[Irinikus]

What we have here is an original Alienware Area 51 7500 and next to it is an Nvidia Quadro Plex 1000 Model IV. This pretty much represents the best that was available for gaming back in 2008. (An Nvidia Quadra Plex was a gamers dream at that time anyway, even though it wasn't a consumer grade graphics system.)



I plan on upgrading this system with a QX9770 in the future as well as sourcing the required interface card for the Quadro Plex, so that I an interface it with this machine to do some testing. (I bought this Quadro Plex brand new, with all of the required cables, installation CD and manuals, but it didn't come with the bloody interface card though.)

I will fit one of these coolers, once I've carried out the CPU upgrade:



The machine is currently equipped with a GTX 690, so the Quadro Plex will be a huge downgrade, but it will at least be period specific to the system though.



I can't wait to benchmark Crysis on it once its ready! (As this was the game that brought systems to their knees in those times!)

If anyone else has original Alienware hardware (Before Dell took over) please share on this thread!

[Jacques]

How is the ALienware any different to a standard PC? From the photos it looks like a standard case with a funky bezel and top? Are there custom drivers etc?

[commodorejohn]

How is the ALienware any different to a standard PC? From the photos it looks like a standard case with a funky bezel and top?

(Shhhhh! If they know you know, they'll send "the boys" 'round...!)

[Trippynet]

They're not specialised at all, they're just standard PCs - however they were aimed at gamers, were specced accordingly and came in a funky case.

In other words, if you didn't fancy building your own PC and wanted one that should be good for gaming, Alienware was a fairly safe bet.

[Irinikus]

They were highly specced, gaming PC's.

It was the original philosophy that I liked. Alienware was originally a company which built highly-specced gaming rigs for gamers who weren't interested in testing various configurations and building up such systems for themselves. They did significant amounts of testing, to determine the best configurations possible at that time, testing and making use of components from various vendors.

There were custom releases of windows for Alienware, I still have the original Alienware Windows Vista disk that came with the machine.

When DELL took over, you only really had one option - DELL, and who sais that DELL makes the best performing components!!!???

[Gamefan]

Here is hoping one day they will resurrect themselves much like Falcon Northwest did.

[Irinikus]

I now know why Dell bought Alienware! (Dell itself started out in a very similar way!)

I found this video to be a rather interesting watch: