Alienware Area-51 7500

Alienware Area-51 7500
Outer-space style at a down-to-earth price



THE NEW VERSION of Alienware's Area-51 7500 desktop, which rings in at a "mere" $1,499, isn't just a good deal by the high (and expensive) standards of Alienware - it's a good deal, period.
Admittedly, you don't get every perk you do with the company's more expensive machines. But you get what matters most: good performance for the money. The Area-51 7500 came out well-ahead of other system we've recently seen in the same general price range, turning in some flat-out great results in our DirectX 9 (DX9) gaming tests. (In our DX10 tests a high resolutions, the numbers slacked off a bit.)
The Alienware does so well by virtue of the now ubiquitous 512MB GeForce 8800 GT graphics card, which just about every manufacturer has discovered as a way to pack a tremendous, inexpensive punch. There are two of them here, set up in a Scalable Link Interface (SLI) configuration. The other components are somewhat more mundane, including the 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 processor, which is decidedly middle-tier (and responsible for the merely acceptable results in our productivity benchmark tests), and a hard drive with 250GB of space - adequate, but not, much more. At least you get 2GB of DDR2 RAM, which you need for smooth Windows vista performance. Integrated eight-channel audio is also provided for a surround-sound experience.
These are nice additions, to be sure, but when you get a good computer at a very good price, as you do with the Area-51 7500, there's not much of a blow that needs to be cushioned.


source: Computer Shopper August 2008.
www.alienware.com