Alienware 7500 P2 with Blu-ray

Blu-ray performance:

Since this machine came equipped with a Blu-ray drive, we thought we'd put it to the test. We've seen all sorts of problems with Blu-ray set-ups in PCs, and many forum posts around the web attest to the same thing. In some cases, drives won't play commercial disks full stop. Some system integrators aren't shipping the right versions of software, or they're shipping crippled versions, or no software at all. Some are shipping systems without graphics cards with HDCP. Can Alienware get it right?

The answer is, thankfully, yes. We put the system to the test - out of the box, what would happen when we put a Blu-ray disc - SWAT, to be precise - in the drive? Our initial expectations were indulged for a minute, as nothing happened. No autoplay, the disc didn't even show up in My Computer.

But, we hopped into the start menu, launched PowerDVD and, bang, we were in the Blu-ray menu screen. We started the movie and saw the full 1920x1080 resolution - output through the DVI port to an analogue CRT display via a VGA converter. So, SWAT doesn't use the image constraint token to downscale non-HDCP sources - but would our system also cope with a fully digital connection to an HDCP compliant flat panel?

We took a DVI cable and used this to plug into a HDCP compliant monitor. This all-digital connection worked perfectly first time, so another score for Alienware's system setup bods.

Final Thoughts...

As always, Alienware has sent in a system that we'd be delighted to pretend the couriers lost in the return post. It's got an X6800, dual GeForce 8800 GTX's and a Blu-ray drive. The new P2 chassis is pretty nice, even though it's smaller than the previous incarnation. We like the lighty-uppy bits, and the fact that Blu-ray actually works, which we weren't 100% would be the case, given our experience.

So, what's the downside? It's not that we object to the £3k+ price point - that's fine, for the target market. But we object to an X-Fi card that lacks X-RAM - the advantage over motherboard audio is otherwise slim. We also feel let down by memory that is so slow, for the price. The previous system we saw from Alienware was also let down by poor RAM, and we can only suggest that Alienware has a meeting with Corsair, or OCZ, or Crucial or even its current supplier, Patriot, to sorts this out.

We saw in the benchmarks that overall system performance was let down by the poor memory timings, and we can't help but feel that the £50 difference between the Xtreme Gamer and the Fatal1ty Edition of the X-Fi should be sucked up by Alienware here, given that there has already been so much spent on the 8800 GTX's.

All in all, it's a great system, and the Blu-ray is a cool selling point - but a couple of niggles prevent us from recommending this unreservedly.