the new
Brand New CD and paint our eyelids black in memoriam?
[Thanks, Garry]
Update: Seems it's still around in some corners of the globe (we're lookin' at you,
Canada), so maybe it's just the whiny Americans getting the shaft. Typical.
posted September 18th 2009 12:54PM
"My first ever PC was a $6,000 Alienware way back in '96,"
I'm sorry.
It was overpriced, but you got your money's worth?
Anyone else notice that Alienware now only offers one type of desktop? They seemed to have shafted AMD as well. But on the bright side... you can now buy a new, barebone chassis from their website.
Meh, the only reason it's not killed in Canada yet is we're 2 years behind on all gadgets up here.
Am I missing something here ? If Dell own Alienware and have now managed to absorb them then the next round Alienware desktops will just be Dell XPS with a UFO inspired case and an Alienware badge on the front, it's just a brand, and yes I would also just build my own.
You can keep the XPS and give us the ZUNE HD.
-Canada
I almost bought one a few weeks ago, until I noticed how ridiculous their prices were for "upgrading" the memory selection. Their whole site is rigged to make it seem like you're getting a discount, and then they jack you on minor tweaks to the default build. And for some reason you could only get the case in red, which made me wonder if they were getting rid of remaining inventory.
Anyone recommend a boutique dealer? Or a collection "known good" builds of recent hardware?
I should probably chime in since I own or perhaps I should say 'owned' one of these beasts. I believe that they are still offering the 730x or at least it is still showing on the Canadian Dell site. The contents and configuration of the original dell 730 were a bit of a kludge and the whole kit was somewhat of an ill conceived Frankenstein of parts that in the end didn't really create a stable computing platform. Upon arriving the box was loaded with a 32-bit OS which is a bit like buying a Ferrari with a Lada engine in it. The build that shipped on the system would simply hang within the first 30 minutes of operation. Attempts to do my own 64-bit build on the system were met with frequent blue screens and even more instability. After 6 months of working with Dell on the issue as well as talking to the various vendors of the internal components yielded that the motherboard and the video cards were essentially incompatible.
Dell eventually replaced the system completely after sending a tech to attempt to replace the motherboard which essentially killed the whole box completely. The replacement was a 730x which appears to have a lot more of Alienwares fingerprints on it. It shipped with a working 64-bit build of Vista and it is an amazing rig for the money.
Dell is a business class PC company. They make their revenue from the Latitude class, not even Inspiron which I'd consider to be a budget PC line. I wouldn't even be surprised to discover they take a loss on the XPS line. I own an XPS M1210 that I retrofitted with the broadband wireless antenna because I didn't get the built-in camera. It's a really decent PC, even still. Point being that I think they should kill the gaming line entirely and gamers should add the skill of building a good gaming rig to their skill set if most don't already know this. To me it just makes better sense because alot of gamers are always looking to scrape up some scratch and they can then buy decent components month by month instead of having to lay down 2 - 3 Gs for a gaming rig from Dell which is sub par for gaming but great for everything else. Again, Just my opinion...
Are you really making such a big deal that this system is being discontinued? It's not like you buy one every day of the week.
The 730's are a beast. We have used several of these over the last couple years. I actually went looking for one yesterday on Dell's website. The only machine there was the Studio XPS and the XPS 630 which offers the big Video and Hard Drive options, but does not have the newer i7 processors, or DDR3.
You can get i7 on the XPS Studio 9000 series and DDR3, but then you can't get 10K RPM Drives or Dual video cards. There is a serious disconnect in the offerings. They completely neutered themselves. I don't know what the ___ they are thinking.
Unfortunately, I think you're right about there being a lack of a machine with those types of qualifications, at least for consumers, as the Studio/StudioXPS and XPS lines are both for consumers. The precision lineup does have nehalem-based xeons, in the Precision 3500 and 7500, and you should be able to order dual fast hard disks, dual graphics cards, and get some nehalem action.
I think that the lack of some of the highest end features on systems with i7 chips may be a chipset limitation, I don't know if the P55/X58 can do all of the highest end things, or if the StudioXPS 430/435/9000 were limited so that Dell could sell more 730Xs to people who wanted that.
I wonder if/when we'll see what the successor to this new hole in the line-up is.
+1 on the Brand New referance love. New album is awesome.
I'm the one who found out originally about the 730x (at least in terms of posting it on dells site and having it linked here (cool)). It may be cheaper to build, and I've built lots of computers. However my time is definitely not cheap, and the 730x was a good system as it could have been configured. The worse part about alienware systems that they are pushing is the case, and the next are the poor options available, including "Alienware" branded keyboards and mice as their gaming "options". If I don't decide to build it myself, I'll look at a company like Digital Storm.
Good ridance to overpriced garbage.. Just stay away from CyberPowerPC and look-a-likes. Thanks for the post!
Love the Demolition Man reference. :)