Big Purchase Need Help Pls

http://www1.dell.com/ca/p/alienware-m17x/pd

I am about to purchase this laptop please let me know if u think this would play ffxiv. I dont want to spend all this money and it doesnt run ffxiv well.

(Please Assist) (Thank You)

I know what u think, great another is my pc good enough for ffxiv thread. but i would realy apperciate help ty

crap link doesnt work gonna fix 1 sec

There Fixed

ok all better pls help

A lot of people would say Alienware aren't worth the money that you pay for them, but the Alienware M17X is the best gaming laptop in the world and if you insist on using a laptop, there's literally no better option.

Granted, in order to afford all the upgrades, you'd need like 3000 dollars...

I hate the lakers!

I know this isn't what you were looking for but it made me feel better so sorry..

well plus the BUMP!

I will be buying just the standard version no upgrades

Pfft you ignored my comment!

eh. wasted money is wasted.

Its not wasted money if its thru an employee purchase program thru my work. Dell is onl option

Just fyi since so many of these topics are flying around. You don't need some new and incredibly awesome state of the art PC for FFXIV.

Intel Core 2 Duo @2.26GHz
4gb PC-8500 DDR3
nVidia Geforce 9800M GTS with 1gb dedicated DDR3 memory

My laptop had absolutely no issues blasting away the benchmark and my friend who is in beta tried it on mine. Works flawlessly.

Moral of the story, no need to spend major bank on a new PC for it. My hardware is pretty ancient in computer age already. If it can handle XIV though, odds are a lot of cheaper hardware components will also.

TY shadow, now that was a useful comment ^^

Just my opinion (probably influenced by the fact that I play more demanding games on the PC) if I was going to drop over $1,500 on a computer, it would be a desktop.

Personally I wouldn't ever buy a laptop to begin with, but I have no real use for them either..

Agreed there, unless you're like me and can't keep yourself in one place too often.

I suggest you build a desktop.

will i be ok with the intel core i5 520M 2.4GHZ

Based on what shadow said, the i5 you have listed there should be more than enough.

I had an alienware laptop a few years back. Had horrible, horrible heat issues, ***broke all the time, and the screen snapped off. The thing only lasted a year and was a horrible investment. I would personally never buy an alienware again. I have a Dell xps laptop now and although it's far from perfect, it's two years old and does well.

An i5 processor would eat FFXIV for breakfast. Honestly though, even if you're saving money by buying through your company, you could just buy an Asus laptop for about 1k (500-900 less than the laptop you linked in the OP, depending on your discount) that would game better than all your friend's desktops.

tl;dr v1.0: Yes, that laptop will run FFXIV. BUT... save your money and buy an Asus for 1k~ instead.

Dell Studio XPS 16

Buy this.

Edit: With Dell, get the full coverage warranty. (Not that you would ever do something like 'accidentally' destroy your laptop two months before the warranty is up or anything, but full coverage dictates they have to replace it fully with an equal or better spec'd laptop... BUT ***CAN HAPPEN!)

Alienware = Dell....OP was suggesting a Alienware so just assuming the discount they were talking about would be through dell...Just


Have to agree buy the extended full coverage warranty when you get it if you have any concerns with dell

The original Alienware system you posted is more than adequate for playing FFXIV. The Dell Studio XPS 16 is also a nice system, and a much better deal than the Alienware if you're willing to sacrifice an inch and a quarter off your screen. (that doesn't sound like much, but it makes a pretty big difference.)

That said... Depending on how much of a discount you get, or what type of purchasing plan your company offers, the Asus G73 models are amazing for games. Last I checked, they had models selling for as little as 1100 USD. At $1100, the G73 simply rapes the Studio XPS 16 and gives the Alienware a great run for the money, all while looking, in my opinion, much better. I prefer the sleek styling to the LEDs stuffed in every orifice approach...

I wouldn't buy a Dell. I bought and HP AMD Athlon II X2 215 Processor 2.7GHz w 2 gig ram and the only thing I added was a ATI Diamond 4000vid card series to my desktop...

I can play FFXI with no lag at all. I'm a happy customer.

Was told from a friend that he switched to a PS2 ( new one) to a PC and he was much happier, even though his was a Dell, then one night he had a ram chip error... later found out it was a ISP was screwing him around.


All in all, I perfer HP/Compaq, I've never had any such issues.

I'm sure a calculator could play FFXI with no lag at all.


As far as FFXIV goes, you won't need what they recommend on their site. It would be ideal, but even with my cheap laptop that I have currently, I scored much higher than I needed to on the windowed Benchmark and I don't plan on playing Windowed anyway. It's best to just ignore the benchmark. My current laptop has:

Intel Core 2 Duo @2.13GHz
4 GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce GTX260M

Here are system requirements:

Final Fantasy XIV (Final Fantasy 14)
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Minimum System Requirements
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
Processor: Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.0 GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
Memory: 1.5 Gb
Video Memory: 256 Mb
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 8600 / ATI Radeon HD 3600
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 9.0c
Keyboard
Mouse
DVD Rom Drive

The computer I have at home is running well on 2x 128MB cards and 1024 RAM. My MB can be expanded to hold 2x of 256MB and RAM to 2048, so i might add more memory. It's cheaper to buy more Memory OR a Motherboard with Videocard combination than buying a new computer. Also make sure to install Video Card + Motherboard drivers so ff14 don't crash.

Besides the peripherals the things to worry when building new computer is: Hard Drive(s), power supply (550watt), Mother Board, Video Card, Sound Card, Ethernet Card, and CPU, Case, and Operating system. You can always take apart your old computer and transfer into new one some of the things mentioned above.

I prefer websites www.newegg.com or www.mwave.com to buy the accesories. Rather than buying a new computer you can just build one. Also if you have XP from old computer you can just add it to new one and works fine, even registering it at Microsoft.

Alienware is the System SEI Chooses as the TOP to play FFXI and FFXIV

Good buy

I have always had a much better experience with HP then other brands, I doubt I'd ever buy a Dell, everyone I know who has had one, had some issues with it, and someone that brought me their tower to fix, the damn case was riveted on so you couldn't open it, which means no upgrades for him (not sure if that's common practice on all of them)

Anyways, I've moved onto a new brand, to hell with HP, from now on it'll be ASUS.

As for ~MOST~ Alienware that I've seen, it's overpriced. I haven't actively looked in a year or so, but I went through the stuff comparing prices of Alienware to systems that were comparable, and found that you were paying hundreds of dollars extra just for a pretty case. Personally I don't care if my computer is ugly as ***, I care about performance, so I'd never even consider buying an Alienware, when I could just use that extra few hundred to upgrade to a computer that was better then what the Alienware was offering.

Lol'd