ALIENWARE X51 - A Hard Core Review

Battlefield 3’s metro station is being bombarded with RPG’s and the grenades as the assault squads begin flanking your team from all sides. You and your squadmates try desperately to hold the fort, but your team is losing tickets rapidly and you’re finding it increasingly hard to hold them back. It’s edge-of-the-seat stuff as the enemy decents upon you last control point, already having seized the rest of the map. You and your squad form the last line of the defence in the face of sure defeat. Yet you remain resolute, determined to turn the tide once again in your favor, The battle is racy, the compact gory, your nerves are twitching, your finger tight on the trigger, when suddenly the moment freezes. The battle is paused. To your horror, the game has crashed.

The hard core gamer’s conundrum

For too long you’ve had to bear the frustrations of the unreliable PC hardware and freezing consoles ruining your gaming experience at the most inopportune moments. If only you had a better, hassle-free PC designed for hard core gaming. If only consoles could live up to all the promises. If only someone could pack a full-scale gaming PC into small chassis.

       What may seem like a distant dream, is now a reality. Enter the Alienware X51, the new gaming desktop gaming PC packed into such a sleek and compact design that it would put other PCs and consoles into shame. It has a makings of a game changer. It will metamorphose the life of a hardcore gamer.

The Form Factor

Before the inevitable comparison Microsoft’s Xbox 360 pops its head, let’s dig into the basics. Let’s look at the form factor first. The X51’s slim-tower chassis measures a tidy 3.25 inches high, 3.75 inches wide, and 12.25 inches deep making it only a little bit larger than the Xbox 360. It can stand upright and lie down flat on its side. Its slot-loading DVD burner will fit in with aesthetics of any media rack. Peep inside the X52 and you’d find a pure PC: it employs a Mini-ITX motherboard, desktop-level Sandy Bridge Intel processors, and a full-sized slot graphics card (rotated 90 degrees and connected via a riser card to the PCle 2.1 × 16 slot). The news is that the X51 has a full-length 3D card sand witched on the top of the motherboard. Its ability to accept a full-length 3D card means the X51 is the slim- tower gaming machine out there.

Cutting Edge

The X51 is rugged and power packed. It is black, It’s lean, and it has a full-sized graphics card. It is upgradable. It packs full-sized gaming PC components into a chassis only marginally bigger than a Playstation 3. It as many ports as desktops PCs twice its size. It is the one of the first computers to use the desktop version of Nvida’s Optimus graphics switching technology. Look carefully. There’s an alien head emblem on the front and on either side, pair of translucent talons. No, they are not redundant embellishment. The individually light up in colours of your choice. That ain’t all, though. If you are a component junkie, peer under the hood. It is cleverly engineering! In the X51 matte case, full-size desktop fit together like a 3D jigsaw puzzle. Every single components are modular and can be replaced and upgradable with minimal effort and in an incredible short time. And there is not even hint of wasted space inside. If this is not cleverest engineering, what is?

         So much. But what’s the pedigree? Did you question the DNA? Do not. Look at the name. It is Alienware. It bears the Dell tag.

         So, what is so special about the Alienware X51? The console gaming space is already cluttered with big names like Xbox and Playstation. Why the X51? Okay, let’s admin the X51 neither the biggest nor the most powerful gaming PC the Dell owned company has ever unveiled, but it is certainly is the biggest challenge to traditional consoles to date.

Cool Connectivity

That’s all? Wait. You ain’t heard it all. Its connectivity options are unparalleled – the X 51 has many ports as desktop PC’s twice its size. On the front panel, alongside microphone and headphone jacks, you’ll find a pair of USB 2.0 ports. The back sports not only a dedicated HDMI 4.1 jack, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 sockets, Gigabit Ethernet, and a full 3.5mm surround sound jack set, but also both digital optical and coaxial SPDIF audio outputs interface with any surround system. There’s more – 802.11n Wi-Fi, twin DVI video outputs and mini- HDMI on the rear of the graphics card.

Power Punch
The Alienware X51 is one of the first computers to use the desktop versions of Nvidia’s Optimus graphics switching technology. In simply words, The X51 attempts to save power by using the onboard Intel graphics when possible. You can get all the power of the dedicated Nvidia GPU through the full-size HDMI port without having use a special graphic card’s DVI and mini-HDMI outputs.

    Put, simply, Alienware is offering a gaming PC packaged for mass consumption, and that too at a price that does not burn in the gaming animal’s pocket. The X51 is a bang-for-the-buck machine. It is reasonable priced. It is solidity built. It is even portable. Moreover, Its upgradable , so you do not need to fret about the tomorrow’s games. It is a powerful home computer, and if you jingle a few extra coins, it can also transform into transform into a Blu-ray player.

         The Alienware X51 is a game changer, designed transform your experience unlike anything else before it. Surrender to the X51! Resistance is futile.