Alienware Aurora ALX (Core i7)

By PCMag Staff

March 3, 2010

When you by an Alienware gaming system you're making a statement. The Alienware Aurora ALX (Core i7) ($4,249 direct) gaming desktop is like buying a Porsche: You can certainly find other cars that go just as fast for a lower price, but they wouldn't look as flashy, would they? There are plenty of other systems on the market with similar high-end, high-speed components, but none with the flash that an Alienware system has. The question is, are you willing to pay for it?

Design
There's nothing subtle about the design of the Aurora ALX (Core i7). Its jet black chassis measures 17 by 25 by 9 inches (HWD), with a front panel bearing a glowing silver Alienware logo and sporting a door to the optical drive that looks like the jaw of a Cylon from the original Battlestar Galactica series. When you press the bottom of the door it drops down to reveal the optical drive bays. "Neon " lights run down the front of the PC and extend around the bottom to the side of the chassis where they backlight twin opaque "windows" on each side of the case. Both windows are covered in a hexagonal design with some stenciled alien language below that adding to the sci-fi look and feel. The language looks a bit like Klingon, but the company has yet to confirm. My review unit had all the neon lights at red, but Alienware allows you to adjust the lights to any color you wish via a color wheel included in the startup software. The neon lights will even strobe, if you so choose. Last, but not least, along the top of the case are seven segment diamond-shaped plastic louvers. When you turn on the PC and the fans kick in, these pieces spread open like a lizard's back.

The Aurora ALX (Core i7) also comes with a first-rate keyboard and mouse combination. The full-size keyboard has several programmable keys running down its left side for specialized gaming and a large wrist rest below the space bar like the ($79.95 street, ). Like the chassis, it has neon backlighting ,and the keys have solid feedback. The mouse is weighted very nicely and scrolls very well.

Features
It is very easy to get inside of the Aurora ALX, just pull up on the last louver and the side of the PC opens right up. Inside, the case is packed to the proverbial gills, with the twin ATI Radeon HD 870 graphics cards taking up the most space. There are also some convenient LED lights that come on when you open the case, like refrigerator lights, even when the case is unplugged. This extra feature makes tinkering with components easier.

Chances are, however, you probably won't be doing too much tinkering, as the mini-ATX board is pretty much maxed out. There is no room to expand in there aside from adding more RAM (only 3 of the DIMM slots are full) and hard drives (there are two empty hard disk bays). Everything is nicely compartmentalized like the insides of most Dell computers and they expect you to do most of your tinkering on the Website when you originally configure-to-order the PC.

The liquid cooling system that surrounds the Core i7-975 CPU is remarkably quiet and unless it's running at full bore you won't hear it. The Aurora ALX (Core i7) only comes with one optical drive, but there is room to install another if you feel like it. The drive that comes with the ALX does pretty much everything; it's a Blu-ray and DVD Multi Drive.

Since this is a 50-pound behemoth that you'll probably put under a desk on the floor, Alienware put a convenient light just above the optical drive bay. This makes it easier to drop in a disc when fumbling around in the dark. There are 2 USB ports, a FireWire port, and microphone and headphone jacks on the top of the PC in front of the first "scale" for easy accessibility. In the rear of the ALX you will find the remaining 6 USB ports, another FireWire port, an Ethernet port, an optical port, HDMI ports, and audio inputs.

Performance
My configuration came with a 3.33GHz Intel Core i7-975 CPU, but you can pay an extra $200 and get the same chip over-clocked at 3.6GHz. This might get you bragging rights among your crew, but I don't think it will add that much more to the PC's already terrific performance specs. On our PCMark vantage test of overall computing performance the ALX (10,139) easily beat similar computers that also featured Core i7 900 series chipsets like the (6,836) ($1,367.26 direct, ) and the (6,138) ($1,769 direct, ).

When we ran our 3D graphics tests, the Aurora ALX performed very well. With its dual ATI Radeon HD870 cards, it scored 39,626 at 1,024-by-768 resolution and 13,808 at 1,920-by-1,200. These scores were quite good, sure they are middle of the road on the entry-level scores, but the (63,719) ($2,495 direct, ) and the (45,131) (1,299 direct, ) easily beat it. When matched against these same systems on the more strenuous Extreme 3D Mark Vantage tests the Aurora's newer graphics card and CPU beat them both scoring 13,808 to their 10,934 and 5,781 respectively. The Aurora ALX (Core i7)'s 89 frames per second (fps) on Crysis and 154 fps on World in Conflict at 1,280 by 1,024 were the highest amongst it peers on our gaming tests; when we upped the resolution to 1,920 by 1,200 the Aurora ALX (Core i7)'s 37 fps in Crysis and 93 fps in World in Conflict again it got top marks. In our multimedia and imaging suite of tests the Aurora ALX (Core i7) continued to do well, scoring a 20,100 on our CineBench R10 imaging tests, easily besting the Dell Studio XPS 435 (16,147) and (15,891) ($1,279 direct, ).

The Aurora ALX (Core i7) is a great combination of style and substance. It lets you slay noobs and look good doing it. But the question is do you want to pay for the privilege? Its price of $4,249 is expensive considering what you don't get. Sure, you get twin ATI CrossFireX graphics, but that comes at a premium price and this is without an SSD hard drive, a second optical drive, or even a card reader. The Aurora ALX is a top of the line machine, but I can't get behind a system at that price with a fully maxed-out board. I'd say save some money and get a single-graphics-card system like the Falcon Northwest Talon (Core-i7 950) and use the money to expand as you need to.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS
Check out the test scores for the

COMPARISON TABLE