Seriously considering this for a first build, but the ??? quality power supply has me wary. I might stick with my plan of a 520w corsair with either a Centurion 5 (cheap option) or a P180 (expensive option).
First time building means I’m willing to sacrifice performance for quality so there’s a better chance any system hiccups are my fault, not the part. I want it to go as smooth as possible. 
I was really hoping that someone who bought it last time would post a few pics of the case, or more importantly pics and specs for the power supply + all the connectors. Does it have two PCI-E (6 pin) connectors? So, does it say Enermax on that power supply or Alienware (just made by Enermax) and what’s the model number of it. I’m so tempted to get it just for the power supply.
Silly wOOt… Dell bought Alienware
Some of the MJ-12’s had a 550w Enermax as in the review
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/Alien_f/index2.htm
I would suspect the 700 is similar in quality even if not the same brand since this was made for the workstation market.
Wow…I do understand the reason for dual rail and I also understand that you are terrible at analogies.
PC Power and Cooling is pretty much as good as it gets for PSUs. Their are few to none better and yet all of their PSUs are single-rail units.
Dual rail setups usually have rails that are rated at a lower amperage. It might be 15 or 18 amps or something. You get one component that hogs the amperage and the PSU shuts down. Whereas you get the best PSU possible such as this one:
http://www.pcpower.com/products/viewproduct.php?show=S75QB
with a massive 60amp single rail and you’re good to go.
The irony being that Dell owns Alienware and all…
Oh, that and Alienware does suck.
I got a nice case from Aerocool, called the Extreme Engine 3T, it has a 250mm fan on the side (yes, 250mm), a 140mm in the front and space for a 120mm in the back. It didn’t come with a powersupply, but had hardware fan controls and was very easy to set up.
Thing is freaking dead silent and runs my case icy cool. Don’t go with Alienware… and beware any fan below 120mm sizes… the noise will slowly drive you insane.
Just don’t lick the wires
You’d be hungry again in an hour anyway.
I have that PC Power and Cooling PSU, and I can tell you that it will not disappoint. There’s no way this case comes with anything close to that, so please look the other way.
PCP&C FTW!
Putting it together is MUCH EASIER nowaday … No JUMPERS to mess with. no need to worry about what clock speed/bus speed/ voltage you need to set the jumper to without fry your $100 Chip…
as long as you know how to set the Jumpers on IDE Drives to “cable select” or “auto detect” you should be all set…
no more mess around D:\setup command…no more mess with FDISK command, no more mess with Format command, no more mess around with “you gotta install dos before you install windows…” “your must have previous version of windows to use this upgrade version of windows” or “you can not use full verison of windows on a machine with previous versions of windows” kind of craps…
remember how to fool win 95 upgrade version and use as a full version anyone?
answer:…fake “GDI.exe” and “win386.exe” file…
Microsoft has come a long way to prevent piracy so be prepared to “buy a real verision of windows xp” which may cost an arm and a leg… unless…of course…if you know somebody work at Microsoft…then you can buy a copy of Vista for less than $40
Oh my god best woot evar!!! Hope it works with my Mac!
Alienware is actually owned by Dell not HP.
Dual rail (or multiple rail since some have quad) is intended to help keep a steady consistent voltage level to critical components like the cpu and memory. You put the motherboard on one rail and all of the hard drives and media drives on another rail.
Then as drives spin up and down and seek when you access data, the voltage fluctuations only impact that rail and leave the other rail full of smooth clean power. drives and fans are much more tolerant to fluctuations in voltage than the motherboard/cpu/memory.
this case will fit an 8800gtx card?
Someone tell me wtf is up with the wonky amps on the 12v rails?
+12V1@13A/18A, +12V2@18A, +12V3@16, +12V4@8
i just recently built a new computer, and to be brutally honest, none of the decent PSUs i looked at had rails like this
to the guy asking about the Silencer 750 Quad - its the best PSU on the market, and priced like it is too
go with Corsair or PCP+C- Antec Earthwatts are nice too
That’s all fine until a massive power hog of a video card suddenly demands much more current (power) than the rail can supply. Then, in that case, a single huge rail would be advantageous.
This goes to those of you who already have one of these. Do you know if these are steel or aluminum?
And I <3 Civisi for the comment to the Mac folks. That was hilarious.
Dual rail is so you dont lose all your components when the POS power supply you bought goes nova…
single rails are by far more stable, in a decent PSU- check out any decent PSU review site
Here are some shots of the case:
http://etech.eweek.com/slideshow/Alienware/alienmj12.jpg
http://etech.eweek.com/slideshow/Alienware/aliendoor.jpg
I basically looks like a fairly nice case… However, I lean towards ANTEC. I think that they have the best cases around… I do not need a case with a funny looking from just for looks… I prefer to pack the punch than put on a good show. My favorite case is, and what I run is the ANTEK P190 with 1200 watts of power. Well worth the extra, and it holds up great, fans are all 120 MM and quite to boot. Check it out.
http://www.antec.com/Detail.bok?no=540
You won’t regret going ANTEC 0 The leader in cases!