Alienware Area-51 7500 Review

My laptop was really getting too slow for my needs so it was clearly time to look for a new computer. Considering it was only four years old I decided that it would be a better idea to get a desktop this time around as it would provide me with more upgrade options when the need arose but being not terribly interested in fiddling with hardware components it seemed best to look at a high-spec machine that would fit the bill for as long as possible without much tinkering.

When you look carefully at the specifications of most main-stream high-performance computers it soon becomes apparent that there is usually come critical design flaw that stifles performance or expandability and even if they do let you pick your own components the price soon goes through the roof, still leaving you with a critical achilles heal somewhere in the specification so it seemed best to opt for a custom-built “gamers” machine. Yes you can save money by building your own but picking the right combination of components and getting them to play nicely is a frustrating and complicated procedure only really suitable for the enthusiast.

Looking around the internet you find that most gamer machines usually sport designs suitable for a Borg living room so the final decision really came down to the technical spec against least horrific. So an Alienware system in “saucer silver” in spite of its resemblance to the bastard love-child of the Alien queen ® and the ZZ-Top Car it had to be.

Now following your internet order (or telephone if you prefer) you are promised about a month to delivery but according to my research and experience this turns out to be a standard eight weeks, which seems excruciatingly long to me but there you go. Another thing which niggled me was that they promised faithfully to notify me on despatch but no such notification was given and the next thing I knew about it was a call from the porter to let me know I had a delivery; and you can see why he was sniggering.

  I really am a grown man and I’m not embarrased one bit (honest)…

I have to hand it to Alienware, it was lovingly packaged and came fully functional and ready to go along with all the drivers and a big bag of spare fans and connectors in readiness for any upgrades you might want to make in the future. First thing you notice is what a monster it is, compact this isn’t but on the other-hand its blended into my apartment quite well and the design isn’t as “in your face” as you might have supposed. The lighting system is quite pleasant and the colours can be easily changed to match the glow of any other kit you have in the room.

The next thing I took a look at was the innards, after all what you’re supposedly paying for with a system like this is build quality and sure enough everything is tidily arranged and well secured with all the cables tied down ready for easy access.

As you might expect performance was impressive, very impressive however this seems to come at a price and that is noise. With six fans going at all times, in spite of selecting the water-cooled processor option this system sounds like a quiet-ish hair-dryer, which took me by surprise as I was expecting some noise but not at this level. Frankly Alienware need to address this and if they can’t reduce the ventilation then they should consider internal acoustic dampening material fitted as standard, its my only real criticism but its a big one so be warned it takes some getting used to.

Finally I should mention that you get very little free software thrown-in with your Alienware system which wasn’t an issue for me as usually free software is rubbish that I never use but they do include Kaspersky Virusware which was nice and Alien Skin which wasn’t, the latter “skins” your windows environment into some sci-fi nightmare which might appeal to a 15 year-old boy but really just made me feel sick; fortunately two clicks disables it without much ado.

Even though I have no intension of playing games this is a great system for the habitual computer user, even when running a relational database, application server, development tools, photographic editor and media encoding all at once with a dozen IE windows open it doesn’t even break a sweat. This is how all computers should be and makes working for long periods at the screen much less of a bind than most. I even put my excess graphics-card capacity to some use with WindowBlinds to give me that Vista feeling without that nasty DRM after-taste and very nice to look at it is too.