Alienware Area-51 ALX

The Area-51 ALX's case is well-constructed and feels very solid, though the glossy black exterior may be prone to scratching and fingerprints. Alienware includes a soft cloth for wiping off imperfections--a nice touch. The case also has adequate ventilation, but airflow around the three hard drives could be better.

Thanks to those hard drives--two 160GB drives in a striped RAID 0 configuration and a third 1-terabtye storage drive--the Area-51 ALX includes plenty of storage space, with room to add more, thanks to a fourth internal drive bay. The machine ships with 4GB of RAM, filling all four memory slots. Of the Area-51 ALX's four PCI-Express slots, two are used by the SLI graphics system. Unfortunately, the graphics card blocks the other two slots, so to access them you would have to remove the graphics card.

The bundled mouse has all the basic functions, plus a number of user-configurable buttons. I personally found the mouse to be a little small and uncomfortable to use. The bundled Logitech G15 keyboard, on the other hand, is great. The G15 has excellent tactile response, a number of programmable keys, and the typical set of brightness and volume control keys. The keyboard is backlit as well. It is a bit big, but not as large as some other gaming keyboards.

If you're serious about gaming--and have the budget--the Area-51 ALX deserves a look.

--Nick Mediati