Alienware Aurora ALX review

The Aurora scored 2.04 in our 2D application benchmarks. It’s not a bad result but, in the face of strong competition, its stock-speed specification lags some distance behind: the overclocked Wired2Fire Hellspawn XFire and Chillblast Fusion Mustang scored 2.45 and 2.53 respectively in the same tests.

ATI’s Radeon HD 5870 breezed through our Crysis benchmarks, even managing a more than playable 37fps in our 1,920 x 1,200 Very High test. Unlike the choice of CPU, we can't argue with the HD 5870's inclusion – the only better option is the dual-GPU HD 5890, but that's exorbitantly priced. Our only gripe is that we might have expected two cards.

The rest of the specification offers little to excite. There’s no Blu-ray drive, which is poor form in a system this expensive, and the 6GB of DDR3 RAM isn't even installed in a triple-channel configuration. At least there’s plenty of storage, with two 1TB hard disks arranged in a striped RAID0 array.

The peripherals are a bit better. The monitor boasts the Alienware brand, but it's all Dell: bright, accurate colours and sharp detail abounds across the 1,920 x 1,080 panel, and there’s no sign of backlight bleed. It’s just a shame that the screen is only a 22in model – we’d expect at least two more inches. The included keyboard and mouse are good too: both have positive, responsive actions; the mouse boasts a handful of sensitivity settings and the keyboard offers a range of media controls.

Alienware’s aspirational systems normally come with suitably high prices attached – and the Aurora ALX duly obliges. This particular package – which has had its GPU and hard disk capacity boosted beyond the standard options – costs an eye-watering £1,964 before VAT. Had it achieved a record-breaking score we'd still have called it absurd, especially given the Wired2Fire is faster in every one of our benchmarks and includes a superb 24in monitor nearly £800 less. With a bit of overclocking things might have been a little more palatable, but Alienware will only tweak the top-end Core i7-975 model – and that CPU will set you back a further £870 inc VAT.

Even without that, the ludicrous price is the final nail in the coffin for a machine that’s slower and louder than its rivals, and is crammed with gimmicks that scream style at top volume while offering negligible real-world use. We like to see manufacturers pushing boundaries to take technology further, but even the staunchest of Alienware fans will struggle to justify this sort of excess.

Author: Mike Jennings