Alienware 7500 P2 with Blu-ray

The rig:

The shiny black casing attracts some major fingerprints, but there's nothing a quick cloth won't see to. In general, the styling is pretty similar to previous versions of the chassis.

There are quite a few fans scattered throughout the system, as you can see if you check out the back panel. There is a 120mm front intake, which pulls in through the silver front. There's a rear intake, which is also 120mm. There's a 120mm on the side above the video cards, and a 120mm on the right hand side of the case, next to the hard drive cages.

There are a number of neat things about the case. Many cases have issues when it comes to connecting up fans that are on the side panel or LEDs throughout the case. One thing we particularly hate is where a side panel fan is wired directly to a motherboard or PSU, making it difficult to remove the panel. Alienware has solved this with a really nice contact-based connection system, where power is transferred through connectors straight to the side panel. This is something that we haven't seen before, and we'd love to see more of.

We also like the fact that, unlike the previous case, the Alien head on the front is now the power button. It always seemed to us that it should be, and whilst you now have to be a little more careful brushing past the front of the case, it is undoubtedly cool.

The Alien head on the front of the case sits on the door, which swings out to reveal the drive bays. The front expansion ports and the drive bays are illuminated with blue LEDs, making connecting up peripherals in a LAN-esque environment a far easier job.

The back of the case is a pretty standard affair, with an exception made for the power connector, which is a proprietary socket. Why on earth do you need a proprietary power socket which needs a specific cable? Why?! Inside the door and on the bottom of the chassis, you'll find the little contact device / power hub. One molex runs into this circuit board, and that powers the LEDs at the front of the case and the side panel fan - it's much neater than having cables connected to the removable side panel.