Alienware unveils X51 small form factor gaming PC

Alienware has announced a small form-factor PC designed to give consumers gaming power in a compact box that will fit nicely the living room. The X51 is about a third…

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That looks really cool! If anyone could pull this off it would be Alienware.

I agree burty, it can have multitudes of usage too!

Never ever purchase an Alienware... the service is pathetic, they don't have replacement parts, and Dell owns them.

That's actually a lot more reasonably priced than expected from Alienware... although they really should have included an SSD option to make it a bit more like a console.

Who cares. Why pay such a premium to play games in my living room when a console like xbox or ps are way cheaper? Why risk having to deal with unstable nvidia graphics drivers? Why pay so much for a crappy i3 processor? If you want this for media purposes beyond gaming, there are more reliable, more powerful options available for better value.

A Core i3 and gt545 for gaming?

"Who cares. Why pay such a premium to play games in my living room when a console like xbox or ps are way cheaper? "

Once you have a half decent pc you can upgrade it to a gaming pc for the cost of a console but with at least 4 times better, in framerate and quality, graphics. Oh, and you have a rocket of a pc. Of course, if you don't care to much about pc gaming and you want to sit in a couch, well, you don't care for gaming on your pc.

1.Because pc games are very different from console games.
2. "Crappy i3 processor" is better than any console processor out there.
3. What more reliable, powerful options are available? You can't really compare consoles with desktop as they serve different purposes to a degree. I find the price premium for a desktop well worth it. Kudos to Alienware for making a sharp looking product that seems to have good specs with a price that actually seems reasonable.

Nothing special here, would of had a 560Ti version. I'd be surprised to see BF3 running on the base system at 34 FPS.

Works as a nice HTPC too I bet. Replace my Zino! See if I can sell mine! LOL Alienware is pretty decent. I do have their M11X and they had to replace the mobo but they came out right away to do it ...next day onsite service.

I wouldn't buy anything with an Intel processor and nothing that Dell had anything to do with. Remember the anti-trust underhanded deal Intel made with Dell to stiffle AMD? Yeah, that's why, plus AMD has always been better, faster and cheaper because they don't have the advertising budget that Intel does.

This is a decent spec for a low-end gaming/HTPC niche, which is smart for Alienware. They take care of the top end gamers, but the casual crowd has been largely ignored (except for with the laptops, they are more universal). I'm sure it's no coincidence that it has a console look and feel to it, and the price point is actually pretty decent for appealing to a much wider audience.

And, as Ranger12 was pointing out, the hardware isn't pathetic... Unless you are a hardcore gamer, in which case I'm sure you scoffed and turned up your nose immediately. This isn't built for upgrading, overclocking, modding... It's aimed at more of a "just a plug it in, play on it, buy a new one when you need to upgrade" consumer crowd... Just like consoles... May be one of the smartest moves the Alienware brand has made in a while, if they market it right.

Dell bought Alienware out years ago. Their products have been subpar and overpriced since.

What's left of the real Alienware is now Origin PC.

Alienware used to be good, until they took a Dell in their guts. and looking from the experience side, the only good things from Alienware are their cases...

oh they weren't overpriced before?

That is nice ... would be great addition to there line of computers

I find my new AMD Athlon 2 core processor to exhibit far better performance, especially in startup where it counts, (seems like it has an ssd, but doesn't), than my 2 core Intel dual core and it's only 0.6 Ghz faster. Is it the DDR3 compared to DDR2, because it's just like lightening!? I will be using it for gaming, but use it as an htpc now.

You are right. Those who say that an AMD solution is not up to the task, either are stubborn people, or they haven't tested a machine with an AMD processor. I, for example, use at work a system with an Intel E5300 processor at 2.6Ghz, and have at home a PC with an AMD Athlon X2 240 at 2.8Ghz. I seriously haven't seen any sort of difference in stability, performance or something that would make Intel better than AMD.
The same can be said for higher-end configurations, of course, until one point, where Intel doesn't have competition.

Nonsense. Sure they have more budget chips but if you have a bit more cash then intel completely blow AMD chips out of the water (even the mid range cheaper ones..)