However you feel about Alienware, being able to grab a $760 discount on a quality all-AMD gaming PC is nothing to sniff at. Though the Yeyian Katana X10, with its RTX 3060 Ti for $949 is still a very tempting machine, it doesn't have the Alienware looks.
But Alienware is such a weird one when it comes to gaming PCs. Historically, the brand has commanded a strong presence in the hearts and minds of PC gamers, and its premium pricing has been offset by the quality of its builds. But in recent times that quality seems to have fallen off despite the prices remaining high.
We've tested a bunch of Alienware machines over the last 12 months and none have been able to justify their pricing. That's lead them to fall from the top of our best gaming PC list, and the instigation of our leading mantra: Never pay full price for an Alienware gaming PC.
Part of that is because they haven't been performing as well as similarly priced or even cheaper premium rigs, and because they use proprietary components making upgrades difficult and sometimes expensive. But it's also because Alienware machines are so regularly discounted that you'd be foolish not to check Alienware's PC and laptop deals page if you're after a new PC.
Case in point the system highlighted here. The all-AMD machine is using last-gen parts for both its CPU and GPU, but that's no bad thing in a sub-$1,000 gaming PC, and when the last gen were so good. The Ryzen 5 5600X was one of the best chips of the Zen 3 generation, offering a huge amount of multithreaded performance for its paltry price and a good chunk of gaming pedigree, too.
Coupled with the RX 6600 XT—a card which, despite an overpriced start, became an outstanding 1080p GPU for the money in recent times—and you've got the makings of a great machine. With 16GB of DDR4-3200 memory, and Alienware's most recent, rather good-looking chassis, the only thing I'm not sold on is the 512GB SSD.
Considering the negligible cost of PCIe 4.0 SSDs right now, that's a small boot drive to have to make do with. However, considering the negligible cost of PCIe 4.0 SSDs right now, that's an inexpensive upgrade to make when you're storage runs dry. As it surely will looking at the 100GB+ games that have already launched this year alone.
That's not the only winner in the current Alienware PC deals pages. This $1,500 RTX 3080-based machine is still on sale with a $950 discount. That's the sort of price it needs to be in the face of the RTX 4070 launch, but it's still a great rig for the money.
Though it also highlights why you really do have to beware the Alienware deals algorithm. For surely it can't be a human that decides to discount an RTX 3080 PC down to $1,500, when right next to it is a much weaker system for the same price.
Woe betide the gamer who spends that much on an RTX 3070 PC in 2023.
