Kevin Wasielewski’s story is a high-tech version of the American dream. Wasielewski steadily worked his way from quality control (playing games on outgoing PCs) to upper management at boutique gaming-PC builder Alienware, whose products were considered to be the pinnacle of high-end gaming hardware until the company was purchased by Dell Computers in 2006. Following the buyout, Wasielewski and several of his colleagues formed ORIGIN PC with the intention of bringing back the values and services that made their previous company so successful.

This past week was all-Kevin, all the time at Adrenaline Vault. Wasielewski did the grand tour of the podcasts (Stevie FTW, The Evil Ed Podcast and the flagship Avault Podcast), and the grand prize of our Christmas in July contest is a tricked-out $4,400 gaming PC provided by ORIGIN PC. Kevin was kind enough to answer a few questions about the gaming PC industry, building PCs at home, and factors that would make dropping thousands of discretionary dollars on a gaming rig a good deal.

Drastic changes usually occur when a big company swallows up a smaller one, and Dell’s acquisition of Alienware was no exception. “Dell closed the factory in Miami where Alienware used to build their PCs,” Wasielewski says. “Alienware computers are now really just Dell PCs with an Alien-head brand on them.” Dell’s intense competition with rival PC maker Hewlett Packard no doubt was a factor in their acquisition of Alienware, although its world-wide revenue was a drop in the bucket compared to Dell’s at the time of the deal.

The heart of any PC, gaming or otherwise, is the CPU. Factory processor clock speeds have been stalled in the 3 to 3.5 GHz range for awhile now, with Intel’s new Core i7 Extreme six-core CPU topping out at 3.6 GHz. But Wasielewski believes that hardware thresholds have yet to be reached. “Intel launched their Hexcore processor early this year. The six cores render 3D images at an amazingly fast speed. This processor is a must for anyone that spends time waiting for rendering cycles. For gaming, we are able to overclock that same processor to 4.5 GHz, pushing super high framerates on any game with max resolution and max special effects.” And on the subject of brand-name vs. second-tier parts, he says that “name-brand components make all the difference. If you just use your PC for email, Facebook and YouTube, then you can use any motherboard on the market. If you are playing games, editing digital files, and doing other high-stress tasks, then you need performance, quality and stability.”

Those of us who have built PCs on our own know the difficulty of purchasing parts. AMD and Intel have been in a war for the home-builder’s CPU dollar for years. AMD’s prices have traditionally been lower than Intel’s, but does that difference trickle down to the quality of their products? Wasielewski says it depends upon which performance factor is most important to you. “AMD is a great solution for an average PC user. AMD used to be on top with high-performance chips as well, but lately Intel has owned the crown of the fastest and most powerful processors on the market,” he says. “Some customers would rather invest more into their video cards then processing power, which is great for gaming, and AMD fits well into that scenario. Other customers need more processing power, or they want power all-round, so each configuration we sell is unique.” Wasielewski also has some advice for the prospective system-builder. “Every PC build and every PC component is unique. Definitely use the Web as a resource for tips and troubleshooting, but don’t read every forum word for word. What worked for one person, might not work exactly the same way for you. Best way to learn is lots of trial and error. Be patient and go for it!” But even for a pro such as Kevin, there are horror stories. “Most frustrating thing while ever building a PC at home was a brand new [Nvidia] 8880 GTX Ultra being ruined by a faulty liquid cooling reservoir that leaked! $800 per card down the drain!”