Alienware Aurora 7500

We put the Alienware up against a high-end bit-tech rig, which was made up of:

• AMD Athlon FX 55 processor (£560)
  
• Dual Nvidia 6800GT for SLI graphics (£500)
  
• DFI NF4 SLI-DR motherboard (£140)
  
• 1GB OCZ Platinum memory at 2-2-2-10 (£165)
  
• Western Digital 250GB HDD (£80)

Cost of bit-rig overall: £1900 with bits
Cost of Alienware system: £2997


With the X2 4400+ lacking the raw oomph of the FX55 in single-threaded applications, the RazorLAME MP3 enocde test was always going to be won by the FX. The same is true for SuperPI.

Even in Sandra, it is narrowly beaten, however, the raw numbers don't tell the whole story here. The X2 included is a fantastic chip for doing more things at the same time, and is a far nicer processor to use in everyday situations because it's able to cope with intense use far better. For single applications, however, the FX55 is still king.


However, given something meaty like CS:Source or Battlefield 2, and the Alienware system really starts to show its muscle. The combination of X2 processor and 7800 GTX SLI stomps all over our assembled high-end system, scoring more or less double the framerates.

Doom 3 is rather less impressive, with a small increase being recorded. However, more important than the small average increase is the large minimum frame rate increase we saw, in line with the results of our 7800 GTX SLI review. This made gameplay noticeably smoother.