Alienware - Area-51 7500 Desktop review

Mention the word ‘Alienware' to any hardened PC gamer and inevitably a strange change comes over their battle-hardened features: a misty longing appears in their eyes, their jaw starts a slow drop to the floor and a weird keening noise issues from the back of their throat. No, this is not some form of medical malfunction, but just a desperate realisation that such joys may be out of their reach.

Hyperbole aside, Alienware has redefined what is cool and this latest manifestation of the Area-51 7500 desktop is guaranteed to enhance its reputation as a market leader when it comes to style and raw gaming power.
From the moment you winch the revamped P2 chassis out of the box - do not attempt this alone - and plug in the power (all 1,000W of it), you can't fail to be impressed by the glowing alien heads on the sides and front and the sleek silver ventilation panels. The front panel smoothly slides sideways and rotates to reveal a 20x Dual Layer DVD Writer and a 28-in-1 memory card reader, while beneath are some repositioned USB ports, a FireWire port, microphone and headphone sockets.

Removing the side panels is a simple matter of lifting two levers (though they're fiddly to get back on) and then you can gaze at one of the tidiest interiors you're ever likely to encounter. If you were ever in doubt about who this monster was intended to please, then the packaging also contains a Logitech G9 Gaming Keyboard with matching Logitech G9 Laser Gaming Mouse.

The motherboard has been upgraded to an Nvidia nForce 680i SLI and embedded within are dual 768MB Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX SLI-enabled graphics cards. Driving this beast is an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 3.0GHz CPU with 8MB Cache and 1333MHz FSB, allied to high performance 2GB DDR2 SDRAM (optionally 4GB) running at 800MHz.

High definition 7.1 audio is included as standard but you can upgrade to a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer for an additional £58. Other enthusiast essentials that could be added include a 6x Blu-Ray drive and storage to the tune of 2.0 TB Serial-ATA 3 hard drives running at 7,200 RPM with 32MB cache.
Which brings us to the Big Question - how does it perform? We loaded up with F.E.A.R., which always sorts the men from the boys, and the results were astounding: minimal loading times, cut-scenes performed smoothly without a hint of judder (a rare event), pictures were sharp, actions seemless and sound panoramic.

Playing Crysis was like being in a movie and we were shivering in the cold with Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. Let's be honest, hardcore gamers, do you need to look anywhere else? Now you just have to win the lottery to pay for all the extras....

Alienware - Area-51 7500 Desktop features - Verdict
Alienware computers are never cheap but if you don't mind parting with serious chunks of your salary, you'll end up with the coolest style icon with gaming power to match.