System setup and notes
| System name | Alienware Area-51 7500 | MESH Elite Extreme SLI | Vadim Fusion Cetus | SCAN FX-62 GX2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, 266MHz FSB, LGA775) | Intel Core 2 E6700 @ 3.4GHz/340MHz FSB (2.67GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, 266MHz FSB, LGA775 native spec.) | AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 (2.8GHz, 2MiB L2 cache, 200MHz HTT, AM2) | |
| Motherboard | ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe | ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe | ASUS P5W DH i975X Deluxe | Foxconn C51XEM2AA - nForce 590 SLI |
| Memory | 2GiB (2 x 1024) Patriot PC6400 | 2GiB (2 x 1024) OCZ PC6400 | 2GiB (2 x 1024) OCZ PC800 EL Platinum XTC | 2GiB (2 x 1024) Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 EPP DDR2 |
| Memory timings and speed | 4-4-4-12-2T @ 800MHz | 4-4-4-15-2T @ 800MHz | 4-4-4-14-2T @ 1020MHz | 5-5-5-15-2T @ 936MHz (EPP) |
| Graphics card(s) | NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 (500/1200) | 2 x NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX - SLI | NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 (600/1600) | NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 (500/1200) |
| Disk drive(s) | 2 x HGST Desktar 7K500 500GB SATA | Maxtor 6H500S0 500GB SATA | 2 x Seagate 7200.10 320GB SATA in RAID0 (640GB) WD 250GB SATA |
WD 150GB Raptor (WD150ADFD) 10,000RPM, 16MB cache 2 x Seagate 750GB |
| BIOS revision | 07/06/06 | 12/05/2006 - (612W1P18) | ||
| Graphics driver | ForceWare 91.31 | ForceWare 91.33 | ForceWare 91.31 | ForceWare 91.29 |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional SP2 32-bit | Windows XP MCE 2005 32-bit | Windows XP Home SP2 32-bit | Windows XP Professional SP2 32-bit | Current pricing (ex. delivery) | £3112 - base unit | £2499 (includes TFT, speakers) | £2936 - base unit | £2750 - base unit |
Benchmark Software
ScienceMark 2.0 (21st March 2005)HEXUS Pifast Benchmark
HEXUS.in-house MP3 Encoding Benchmark using LAME 3.97a (Intel HT compiler) - 701MB WAV
HEXUS.in-house DivX encode using DivX 6.01 and VirtualDub on 416MB DV file
CINEBENCH 2003 multi-CPU render
KribiBench v1.1
HDTach 3.0.1.0
Quake 4 v1.04 HEXUS Custom Benchmark
Far Cry v1.33 - HEXUS custom benchmark
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory v1.05 - HEXUS custom benchmark
Notes
We've been privileged enough to receive and review a number of truly high-end systems in the past 3 months, so we're putting the Alienware Area-51 7500 up against some stiff competition.We've already mentioned that the comparison MESH PC features an identical CPU, motherboard, and similar RAM but adds in SLI'd GTX 512MiB cards, so performance will be similar. The bespoke Vadim PC cranks up the speed by overclocking core components, and the SCAN AM2 system showcases what's good about AMD's Athlon 64 FX AM2 platform. All SKUs are equipped with 2GiB of system RAM and all bar the MESH feature NVIDIA's GeForce 7950 GX2 1024MiB graphics card, although Vadim's Fusion utilises a heavily overclocked and watercooled model.
Issues
For the sake of full disclosure, we received a pre-production sample from Alienware that was still a work in progress. The right-hand USB2.0 port on the front of the chassis wasn't working and the software build was less than optimal, with missing drivers and unallocated hard-drive space for the secondary 500GB HGST drive. Further, the sample wasn't equipped with AlienFX, the funky, compartmentalised system that allows you to light different internal parts of the PC with a number of different colours. Similar to Dell's XPS.We appreciate that Alienware sent us a sample that's not indicative of what you'd receive should you place an order. Alienware maintains that it has a stringent 100-point-plus quality check on every machine that leaves the production floor.
That said, we were able to carry out our full gamut of benchmarks. Read on to see how it performed against 3 other powerhouse systems.
