This Royal Machine is Worth A Kings Ransom
Written: Nov 20 '00
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Pros: Huge RAM, Great Gaming Components
Cons: Huge Price
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| bobchezule's Full Review: Alienware Area51:Aurora |
Alienware has made a business out of providing gamers with their dream computers. They customize them with all the latest components and hook you up with the latest and greatest video card. This particular system comes with a price tag of $2899, but that can all change depending on how you customize it to fit your needs. For the most post, this is in fact a dream machine, but I have a few quips which you will read about below.
Processor: With this system, you will receive the 1.1Ghz AMD Athlon Thunderbird. To be honest, I haven't really noticed a difference between this and the 1Ghz Pentium III (I have used both). This may be because today's games haven't reached the point where they will test such a powerful processor. AMD claims that the Athlon is a better processor for gaming than the PIII. If nothing else, it is just as good. My only beef with the Athlon is that it seems extremely expensive. In the Alienware Hive-Mind you have to sacrifice a monitor in order to keep the price down and receive the Athlon. To me, it isn't worth it.
Memory: Alienware provides 256MB of 133mhz SDRAM with this system. A lot has been made of RDRAM, but I still believe that PC-133 RAM comes out way ahead and is a better buy any day. SDRAM is far superior to RDRAM, which never really fulfilled its promises. For you gamers, if you have never played on a system with 256MB of RAM, prepare for the ride of your life. I have never noticed any lagging anywhere on my system, thanks to such a bulk of memory.
Monitor & Video: Here is a major drawback. The Area 51: Aurora system, as configured at the price of $2899, doesn't come with a monitor. That is bad. You can of course add a monitor, the cheapest they have will run you $220, but to get a good gaming monitor you will need at least $350. Very bad. The video card is where Alienware really flexes its gaming muscles. Standard with this machine is the NVidia GeForce2 GTS w/64mb DDR 4X AGP. This is a powerful video card. This is the best card on the market and you will definitely see what I'm talking about when you fire up a game on this machine. You will be blown away by the amazing graphics and frame rates this sucker is able to turn out. Bless those beautiful people at NVidia. Another cool feature standard with this machine is the video cooling system. Although it costs you $46.00, the KoolMaxx Video Cooling System will make sure your machine doesn't overheat and you don't experience freeze ups midgame, which for those of us who play games is a nice bonus.
Hard Drive & CD-Rom: The 40GB hard drive that comes standard with this machine will provide more than enough space for all your gaming needs. You can install as many games as you can get your hands on. It would be nice to go a little bigger just for comfort, but that would be quite costly. For your storage you receive a Pioneer 16x DVD ROM which is also a 40x CD Rom and a 12x/10x Write 32X Read burner. A burner is really handy for a gamer because it enables you to copy games or store valuable files. A must have.
Sound: The sound card is a SoundBlaster Live! Value, meaning certain components are stripped from it. It is still a great card that will provide you with high quality sound. For speakers you receive the Klipsch ProMedia THX Speakers. I can't explain to you the experience of playing Quake III with this sound system. It will absolutely blow you away. This was my first experience with surround sound and I swear I will never go back.
Everything Else: If you buy by December 31, they will ship it to you via 2nd day air free of charge. As with all the Alienware systems, you can pick and choose what color you want your tower to be.
Final Thoughts: I really like the components that come with this machine, a gamers dream really, but I can't get over the fact that you have to buy a monitor. You've got to price this system at about $3200 instead of $2899 because of the cost of buying a monitor. If this doesn't bother you, or you already have a monitor, than this is the gaming system for you.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 2899
Operating System: Windows
Processor: AMD Athlon (K7)
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40
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Epinions.com ID:
bobchezule
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Member: Benny Lipschitz
Reviews written: 46
Trusted by: 4 members
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