The Alienware line just got a little brother, its Mac Mini if you will. The X51 is the gaming company’s smallest form factor desktop to date. But, since it’s an Alienware, it still packs plenty of gaming horsepower and customizable options.

Prices start out at $699 for the Core i3/Nvidia GT 545 but prices can quickly rise once different options are selected. For $1149 (sans a monitor) gamers can buy a system powered by a Core i7, 8GB of RAM and an Nvidia GTX 550. A 1TB hard drive, HDMI 1.4, WiFi, USB 3.0, a slot-loading DVD burner and digital 7.1 are standard options while a Blu-ray drive is available for a little more.

The X51 signals an interesting departure from the standard Alienware. The Dell brand has long unabashedly sold massive gaming beasts. The bigger the better. But the X51 shows that gamers are looking to smaller form factors. The Mini-ITX system isn’t as small as a Mac Mini, but is rather the size of a traditional desktop. This new system can be oriented vertically or sit on its side allowing it to go on a desk or fit in an entertainment system — that is, of course, if you want a glowing desktop under your HDTV.

Look for the X51 to start shipping next week.

Proper reviews take time. They require living with a product and shouldn’t be based on just first impressions. However, first impressions are still worthwhile and that’s what follows regarding the M11x R3. I’m just happy the notebook arrived before my trip to E3. Portal 2 on the plane FTW!

Review Unit Specs:

• 11.6-inch display
• Core i5 2537M (dual core)
• 1GB GeForce GT 540M
• 4GB Dual Channel DDR3
• Moble Intel GS45 Chipset
• 500GB HDD
• 8-cell battery
• $999 MSRP

Likes

• Speakers are loud and clear
• Comes free of crapware
• Feels very solid — it’s plastic, but a solid sort of plastic
• Two USB 3.0 ports, one powered USB 2.0 port
• 3740 Geekbench score (More to come in the full review)
• Quick boot up

Dislikes

• The trackpad is horrible and doesn’t support multitouch gestures. (e.g. two finger scrolling)
• The screen’s vertical viewing angle is bad although the horizontal is fine
• Keyboard is really cramped
• Noisy fan

Still to test

• Battery life
• True gaming on the go
• More benchmarks (and more games)

A full review is in the works, but like I stated at the beginning, a review is not made from a couple hours of use. Thankfully I have several long plane rides to and from E3 so the M11x and I have plenty of time to get to know each other over the next week. Stay tuned!

Inside the M17x-ish casing is a Core i7 Extreme that’s overclockable to 4GHz, either AMD CrossFireX or Nvidia SLI GPUs, and up to 32GB of RAM. Of course with that much real estate on the massive casing there’s enough room for HDMI 1.4 port, dual headphone jacks, four USB jacks, VGA, Ethernet, eSATA, and an SD card slot. Alienware even included the impressive WirelessHD magic for cable-free fun.

The Canadian site listed the starting price at $2,000 CAD ($2,088 USD) but add in all the fun parts and that’s likely to skyrocket. The launch is likely immanent since the product page is clearly ready. The little delay is probably for the best. It should give you enough time to clear some room on your credit card.

Dell-Lab via SlashGear,

Battery: 8-Cell 63WHr
LCD: 11.6″, 1366×768, TrueLife glossy panel, White-LED backlight
RAM stick options: 1GB/2GB/4GB/8GB, 1333MHz, DDR3
CPU options: i5-2537M, 1.4GHz up to 2.3GHz
i7-2617M, 1.5GHz up to 2.6GHz
i7-2657M, 1.6GHz up to 2.7GHz
HDD options: 250GB / 320GB / 500GB / 640GB / 750GB, SATA2, 7200rpm
SSD: 256GB, SATA2, Samsung P810
Wireless options: WWAN 3G, LTE/WiMax 4G
Color options: Red / Black, Soft Touch

The big news is the CPU swap. Those are Sandy Bridge CPUs, fanboys. The RAM is also the faster 1333MHz type rather than the 800MHz in the current generation. The only thing not listed is the GPU. And the M11x R3 must have discrete GPU. It’s an Alienware machine. Still, the full specs will likely be released in due time, which will likely be soon as the model is a dire need of a refresh.

