Fall Extreme Gamer System Shootout Part 3: Alienware's ALX

Warranty

Cold cathodes to make the openings glow blue in low light.

Like a good consumer, we called Alienware to see how they would respond on the telephone to an assortment of questions. After speaking with some of their sales force, we found that a full one-year warranty is standard with this desktop along with 24/7 telephone tech support. Alienware will warranty all components they sell, including parts, labor and shipping in both directions for one year in. In the event that you need to send your computer back to Alienware, they will pay for shipping both ways. When we asked how long it would take to get the computer back after it broke, a hasty estimate was about a week and a half.

The back of the case.

The Alienware warranty also covers onsite tech support. However, the salesperson seemed hesitant about advising us to use this service because it could take three to four days to have a technician come to your residence/business plus any time it would take to order additional parts and have them shipped from Alienware. You would then have to wait for the technician to return to make repairs if necessary.

You can lock down the side panel.

ALX is its own division at Alienware. With the added cost of the system come other features like your own toll-free number just for ALX customers. When we called it, no one was available to answer the call. And since Alienware does not want to leave their premier customers hanging around on the phone, they offer a voicemail service so ALX support can make call backs. However, at the time this article was written, we still have not received our callback from anyone at Alienware. We wonder if we left a message saying we were THG if it would have been any faster. But that is another topic, for another article.

Price

The water cooling setup on the graphics cards.

We should hope you do when you send them about $5,600 (Aug. 26,2005 price).

Four rows of 512 MB Corsair XMS memory.

Now you do get some of the best hardware money can buy, but is that price worth it ? With our benchmark results and commentary, you will probably feel the same way we do... it is a little pricy.

Hitatchi 80 GB HDD - this system had two in RAID- 0

There was plenty of space for more storage and spaces for case fans to cool your drives.