ALIENWARE AREA-51M EXTREME

VERDICT: The ultimate mobile gaming machine finally lands and proves that it has more to offer than just graphic performance

Arriving too late in this country for the Gaming Laptop group test in Issue 54 (Christmas 2003), the Alienware has finally landed in the UK and on first appearances it’s an impressive machine. Our review unit came in what the company refers to as Cyborg Green, but Silver and Conspiracy Blue are also available.

Designed with the gaming enthusiast in mind, the Area-51m isn’t aimed at those who like to play the occasional game of Solitaire, but the latest 3D games. That said, would the average gamer really give up his desktop PC, with its multiple ways of being upgraded, for a system that offers mobility but not upgradeability? The most immediate use for such a system is as a gaming machine at a LAN-party – where gamers link up machines to multiplay tournaments – but can equally be used as a home gaming unit.

It is not only the look of the system that will impress the buyer, as the Area-51m comes supplied with a large amount of documentation, on disk, as well as printed, along with the latest drivers and a document detailing Alienware’s own benchmarking of the system, such as a frame rate of 224.5fps in Quake III. Such attention to detail has developed a reputation for Alienware as the gamer’s choice of hardware vendor.

THE GAMING ASPECT
What stands the Alienware Area-51m range of laptops apart from other vendors offerings, is that its graphics adapter can be upgraded by the user to take advantage of the latest developments in GPU architecture.

For this review, we benchmarked the Alienware Area-51m Extreme (£2579 inc. VAT) using the two most powerful GPUs currently available – the 128MB nVidia FX Go 5600 GPU and the 128MB ATi Mobility Radeon 9600. This allowed us to test the performance of the latest 3D cards using the same set-up. As you will see from the benchmarks elsewhere on this page, both systems offered comparable scores.

Interestingly, while the nVidia FX Go 5600 performed better, based on the older 3DMark 2001 SE software, the ATi proved to offer better performance in the latest version of the benchmarking suite, 3DMark 2003. This suggests that the Radeon Mobility is better at handling the latest Microsoft DirectX 9 and OpenGL standards than the FX Go 5600.

No matter which graphics adapter you choose, as already mentioned, this adapter can be upgraded at a later stage. This is because Alienware has designed a module that can be easily accessed on the underside of the chassis. Installing a new adapter consists of removing this panel to reveal the GPU. Three screws hold the module in place and a two-pin connector links it to the motherboard. It is this connector that proved to be the only difficult part of physically upgrading the Area-51m.

Once the adapter has been inserted, the Alienware can be booted-up, with Windows XP immediately recognising the presence of a new card. Alienware supply new drivers, which for this review were supplied on the Windows desktop. However, Alienware also provide an excellent array of drivers on a CD-ROM, which is perfect for upgrading or should you need to re-install system drivers at a later date.

The upgrading of the Alienware Area-51m Extreme proved to be a great deal easier than we had anticipated. With the average laptop expected to last the buyer for three-years, this simple upgrade path should easily add a further 12-18 months to the life of the system.

THE MOBILE ASPECT
Aside from the gaming capabilities of the Alienware Area-51m, the laptop has a great deal to recommend it. The use of a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 processor means that the system has sufficient processing power to meet all current needs. This processor comes fitted with Hyper-Threading, which needs to be turned off to run MobileMark 2002 benchmarking software. However, this system would not allow us to do so, therefore, we were forced to benchmark the Area-51m with a desktop PC-based application that does not register a battery life. To gauge battery life, we ran an MPEG-4 video on loop for a full single charge. In this way we found that the Area-51m offered up to 85 minutes of active battery life. With an overall weight of 4.3kg, this system will not be considered a portable machine. Therefore, battery life will be of low priority.

Using PCMark 2002, the Area-51m recorded a rating of 7555, which is behind the expected 7700 average for such a processor, but not sufficiently so to prove problematic. The system is supported by an impressive 1GB of memory and a 60GB Hitachi hard drive, which runs at 5400rpm. In use, we found that while this hard drive had a tendency to hang occasionally when writing to disk, the system as a whole handled itself extremely efficiently.

The downside of so much processing power in one system, is that the fan of the Area-51m was constantly in use. As a result, the top of the system never grew hot but there was a degree of heat build-up on the back of the system. More annoying was the degree of noise that the system created. If you are looking for a quiet laptop, the Area-51m won’t be for you.

Audio plays an important part in most computer games and the addition of an S/PDIF port on the side of the unit, allows users to send a digital signal out to surround-sound speakers. In this way, users can make the most of the Area-51m’s 16-bit sound card.

The 16.1-inch TFT is bright ,but we did find that some colours tended to look washed-out as though viewed through a soft focus. Ideally, Alienware will consider moving over to an IPS screen, such as found on Sony and Toshiba laptops, for a greater degree of control and image quality. In the meantime, the screen has a native resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels. On the left-hand side of the chassis, along with the optical drive, a single Type II PC Card slot and above this, a Secure Digital slot.

The two-spindle machine is fitted with a Matshita DVD-RAM drive and with three USB 2.0 and a mini-FireWire ports.

The larger chassis design of the Area-51m, to allow for the larger panel means that the keyboard is equally of a good size. Sitting in the centre of the chassis, the board is comfortable to use, with the keys having a reasonable amount of travel.

It’s easy to be impressed with the Alienware Area-51m as it achieves its aim – of being the best gaming machine currently on the market. The upgrade path has an obvious advantage that will prove appealing to many users. That said, it still lacks the performance of many desktop gaming PC. For the gaming enthusiast it will be seen as filling a very specific need, offering space and convenience of use that their current setup may be lacking.

PRICE: £2147/£2579 (EX/INC. VAT)
PROCESSOR: INTEL PENTIUM 4 3.2GHZ
MEMORY: 1GB DDR SDRAM
HARD DRIVE: HITACHI 60GB
SCREEN SIZE AND TYPE: 16.1-INCH TFT
DISPLAY RESOLUTION: 1600 X 1200 PIXELS
GRAPHICS CARD: VARIOUS
DIMENSIONS: 345 X 290 X 40MM
WEIGHT: 4.3KG
PC CARDS (TYPE II/III): 1/0
WIRELESS LAN: 802.11B/G
ETHERNET: YES
MODEM: YES
USB PORTS: 3 X USB 2.0
FIREWIRE: 1
STANDARD WARRANTY: 1 YR RTB
WARRANTY UPGRADE: NONE SUPPLIED
CONTACT: 0800 279 9751 WWW.ALIENWARE.CO.UK

TEST RESULTS:

3DMARK 2001 SE:
NVIDIA FX GO 5600 – 9929
ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9600 – 9205

3DMARK 2003:
NVIDIA FX GO 5600 – 1708
ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9600 – 2492

PCMARK 2002:
CPU RATING – 7555
MEMORY RATING – 6557
HARD DRIVE RATING – 1062
BATTERY LIFE – 85 mins

RATINGS:
VALUE FOR MONEY - 5
PERFORMANCE - 7
FEATURES - 8
MOBILITY - 4
BUILD QUALITY - 7
OVERALL - 7