Klipsch, which was recently acquired by Audiovox, is stepping up its presence in the PC gaming scene. Its speakers are found in the just-released Alienware M17x gaming laptop, itself perhaps most famous for its inclusion of Nvidia-powered 3D graphics.

The M17x uses Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors, much like the recently updated MacBook Pros. There’s also an HDMI input, meaning you can connect, say, your PS3 or 360 to the laptop. That might be useful if you’ve decided to chuck your TV and move to a totally PC-based entertainment situation.

The M17x starts at $1499.

The problem, if you can even call it that, is that so many of today’s PC games are merely console ports, meaning you really don’t need one of those $600 graphics cards to run them. And it’s going to remain like this until something like “Samaritan” becomes reality.

More good news: they’ve reduced the price to $80, which is much more reasonable (though not nearly low enough for me) than the $129 it was a few months back. If you’re a performance junkie, it might be worth the extra bills. But I’ll stick with my dusty old on-board ethernet and budget cabling for now.

Alienware announced today that they are switching to the new(er) Nvidia Optima chipset which allows for seamless transitions from discrete to active graphics, and also added the option to choose either the Intel Core i5 or Core i7 to the custom build. You can also choose up to 8GB of RAM, and anywhere from a 250GB to 500GB 7,200 rpm drive, or a 256GB SSD option. This makes the M11x one of the most powerful netbook style systems on the market, and definitely the choice for a gamer looking for a portable system. One item of note however, in order to be able to fit the Core i5 or i7 CPU choices, Alienware did have to remove the VGA port from the side of the machine. The rest of the ports (USB, HDMI, media card reader, etc.) are still there, but you won’t be able to connect a standard VGA connection to the M11x.

One question that has come up ever since the M11x was released was why didn’t Alienware use the Nvidia Optimus chipset. The chipset that Alienware did use makes switching between the integrated and discreet graphics rather awkward and jarring, and a less then ideal user experience. Well, the rumor rattling around the pipes today is that the M11x may be getting a refresh this summer, and that new chipset may be coming our way.

While it’s a little earlier in the M11x’s life cycle then most, a refresh would be a good thing. In our review of the M11x, one of the few complaints that Devin had was the interruption whenever switching modes. The Optimus chipset would solve this problem of course, and you kind of have to ask yourself why Alienware didn’t use the Optimus from the beginning. There’s also rumors that the new Intuit processor will be added to the product line as well, but again nothing definite. Dell has yet to comment on these rumors, but I think it would be a good move for the manufacturer.

[via Gizmodo]

• Hybrid graphics
• 11.6″, 1366×768 display
• Low-voltage CPU for extended battery life
• Sexy looks
• MSRP: Starts at $799; $1099 as configured

Pros:

• Powerful enough for most modern games at medium settings
• Very good-looking machine
• Plenty of ports

Cons:

• Screen is very glossy and has limited sweet spot
• No optical drive can make for trouble
• Heavy for an ultraportable

Full review:

One of the things you generally feel you’re giving up when buying into a sub-$1000 notebook (to say nothing of such a small one) is gaming. Let’s be honest: it’s not practical. The components necessary to play modern games suck power and are physically quite large, right? To some extent, yes, but mobile GPUs and low-voltage CPUs have gotten to the point where they’re able to push a fair amount of polygons, and the M11x represents a sort of tipping point. While you won’t be blown away by the performance if you’re a PC gamer, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Before further talk, let’s just get the specs for our review unit out there:

• Processor: 1.3GHz Intel U7300 (overclocked to 1.73GHz)
• RAM: 4GB PC3-8500 DDR3
• GPU: NVIDIA GT 335M (switchable to Intel integrated)
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• Storage: 500GB HDD
• Ports: 3xUSB 2.0, HDMI, VGA, DisplayPort, IEEE1394, card reader (SD, MMC, MS, MS Pro), 2×3.5mm, mic jack

That’s for $1099, by the way. the $799 version has a normally clocked processor, 2GB of RAM, and a smaller hard drive. I feel that the processor is the main thing you’d want to upgrade, or you’ll see a definite performance hit.

