alienware

With the Intel Developer Forum underway, one of the big stories has been Intel's official unveiling of its new high-end laptop CPU, the mobile version of the Core i7. Of course, everyone's been talking about Core i7 laptops for weeks now, so the only real surprise is which PC makers are jumping onboard right away to show off this pricey new technology. Here's a roundup of Wednesday's announcements:

>Toshiba revamps Qosmio line with Core i7 X505

>Dell welcomes Intel Core i7 with pair of laptops

>Alienware launches Core i7 M15x laptop (Related: new Alienware desktops, too) … Read more

Alienware announced refreshes to both the design and the technology of its high-end Area-51 and Aurora gaming desktops. A new angular look replaces the familiar rounded alien-head shape of the old models, and features such as motorized air vents and specialized hard-drive layout give Alienware some unique selling points. Alienware is also the previously unnamed OEM that purchased the first batch of AMD's Radeon HD 5800 cards, so other system vendors can blame Dell/Alienware for their short supply and delayed order shipping.

Essentially, Alienware has two systems to announce today: the full tower Area-51 and the micro-ATX-based Aurora. Each system also has a more expensive ALX edition that features liquid cooling, a wider array of case lighting, and other tweaks.

The most interesting feature of the new case that's common to the Area 51 and the Aurora is the motorized air vents that Alienware calls its Active Venting louver system. As Alienware describes it, when the temperature inside the case reaches a certain level, the fins on the top of the case will open up automatically to increase its airflow. We have a hunch Alienware doesn't mind the theatrics of this venting system, either.

Unfortunately, missing from the images Alienware gave us is an image of the Area 51's hard-drive array. Rather than inserting the drives into main cavity, Alienware has carved out a series of six flat-lying drive bays on the opposite side of the Area 51. The benefits of this design are more apparent than the venting system, in that it lets you add more internal storage than you could normally, allows for easy drive installation, and also frees up room for airflow inside the main case compartment. No other vendor that we know of offers such a design.… Read more

It's a largely new system on the inside, but Alienware isn't digging up a new name for its powerful 15-inch gaming laptop. Featuring Intel's new mobile Core i7 processor, the Alienware m15x debuted today, the first of several Core i7 laptops we expect in the near future.

According to Alienware, this new system is for "enthusiast and hardcore gamers that require a high level of mobility while still requiring an exceptional gaming experience." Which sounds like it's not exactly going to be inexpensive. It's also not going to be lightweight--this is a 15-inch … Read more

Episode 41 of the Digital City, where we discuss Apple's falling market share, Scott's love affair with the Game Boy Micro, and whether Alienware's $5K laptop means the death of gaming PCs.

Related links: >>Alienware M17x the fastest gaming laptop ever, but do we still need big PC gaming rigs? >>Apple drops to No. 5 in laptop sales--are cheaper MacBooks the answer? >>Retro Gadget: An ode to my Game Boy Micro

>>Watch the Digital City live every Friday at 3pm EST on CNET Live! >>Subscribe to Digital City on iTunes &… Read more

After a steady stream of Netbooks and entry-level laptops, it's nice to slip behind the seat of a deluxe mobile powerhouse for a change. Alienware's new M17x laptop jams pretty much any high-end component you can think of into an imposing, matte, black chassis, including an Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9300 CPU, dual Nvidia GeForce GTX 280M GPUs, and 1TB of hard-drive space.

While the system starts at a reasonable $1,799, you'll need to configure something closer to our $4,849 review unit to really get the benefit of Alienware's years of experience making high-end gaming PCs.

While playing around with the M17x was a blast, and we especially enjoyed creating wacky color combinations with the customizable backlit keyboard (this new version has four separate color zones under the keyboard tray), we're left wondering if the era of the extreme gaming rig is over--replaced by a mix of 10-inch Netbooks and console games.

It's an argument some have been making for years (or rebutting), but the oft-reported "Death of PC Games" really does seem closer than ever.… Read more

With E3 around the corner, gaming news is breaking left and right. Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that details on Alienware's M17x gaming laptop broke a little earlier than next weekend's onslaught of pixels and polygons. And indeed, Friday morning, the full profile of Alienware's All Powerful laptop has surfaced--ahead of schedule, and ready to steal a little weekend limelight while it can.

It's big. And thick--2.11 inches thick, to be precise. At 11.6 pounds, and 15.98 inches by 12.65 inches, the M17x comes with a 2.4GHz Core … Read more

Alienware's alien-alphabet-infused teaser site for the Allpowerful laptop has been counting down steadily, now at 15 days until the static-fringed menacing alien head reveals all there is to know in the world of ultrabeefy mobile gaming rigs. Or, it's a teaser for a new Crystal Skull movie.

Nevertheless, new intel has dropped in the forums at NotebookReview.com: a mysterious image from "mingocr83" features the contours of and is claimed to be the Allpowerful itself. Subsequent image-brightened posts seem to clearly reveal something else...… Read more

Samsung expects solid-state drives to reach price parity with hard-disk drives within the next few years amid steep annual price declines in flash memory chips.

Solid-state drives, which use flash memory chips as the storage medium, typically offer much better performance than hard-disk drives. But they cost more. Currently, opting for an SSD instead of a hard-disk drive will add anywhere between $100 and $600 to the cost of a laptop, depending on the capacity of the SSD.

In a phone interview, Brian Beard, flash marketing manager for Samsung Semiconductor, said reaching price parity with hard-disk drives is just a … Read more

As you may have read, we are impressed by Intel's Core i7 965 Extreme Edition desktop processor. It's fast not only because of the chip itself, but also because of the changes Intel made to the way it interacts with your system memory. Such chip-specific information is great for the DIY crowd, but what about those of you less inclined to build your own PC?

We've spent the better part of November reviewing Core i7-equipped desktops, five to be exact. The highest-end model, the $8,000 Falcon Northwest Mach V, set records on every desktop benchmark in our arsenal. The surprisingly affordable Dell Studio XPS and Gateway FX6800-01e also impressed us, not only with their relative speed, but by allowing up to six system memory sticks, in the case of the Dell, or by allowing you to add two 3D cards in an sub-$1,500 desktop with the Gateway. Both of those upgrade options speak well of the flexibility afforded by Intel's new Core i7-supporting X58 chipset. We also loved the Gateway's tricked-out chassis.

In between, we saw a Core i7-based Alienware Area-51 X58 with 2TB of traditional hard drive storage, as well as a pair of Samsung solid-state hard drives. That's a truly impressive amount of hardware, even for its $6,500 price tag. We just wish there was an overclocking option with that system. And finally, Velocity Micro's upper-midrange Edge Z55 impressed us as PCs from that company often do, with its workman-like design and superior performance for the dollar.… Read more