Alienware’s dual-core Aurora isn’t cheap, but for graphics-intensive games, you won’t find anything faster
The Good: Dual-core AMD chips mean out-of-the-ballpark performance
The Bad: Be prepared to shell out big bucks for this system. Productivity software adds even more
The Bottom Line: A fast, boutique PC that will appeal to media enthusiasts unwilling to build their own systems
Taking the $2,300 Alienware Aurora out of its box, you know immediately you’re getting something different. In keeping with its name, you get a "saucer silver" (gray) tower system with "astral blue alien ice" (black) grills on the bottom front and sides that evoke images of a creature from outer space. Four front USB 2.0 ports on the bottom are the only other things readily apparent. A locked front panel hides optical drives, a floppy drive, an 8-in-1 digital card reader, and the power switch. In the rear, you get another eight USB slots, gigabit Ethernet, firewire, sound options, and a digital audio-out connector.
DOUBLE POWER. My test system sported a dual-core AMD Athlon 64-bit, 4800+ chip running at 2.41 GHz each; an Nvidia GeForce Ultra 6800 graphics card; 1 GB of double-data rate memory; two 80-GB serial ATA Raid 0 configured hard drives; a 16X dual-layer, all format drive; and the Windows XP Professional operating system. Add in another $600 to $1,400, and you’ll get a high-performance LCD monitor. For my tests, I used Dell’s W2600 LCD TV and Philips Brilliance 230W LCD monitor.
There’s also plenty of room inside for expansion and add-ons, with 10 USB ports, three open PCI slots, graphic ports, and two extra memory slots.
The key to this system’s benefits lies in its dual-core chips. Most PCs on the market include only a single chip, yet unless you have a very pricey additional graphics chip handling some of the work, even the latest are taxed to the max when trying to encode video. Such machines pretty much give up the ghost if you ask them to do much else at the same time, which is why a lot of people turn off their Internet security software when trying to play a game or edit photos with the processor-intensive Adobe software.
GOT GAME. Dual-core chips work by trying to balance the load when you’re doing multiple tasks at once. As an added benefit, since you use two processor cores, you can drop the chip’s clock speed. Typically, that would allow the system to run cooler and quieter than high-end single-core systems.
For full Aurora product details check out Alienware’s website:
Or for snazzy product video http://www.alienware.com/product_de…SKU-DEFAULT#sub (thx Mels_Smileys45 )
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