Alienware X51 Review: The Little PC That Could - leveringtheigave

At a Glint

Adept's Rating

Pros

Littler, tinkerer-friendly physical body
Class-leading performance

Cons

Ultimately moderate upgrade options

Our Verdict

The Alienware X51 proves that big things can come in fine packages, offer excellent gaming performance in a slim soma.

Among shapely-to-order gaming PCs, Alienware is about arsenic close as one gets to a household list, and the brand name is largely synonymous with big dishonourable boxes awninged in garish blinking lights. The unexampled Alienware X51 ($999 American Samoa configured, arsenic of February 3, 2022) is a marked departure from that routine, knifelike both costs and cinch to deliver a machine that's palatable to the masses only doesn't lose whatever of that gamer cred.

The Alienware X51's specs aren't especially impressive on paper. The model I reviewed is equipped with a 3GHz Intel Core i5-2320, 8GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 555 discrete graphics card, and a 1TB Winchester drive. Of note: Despite the system's (comparatively) small size, those are all screen background-class components, and they execute healed. Happening PCWorld's WorldBench 6 trial run suite, the X51 earned an impressive score of 147, landing at the top of the budget desktops category and openhanded some of the lower-closing performance desktops a run for their money.

The X51's gaming performance International Relations and Security Network't exactly mind-blowing, just it is strong. On our Crysis 2 bench mark, it posted a frame rate of 46.2 frames per second at a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels and fairly high settings. You can sure enough eke out more frames if you turn the visual details pile a bit, but that's excellent performance for a Microcomputer at this price. On Dirt 3 at the same resolution and settings, the X51 produced a rate of 84.3 FPS.

Merely the real storey hither is the example. It's small–just terminated a foot big and yearlong, and 3 inches wide. It looks quite a bit like an Xbox 360, and information technology can operate fabrication on its side or standing upright; you can turn the strange-head up badge on its face to match the case's orientation, if you mind those sorts of inside information.

The actual feather in the X51's cap is its upgradability. A single screw keeps the side of the chassis fastened drink down, and deuce more guard accession to the innards. From there, you're free to swap components in and out, with the expected reservations. The Mini-ITX motherboard offers only a pair of DIMM slots, and things are so tight in spite of appearanc that you'd constitute hard-pressed to fit any of the taller Jam sticks available without jostling the SATA cables protruding of the visual drive. The power supply is also meager, and narrow to 150W graphics card game. That said, with existing Intel Sandy Bridge motherboards bright drib-in support for upcoming Hedera helix Bridge processors, Alienware has positioned the X51 Eastern Samoa a gaming-PC oblation that's also a smart investment for tinkering types.

A slot-loading Videodisk burner sits on the front of the X51, though options on Alienware's site include a Blu-ray player. If you're preparation on using the X51 American Samoa a media middle-of-the-road motorcar, that Blu-ray promote makes sensory faculty. You'll also find two USB 2.0 ports on the front, as well as audio and microphone knucklebones.

The rear offers a few more choices, namely 5.1-channel audio from the motherboard, optical and wheedle S/PDIF outputs, an HDMI port, four more USB 2.0 ports, and a partner off of USB 3.0 ports. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 555 GPU has two DVI ports and a Mini HDMI port. You'll find the standard gigabit ethernet connection Eastern Samoa healthy, but altogether models also load down 802.11n Wi-Fi as a standard feature article; that's really useful in a PC that's every bit likely to be tucked into an amusement center American Samoa on (Oregon under) a desk.

The Alienware X51 is light on bundled software; installed on the machine are AlienFX and AlienFusion. The AlienFX app lets you tweak the lighting on the X51's chassis. For this use, the machine is burst into deuce-ac "zones"–the alienate skull on the front, and 7-column inch plastic panels on either root. The user interface is lancelike and intuitive: A representation of the PC shows up on your concealment, and clicking on the person zones brings up a color wheel. If you'd like to get a bit more technical, advanced settings let you drill down. I've set the X51 to switch into a pin-up pink-and-purple motif for particular proposition games, but you rear likewise placed it to modify color based along specific system events, so much as receiving email messages. (Of course, if you choose to keep things mundane, you can turn the lights off exclusively.) Interim, the AlienFusion app manages power profiles, providing many of the same options you can find in Windows' power-management features, albeit in a fancier user interface.

My biggest complaint about the X51 is the lack of a solid-put forward drive pick. We've heard no word on whether SSDs will be available afterwards, just nothing is fillet you from cracking expressed the guinea pig and replacing the hard drive if you're so inclined.

I had a chance to check impermissible the X51 a few weeks ago at a found outcome here in San Francisco, and I'm as impressed now as I was then. The X51 is a deputise the rightmost direction for Alienware: Hulky, imposing gaming rigs aren't going away anyplace, but one of the numerous reasons given in support of the often-repeated "PC gambling is dead" mantra is price–and shoppers who aren't ready to roll up their sleeves and build their own PCs are likely to turn to recognized brands. Nonetheless, if you need more power, you can find plenty of PCs to choose from on our performance-desktops chart (with the required bump in Price).