If you take an Alienware Area 51 top spec computer it will cost you around $5000. Buying the parts from this separately and building it yourself will cost you less, no doubt. And a big part of it is branding.


However, there's also the design. If you look at this, it's a unique design, space has been used very well, there's certain lighting, it's functional in this form. It has a custom motherboard and a few other customized bits.



Building a PC with the same specs as cheap as possible will not look like this. It will be a standard black box.


Also you'll spend many hours building your own computer. If you have someone build it for you, you'll have to pay labour costs which aren't cheap. And you get the guarantee that someone built it for you who knows what he's doing. You may even get a warranty.


So no, it's likely not working better than a home built one (unless you build yours wrong). It'll be exactly the same. But apart from the branding you get everything done for you with a nice modern design and guaranteed functionality. And that costs extra. (But it shouldn't be that much extra to be honest)


Edit: let's build one


Intel core I9-9900k $500


RTX 2080 $750


32GB DDR4 RAM $150


Good motherboard $200


750W Gold PSU $100


1TB SSD $100


3TB HDD $100


Liquid cooling $100


PC case $100


Keyboard, mouse, DVD drive $100


5.1 surround speakers $100


32″ 2K 144Hz monitor $500


Combined price $2700. That’s almost half price, and the alienware does not come with monitor.


All these prices are rounded up to the nearest 50 for easy math and are from Amazon by the way. If you shop around you'll get it even cheaper.


And I would actually struggle seriously to build a PC for the same price. I wouldn't know what else to put in there to get to $5000.