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I'd like the alienware Area51 laptop more

up to 3 GHz p4, even if it IS a desktop P4 and not a laptop one... that's what AC adaptors are for

I found it here the other day, but I haven't seen any real advertising push for it yet...

Alienware's 51m is located Here
It comes with the Radeon 9000 pro standard now, and optionally you can get the new P-4 3.06 GHz With HyperThreading.
Hyperthreading is worth it, and this laptop is ideal not just for gamers, but since adobe runs faster on a P-4 with H/T eanabled (see the Tom's video for proof -- 3.06 H/T enabled beats a 3.6 noticably and visually in how long it takes for software to get back to you so you can actually start editing that video/image etc)
I'm really glad to see the Gamer's PC vendors getting into the notebook market seriously though. It's about time serious PC users could get a laptop with Today's cutting edge technology, instead of last years technology from places like dell.

• Alienware: Nice rig, about $2853.00
• Power Notebooks: Same damn thing, $2110.00. You can double the RAM to 1GB, add another 20GB to the HD, and it is still 300 less than the alienware jive.

• Pentium® 4 @ 2.8GHz
• 512MB DDR SDRAM
• ATI Mobility RADEON 9000

Yea right, and I can beat Stephen Hawking in the 100 yard dash.

If you are ever in desperate need of something fun to do (as I often am), or maybe self torture, try going to alienware and building yourself the most crazy pimped out 3 screen DV Machine you can.

Then look at the price. Over 19000. One can only dream.

I cringed when I saw the name TigerDirect. They're the ones who make crappy advertisements on PCWorld magazine.

AlienWare does a similar thing, but I've heard much better things about them than this Systemax company - they've been tagged the Cadillac of computers.

Not to mention, a high-end machine costs, at most, around/less than $3000.

Yes, I realize the high-end gaming systems fetch a hefty profit margin, but isn't Alienware the standard retailer for such systems?

I think reputation has a lot to do with sales success, so it may be hard for Systemax to break into Alienware's marketshare. The watercooling option is definitely a step in the right direction; I'm pretty sure no system retailer has attempted such an offer.

whan is someone going to get Linux running on one of these bad boys?

If you want a prebuilt dual Athlon, look at Alienware's Professional lines. They have a Dual Athlon base system that you can configure to your likings, and you can get a lot for $3000 from them. Plus it's color-coordinated!
Disclaimer: I have never bought or used an Alienware system.

it looks promising http://www.alienware.com/main/system_pages/area51- m.asp

Alienware offers excelent gaming machines including a new laptop model released not too long ago.

Go AlienWare. They by far have best service and warrenty that I have yet to encounter. Not to mention the coolness factor. Who else has a 2.4ghz LAPTOP for under $3000?

Personally, I'm really fond of Alienware's selection.

Yeah I read playboy for the articles too.

Personally, I'm really fond of Alienware's selection. They used to be the kicking-est gaming boxes on the planet. I'm not sure nowadays, but my custom box from them rocks.

psxndc

People these days would just rather have "somebody else" do it for them in most aspects of their lives.

I understand completely, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. The days when one man could do everything himself are nearing an end. There were days when you could make your own tools, chop your own wood, build your own house, hunt all your own food, make your clothes (etc ad nauseum). Now, it is much more advantageous to specialize in one particular skill, and use it to everyone's advantage.

For instance, if you're a really good computer programmer, and you specialize so much that you get paid well for it, then your time is worth more to you as a programmer, than, for instance, building a telescope or computer. If you want to study some astronomy in your spare time, it would take weeks of your "spare time" to make your own telescope first. Whereas, you could spend that time working, bring home some cash, and buy a telescope, so you can focus on what you're really interested in.

Specialization is a direct result of the complexity of our culture. Personally, I love gaming and building PCs, I don't really have the time to sit down and put together my own operating system, so I get pre-made distributions, usually here.

Other people, however, may be so interested in spending time coding that they would rather not put in the effort to build their own PC. So, they buy one (from Compaq, Dell, or, if you have the money, Alienware).

Do I hate people who buy pre-made machines? No. The fact is, I build my PCs out of pre-made parts, so I'm just as guilty, but on a different level. I have no idea how to make a sound card, and frankly, I don't really want to know. (And, there may be some guy out there that DOES know how, and thinks everyone is stupid for buying pre-made ones from Creative).

