I have compared the prices with a comprable Dell machine with dual xeon processors. They are within a few hundred dollars of eachother, and the alienware machine seems to come with more tweaks and perks. I am a Die hard Mac user, who is sad to admit, 3D just is not anywhere near as effecient on the Mac as it is on the PC… and am buying a PC box for the first time. Can anyone give me the DL on Alienware vs. Dell?
-A
HP x9300 workstation with 2 amd dual core opterons 275…the way to go! 
Just drop the HP logo on the front and you can build it yourself much cheaper with the same tyan board, amd procs and a nifty nvidia 3400. After what Mr. Jobs said about the processing power per watt on “comparable” procs…somehow now they are comparable…it’s good to see people got the wake up call.
Just a personal experience to relate concerning Alienware, I won’t go into all the gory details but just to say thier support of my machine turned into a 3 month nightmare just to replace a faulty cdrom drive. I will never buy an Alienware product again. I went with Cyberpower for my last machine.
Well Alienware has definitly cool cases, but i believe they are usually overpriced…
Dell is also not as cheacp as you might think since usually they save on some parts…
I would also take a look at configuring your own pc instead of ready made machine’s usually its the cheapest and you can have everything you need 
Alienware is for people with WADS of money who are not “smart” enough to build the same thing themselves for 2/3rds the price. By “smart” I mean competent with regard to PC building (and surely I am aware there are many who dont/cant). These days, it’s really not as hard as one might think. Lots of cheap books on the subject and forums and what-not. I would strongly encourage you to pursue such a path unless your just dead set againsed ever opening the cover on a PC. In that case open up your wallet…WIDE .
Oh, and my PERSONAL opinion(read: not intending a flame war) stay the heck away from intel/xeon. AMD washes the floor with intel (at the moment) and A64/X2 (dual core) or opteron is indeed the way to go.
Well from personal experience I’ve alwyas built my computers. I haven’t looked at the cost of high-end workstations built by companies but like other responses have said…building your own will probably save you some cash. I helped a friend that lives in Kentucky (I’m in missouri) build his machine…he has never done it before and had no idea where to start but I talked to him over Ventrilo (voice chat program) and his PC works fine.
I would suggest using www.newegg.com to look for parts and prices. You will save money purchasing AMD 64s over Intel - but I suppose that is personal preferance. If you want I would not mind going through parts and building a machine on newegg.com and then send you the parts list. I’m somewhat in the market considering I want to go to college and earn a degree in computer graphics and animation.
Anyway definately take the time to compare prices of pre-built machines and one you build yourself, its worth it.
I actually already ordered the computer, I priced things around and while I am sure I could have saved a few hundred dollars by building it myself, I just really dont have the time to deal with all of that, and it is nice having a warantee. I went through www.twincpu.com and got a better deal than I could have with Alienware or Dell, and they are a nice small shop and are very friendly.
I spend 4 month researching this in a casual fashion. There is no better price/performance solution for serious use than a two box setup with an X2 4800 in each.
LemonNado