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The Alienware X51 is back, in a newly revised "R2" edition. The closest thing you'll get to a high-power PC in a console-like form factor, the X51 packs unfeasibly high levels of gaming power into a very small space, with the new revamp boasting an upgrade to Intel's fourth generation Core "Haswell" processors along with a significant bump in graphics power. The previous top-end GTX 660 has been replaced with its rather more powerful GTX 670 sibling, moving the X51 into a new league of gameplay performance. But of course, this is Alienware. The common perception is that you pay through the nose for the brand and the fancy casing and you can build something similar yourself, saving a small fortune in the process. At a recent launch event, we put that point directly to the Alienware general manager Frank Azor.
"The X51 was supposed to be a value box for us. That's why we started it at $699. Now we start it at $599 in some areas, $699 in others," he says, referring to the base-level model shipping with Ubuntu Linux, with a $700 entry-point for a Windows unit. In the UK, the cheapest X51 costs £599, featuring an i3 processor, Windows 8 and a GTX 645 graphics card.
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