As you may have noticed when I posted a gallery of glamor shots, the M11x is a very nice-looking machine. It feels very solid when you’re carrying it around, and I didn’t notice any disturbing bending or creaking when I picked it up from one corner. It’s extensively lit up, and you can choose pretty much any color for the keyboard, alien head, rear logo, and “vents” independently. Because you can’t vary the brightness, however, many of the colors seem over-the-top. A dimmer would have been very welcome.

The keyboard is attractive and the backlighting helpful (when it’s not blasting your eyes late at night), and I found it comfortable to type on, though a little soft. The trackpad is decent, though the buttons are really bad. They seem undersized and squishy, and I always felt I was being prevented from pushing them by the portion of the case surrounding them. Fortunately, as a gaming machine, it’s likely to have a mouse nearby, obviating this issue for the most part.

The webcam is functional and performs the face-recognition security that Alienware is so fond of, and which of course can be fooled with a photograph. Don’t hide your secret of secrets on this thing.

There are plenty of ports for you to use, and they’re generously spaced, unlike my Mac’s. Having USB slots on both sides is welcome, and the two headphone jacks are a nice touch as well for multiplayer gaming. The bottom of the laptop has a little battery charge indicator, which is handy when you’re just grabbing the laptop to go and want to know whether you’ll have to find an outlet wherever you’re headed — or for seeing whether it’s fully charged yet.

The M11x does not have an optical drive. Sure, that’s a trend recently, and it’s justified in computers where the main selling point doesn’t come on DVDs. I mean, of course you have Steam and Direct2Drive and all that, but if you own a physical copy of Crysis like I do, you’re out of luck. It’s a limitation that isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, but for many, an optical drive is still essential. Puzzlingly, the M11x comes with a Windows 7 restore disc. Okay…?

If you’ve read CrunchGear’s laptop reviews before, you’ll know we’re not really big on benchmarking. After all, unless you’re willing to go all out and do every serious synthetic benchmark, it’s kind of useless. Those particular nuts and bolts are handled better by those who write hardware reviews exclusively, and you’re probably going to check out some of those reviews too. You’re here for the broader questions regarding this thing: does it play the games you want it to play, does it die super fast, and is it worth the money?

Does it play?

Yes it does. As long as you adjust your expectations, you’ll be happy with the results in many of the newest games. You need to keep in mind that some effects are CPU-intensive, though (some lighting and shadow effects which use ray-tracing, particle effects and physics) so it’s a good idea to turn those down first if you’re getting low framerates. But the limited resolution means that there won’t be that much horsepower required, so you can usually set visual settings pretty high — anyway, at that rez you won’t be able to notice the difference between “high” and “ultra” settings in a lot of cases. You will want anti-aliasing, though; 768 vertical pixels means you’ll see jaggies for sure.

Portal, TF2, and Half-Life 2 ran well; with detail maxed out and medium AA and AF settings, they both ran at an average of 80-100FPS. In tamer situations it approached 150-160FPS, and I only saw it dip below 30 or 40 once or twice for a few frames. Wolfenstein ran well, around 40-50FPS for the most part; unfortunately on the small screen a lot of texture detail is lost. Similar results could be found in MW2, Mass Effect 2, and Borderlands. Generally you’d peak around 55-70 FPS with CPU-hogging features reduced, with an average around 40 and the occasional dip into the 20s. There were a few choppy moments to be sure during big firefights, but they were outweighed by the fact that it was usually smooth and also that it looks good. Remember, we’ve got settings on high here. You’re not compromising your gaming experience much at all.

I also had some issues with the screen, and I’m not the only one. Although it says it’s LED-backlit, I didn’t find it particularly bright, and the vertical viewing angle was extremely narrow. It’s a good time to note that putting things on an external monitor or projector is a fantastic idea with this thing. Bring an HDMI cable with you and you’re looking at a solid HTPC as well as a games machine. I plugged mine into an HD projector from Acer and it worked great; there’s even a dedicated button for switching between external monitor modes.

