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Alienware Area-51 desktops first to score NVIDIA GTX 280 graphics
NVIDIA just launched its new GeForce GTX 280 graphics cards earlier today, but you know the crazy kids over at Alienware don't like to wait for the latest and greatest -- Dell's gaming division has already announced Area-51 configurations that include the new cards. The Area-51 7500 will support one GTX 280-based card, while the top-of-the-line Area-51 ALX will offer a three-way SLI option that's sure to render an image of your empty wallet in no time -- it's a $1,700 option. No word on when these are scheduled to ship, but seeing as the cards are out tomorrow, we'd guess it'll be soon.
Alienware's more modestly-priced Area-51 7500 gets reviewed
Alienware's Area-51 7500 series of desktops can reach some pretty lofty prices, but the folks at Computer Shopper recently got their hands on one of the company's recent, more modestly-priced configurations, and they've awarded it some considerably higher marks than its pricer predecessors. Of course, at $1,499, it's still not exactly a budget PC, but that does get you a decent 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo E8200 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive and most importantly, two NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT cards in an SLI configuration. All that, Computer Shopper says, added up to some "excellent performance for the price," including some "flat-out great results" in their gaming tests -- results that only took a slight dip when they bumped things up to the DX10 test. On the downside, you do have to give up some of the more premium features like water-cooling or an upper-tier processor, but if you're looking to keep things well under the two grand mark, Computer Shopper says this one is about as good a bet as any.
