How much for that?

As many of you know, I currently use a Dell XPS 1530 laptop as my PC which I am currently very happy with. Many months ago, when I was first considering whether to buy a laptop or desktop, one of the considerations was price. Although I ultimately went for the pricier laptop, a decision which I haven't regretted (particularly as I was able to keep playing Dragon Age: Origins while on holiday in Thailand!), I still keep an eye on the desktop market.

One of the amazing things about the desktop market in recent years is how much the cost of buying a decent PC has dropped. In the past, you could forget buying anything even close to decent for anything less than HK$20,000. Nowadays, you can get decent rigs for less than HK$10,000 - particularly if you don't need to buy a new monitor.

And then there's the Alienware brand of PCs. The Area-51 ALX high end gaming computer clocks in at a minimum of HK$40,000. I'll just give you a minute to pick your jaw up off the floor. Wow. Minimum price of HK$40,000 (but hey, price of delivery is included!). Just for giggles, I decided to see how much I could push the price up by choosing all the bells and whistles that I could.

By maximising out the options, I was able to push the price up to HK$53,735. So what does that get you? Well, it gets you quad a core i7-975 processor (3.33Ghz!), 21" monitor, 6GB DDR3 SDRAM, 2 hard drives totaling 2.5TB (think of all the porn family photos I could store!), dual GeForce GTX 295 graphics cards and lots of fancy lights to spruce up your case when you turn on your PC (oooh - just think of all the nerd envy if you show up for LAN gaming with a PC case that lights up!).

Unfortunately, what it doesn't come with is an encyclopedia explaining what any of the above is or a high paying job so that you can afford to pay for it.


PS I'm not actually looking to buy a new PC - I just like to keep an eye on the market (and have wet dreams about actually being able to afford something like this).