Do you see where this argument goes?

I always build my own, stopping by Pricewatch to find the best prices.

But everywhere I look, places are building custom PCs now. BestBuy was even building pcs to order. They had many vendors, Alienware, hp, compaq, etc.... You could order a custom PC, or build your own with off the shelf items. CompUSA started to carry OEM products awhile back, funny to see those white boxed oem products on sale at a retail store.

Go to Alienware and spec out an MJ-12DDR. You can get that sucker up to $5k pretty quickly, and oy, the colored cases! Joy!

Alienware makes some amazingly cool cases. Too bad they won't let you buy just an empty case :( Prices are good for the support they offer, though.

These guys at alienware do linux stuff and they're offering it on some systems (they do high priced systems but they're p1mp-455 n!c3). note that they also do windows systems, so just cos they've got the audigy and they'll put linux on your box doesn't mean that the audigy will work with linux.

I'm pretty annoyed that the breakout box only comes with the super-extra-deluxo-hyper-expensive version of the audigy. The really really really good thing about the audigy is that it'll probably help bring the Live's price down to stupid cheap prices.

I know that Live! had some problems w/ 2000 and XP -- have those been worked out? does the Audigy have the same probs?

Try an Alienware. I was given $2000 as a graduation present toward a new computer from my parents, but they mandated that I NOT build it. Best damn computer I've EVER seen, and I'm including all the homebuilds my friends have.

You could also try going to Alienware They are not cheap, by a long shot, but I bought my last AMD box from them after I realized that I didn't have the time to put one together from scratch this time around. I've been pleased with the results.

Well, it seem these days, most of the power user just care to get something like 200fps in Quake III. Why ? Beat's me ! I'm not on a quest to get the ultimate frame rate, I just want my box to be quiet as possibly can be.

To help you understand my take on the subject, here is the background :
My PC has the following components :

• A OEM case
• A 235W OEM power supply
• ASUS P3B-F
• Intel Pentium II rated 400Mhz @ 400Mhz
• A cheap OEM SECC2 Heat-Sink made of aluminum
• A 128MB CAS2 no-name DIMM
• Two 32MB CAS3 Samsung DIMM slowing down my memory timing, but preventing the appearance of the all mighty evil SwaP
• A ATI All-In-Wonder Rage128 16MB
• A Creative SoundBlaster Live! Value
• A Realtek 8139 Ethernet NIC
• My beloved USR 56Kbps ISA Real Modem. Sorry but to me a component that uses CPU power to do it's processing instead of taking the load off is not worthy of being in my computer. Not to mention the M$ Win part...
• A Creative 48x CD-ROM drive. It's the loudest damned thing in my computer when it's spinning
• A Quantum Fireball AS PLUS 40GB (7200RPM) in a removable tray
• A Quantum Fireball CX1 10GB (5400RPM) mounted inside the case
• Of course the stupid old 1.44 MB floppy drive only used for booting Tomsbrt in case of emergency

Soon to be :

• A Adaptec 2940UW
• A Diamond Monster 3D II for Glide games

It turn out that the Quantum Fireball AS makes less noise than the Quantum Fireball CX1. I still have to figure it out ...

I use my PC for :

• Running Linux and learning as much as time allows me (Jez I had so much time when I was a student... Think of all the time I wasted in High-School running the evil W monster)
• Doing some gaming i.e. : Diablo II, Unreal, UT, Undying (Although that thing is going to cost me a new box)
• Spending numerous nights filling my brain @ Slashdot, Tomshardware, Anandtech, Arstechnica, StorageReview, Developper.Intel.com, and most importantly, hounding the web for all the case manufacturers and their take at a quiet box.

As I'm writing this post, that is probably going to be the base documentation for my Silent Case Project, you're guessing that my sleepless night of browsing have not yielded the desired result.

I've check out many options such as water cooling, moving the PC to the closet, returning to the forest where a PC is pretty far from your everyday quest for survival. None of them suits me.