Another thing to note is that the switch between discrete and integrated graphics, while straightforward, is not seamless. It blacks the screen out and asks you to quit some applications when you do it. Not wildly inconvenient, I admit, but why is it that way when NVIDIA has already released an improved version of the discrete/integrated switch that is far more seamless?

Does it die?

Yes it does. If you were to start up a modern game like Mass Effect 2 and unplug the M11x at the same time, you’d maybe get about two and a half hours of play time. It depends on how hard the game is working your hardware, of course, and you can increase battery life by using headphones and dimming the screen, but you don’t get too much more out of it. 2 1/2 hours is about the max — for performance mode.

For the battery-conserving, power-sipping integrated graphics mode, you can expect between six and eight hours — casual use like writing and reading will put you at the eight hour end, while video-watching and high-speed web stuff will obviously suck it dry a little faster. It’s perfectly reasonable life for a computer this size.

So you won’t be doing any marathon sessions while in a plane. I mean, not that we expected it; Alienware can’t break the laws of physics. But it’s more than enough time for a few levels of a shooter, or to watch an entire HD movie.

Is it worth the money?

I think it’s a pretty good deal — if you know what you’re getting into. This isn’t a miracle machine, it’s a competent performer with an unexpected price and form factor. Chances are it’s going to be revised relatively soon with improved hardware, some tweaks to the design, and maybe an external Blu-ray drive as an option. I realize that “it’ll be better later” is a pretty weak reason not to recommend something, but I have to resort to it now. The “compact gaming laptop” is a new thing, as evidenced by everyone’s surprise at the competency of the M11x. Since it’s new, it’ll be improved significantly soon, unlike many other laptop price points and form factors, where the differences between models are few and far between.

If you must buy, I would say upgrade the CPU but don’t bother with the RAM; 2GB should be enough for most games at the settings you’ll be at. Similarly, don’t worry about a hard drive upgrade. Take the hundred bucks you would have spent and get yourself a nice external you can keep your HD content and miscellany on. You can always add RAM later.

The M11x isn’t a heavy hitter, but it’s a great little machine and if you’re a gamer, I can think of worse ways for you to spend a thousand dollars. Just read the reviews and be sure to consider whether you can live with the compromises necessary to get modern gaming into this sexy little shell.

Product page: Alienware M11x

I literally just took it out of the package a few minutes ago, and I have to say my first impressions are very positive. They clearly knew what they wanted to do this this thing. The build feels very solid, the screen is bright, the lighting isn’t as over-the-top as I’ve seen on other Alienware models, and a quick Geekbench run gives it an 1889, which is significantly faster than some other slim-and-lights I’ve tested recently.

Please go ahead and comment if there’s anything you’re wondering about in particular, and I’ll try to answer those questions in the full review. In the meantime, enjoy these artistic shots of this very good-looking machine. I stacked it on a 15″ MacBook Pro there for size comparison — it’s very compact.

Do you see that monster in there? Yeah, that’s the brand new Core i7-980X. You know it’s special because it’s designated with the letter X. This CPU was just previewed by Intel a few days back and is the first 32nm, six-core processor with 12 computing threads.

The rest of the system is pretty standard Area-51 fare. It has a has dual Radeon HD 5970s with two GPUs on each card along with some sort of built-in battery backup system and a water-cooling rig. The top vent louvers automaticly open when extra ventilation is required.

No word on price or availablity right now, but you’ll probably not be able to afford it anyway. [Hot Hardware via MaximumPC

Anyway, some random Chinese site posted these photos showing that the M11x is very much a human creation. It’s nothing more than a well-engineered notebook, which it should be seeing as the 11-inch notebook has a starting price of $799. [163 via GadgetMix]

Features:

• Factory water cooling
• Monolithic black case
• Functional and useful interior lighting system
• Active venting system
• MSRP $4249.00 as reviewed

Pros:

• Unbelievably fast
• Gamer’s dream
• water cooling is quiet and efficient

Cons:

• System weighs about 80 pounds
• Cooling system has a tendency to suck in dust and fibers
• Costs more then my car

