Cracking open the Alienware Area-51 7500 - TechRepublic

Cracking open the Alienware Area-51 7500

  • By Mark W. Kaelin

    \n\tThe good folks at Alienware recently sent TechRepublic one of their Area-51 7500 gaming desktops for review. The configuration of this system includes the overclocked Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 quad CPU and the 768MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra video card. Both the CPU and the GPU are liquid cooled — believe us when we say, this is not your office PC. We take a look inside this super-performing premium gaming system and drool over the components.
    \n\t
    \n\tThis system was supposed to be overclocked, that is what I asked for, but I’m not certain that it is. I’ll investigate.

    \n\t\n\n

  • Unpacking

    While the Alienware laptop PC we reviewed earlier this year shipped in an ordinary FedEx box, the desktop system came in a box with the familiar company logo.

  • Unpacking

    Even the box inside the box has the logo.

  • Unpacking

    The peripherals box contains the T-shirt, owner’s manual, mouse, keyboard, and various video connection cables.

  • Unpacking

    One thing I noticed right away is that machine was wrapped in soft cloth instead of Styrofoam paper like so many other manufacturers use.

  • Angles

    There are other colors available, but I prefer the black.

  • Cracking

    Two DVI outputs as well as S-video.

  • Start it up

    The LEDs are even functional — you can see where to load your Half-Life 2 disk even if it is otherwise pitch black.

  • With the LEDs, connecting your headphones to play a midnight match of Call of Duty without disturbing your spouse is a trivial task.

1 of 9
Mark W. Kaelin

Mark W. Kaelin has been writing and editing stories about the information technology industry, software, hardware, gaming, finance, accounting, and technology geekdom for more than 30 years.