The objective of my project is to build a case that meets the following criteria :

• A silent as possible
• Accessible
• Provides sufficient ventilation to maintain all the components running within thermal specs
• Be light enough to be easily transportable (Let's not forget the Lan parties ;-)

To attain those goals I have to :

• Read all I can about noise, sound, aerodynamics, PC specs
• Find suitable materials : A case is not just a protection against unwanted fingers and dust ; it must provide EMI shielding, proper grounding, resist to impacts, and fit into my conception of the king of object you want in your bedroom (If you were thinking about plywood and a box of rusted leftover nails, forget it)
• Find the tools or the companies or individuals with the means to work the materials I choose to build the casing

For the sound isolation I was thinking about some kind of foam. Mineral lint would be affective but that takes too much space and it's not the kind of thing I want beside my bed. Form the casing itself, metal is almost inevitable if you want EMI shielding and grounding. And as for you who wonder why I have not mentioned water cooling yet, the greatest source of noise is not my CPU cooler and your just moving the problem out of the case (Nice ; you have water heating up but unless your reservoir is like a bathtub or something you will have to transfer the heat for the water to the air).

That about as far as I am. If you have any idea that might help me, please fell free to send me some bits forming ASCII characters at Prozzaks@operamail.com

To finish up, here is a list of thing that might help people wanting to achieve similar goals :

• http://www.formfactors.org/ You should be able to find all the documents regarding the ATX form factor and thermal design guides. A must if you want to build a quiet PC.
• http://developer.intel.com/ Intel has contributed a great deal to the ATX definition ; here you will find many relevant documents including thermal design guides for all Intel processors.
• Etract from my favorite's :
  
  

  Hardware\cases PC CASE
  Fong Kai
  PowerOn
  Enlight Corporation
  dir.yahoo Enclosures Manufacturers
  procase
  YY Computer
  Psi
  IN WIN
  Amtrade
  American Suntek
  Addtronics
  A-Top Technology, Inc
  Nikao
  Palo Alto Products
  Antec
  Lian-Li
  amaquest
  Koolance
  Quietpc
  PC Power & Cooling
  
  
  

  Hardware\Heat Sinks ALPHA
  Cooler Master
  AVC
  ekl
  GlobalWIN
  globefan
  RDJD
  Foxconn
  Spring Spread
  Sanyo Denki
  TITAN
  TaiSol
  ChipCoolers
  Orb a
  ElanVital
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info\Form Factor Platform Development Support
  SSI
  WTX
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info\Standards Fibre Channel Industry Association
  PCI SIG
  RAB
  serialata
  SPEC
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info\Storage RAID.edu
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info\Cours CS 252 - Graduate Computer Architecture
  
  
  

  Hardware\Info The PC Guide!
  Hardware Bible
  FullOn3D
  developer.intel.com
  HwB The Hardware Book
  United Overclockers
  Ars Technica
  Tech-Junkie
  HardwarePub
  Webopedia
  Illustrated Guide to the PC Hardware
  SysOpt
  2CPU
  Ace's Hardware
  Technical Support - RaidHelp v1.0 - Free RAID Technology Guide
  Computer Architecture
  OPENCORES.ORG
  TechFest
  MidWest Micro Support
  
  
  

  Hardware\Resalers GeekTek!
  Micro-Bytes
  ALCO
  ABC Micro
  2CoolTek
  Plycon Computers
  TCWO
  ABC Micro - Lprix
  Case Outlet
  The Chip Merchant, Inc
  Cimsys
  OrdiGros
  ALIENWARE
  SHENTECH
  FireStorm
  Hyper Microsystems
  TWEAKBOX
  
  
  

  Hardware\Reviews Tom's Hardware Guide
  Sharky Extreme
  StorageReview
  HardOCP
  AnandTech
  SystemLogic
  x-bit labs
  Active-Hardware
  FiringSquad
  SocketA
  Overclockers Australia
  HEXUS
  dansdata
  SysReview
  
  
  

  Hardware\Manufacturers AMD
  ASUS
  Belkin
  MassMultiples
  Promise
  StarTech
  VIA Technologies, Inc
  ABIT Computer Corp
  Comcase
  Micron Semiconductor
  ECS
  
  
  

  Hardware Freeboxen
  

I think aliens would be gamers.

Well, sadly, my question about PPC went unanswered. Having researched VA a little more since posting that question, I must say it would be nice to get a VA box with a PowerPC board and all the rest of their bits.

Then again, it would be even cooler to get a PowerPC box from these guys instead....