Full review: The Aurora ALX is unabashedly a gamer’s PC. It’s main focus in life is to run the latest software, and run it as fast as possible. The case makes no apologies about this, it doesn’t try to disguise itself as a business product, you can tell by looking at the case that it’s designed to go fast. The front of the case is smooth, with the alienhead logo prominently displayed at the top. When you push on the head, the front panel drops exposing the Blu-ray drive, gently lit by white LEDs. The bottom of the front gapes open, allowing air to flow through as quickly as possible. The top of the case is covered by a row of thermostatically controlled louvers, which open to allow more air flow as needed. It’s actually hard to get the louvers to open, since the factory installed liquid cooling system is so efficient. The side of the case are actually restrained. There’s a small window, lit from behind via multicolor LEDs (which you can control from in Windows). The whole design of the case is remarkably restrained, considering Alienware’s reputation for, shall we say, extreme design. One interesting feature is the addition of a small, pressure sensitive button on the back of the computer near the card slots. If you push this button (regardless of if the computer is on or not), several small LEDs light up and show you the area where you plug in the video, sound, and network connections. This is frankly brilliant, I don’t know how many times I’ve been crawling under a desk wishing for a flashlight while plugging everything in to get the thing up and running. These little LEDs are in other places as well. Taking the side of the case off reveals not just the extremely well routed wires and hoses, but also another one of these small buttons. Pushing on that button lights up the entire inside of the case, making it incredibly easy to see what you are doing while hooking up and routing said wires, connectors, and hoses. Again, a brilliant inclusion in design, that I wish more PC makers would use. After mentioning how much I liked these lights to my contact at Alienware, I was told that both sets of lights run off of a rechargeable battery.

Hardware configuration:
Intel Core i7 975 Extreme (3.33GHz, 8MB Cache)
Dual ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB video cards
6GB of RAM
2x 1TB Hard drives, running in a RAID0 configuration
Cosmic Black ALX case, with 875 watt power supply

You can see why this system is so fast after looking at the specs. To give you some hard numbers, running at 1680×1050 @ 120Hz, AAx8, and Ultra High on all options, the average FPS in the Far Cry 2 “Ranch Long” benchmark was 63 FPS. It peaked out at 139 FPS, and dipped down to 25 FPS at the slowest point. Crysis averaged 35 FPS during the “Island Time-demo”. Very respectable. From a purely organic viewpoint, I’m happy to report that any game I threw at the ALX ran perfectly, and incredibly smoothly.

The Good: the Aurora ALX is a great machine. It’s a gamers dream, and it’ll run anything you throw at it with no problem. The water cooling keeps the temps down while running quiet, and the thermal venting is really cool. The LED lights are cool, but you can shut them off if you are so inclined.

The Bad: The price. Let’s be honest, not a whole lot of people have $4500 to drop on something like a PC, particularly these days. If you do though, this is the machine to get. It’s also really really heavy. Liquid cooling and an 875 watt power supply do not make for a light weight computer. I also noticed that because it is liquid cooled, it seems to pull in more dust and fibers then an air cooled system.

Bottom line: if you can afford it, buy it. The Aurora ALX is a great machine. I’ve really enjoyed my time “reviewing” it (meaing playing Far Cry 2, Crysis, and Borderlands) and will be sad to see it go back to Alienware. Particularly because my wife will expect me to help out around the house again since I’m not busy doing work.

Product Link

Get ready home shoppers, Alienware is going to be paying you a visit at 1am Eastern time on the 6th. Apparently, showing up on geeky TV shows and at Blizzcon isn’t enough, so Alienware is going to be selling it old school: on QVC late nights.

Of course, you can still buy them online, they are still going to be expensive, but this might expand the brand awareness for them. If nothing else, a whole bunch of rednecks will end up with some serious computing power.

Still, we wish this was the standard for netbooks. Then we wouldn’t claim they were the bane of humanity, set out to destroy computing for everyone. No, we would be lounging on our couches, playing Mass Effect 2 on our netbooks.

None of this Alienware M11x info is official just yet. Hopefully either Alienware or its Dell overlords will come clean with the full specs and release info soon. We’re starting to get bored with the M11x. [Sina via Netbooked via Engadget]