This is not so much a review as a description of my experience with Alienware.
After the order, about which more below, my wife and I planned a trip to NY, business for her, pleasure for me because I calculated that my PC would arrive during this time-frame - but after playing the Phase Game.......we realised it would arrive after we left to come back to the UK. We knew that the original hope of actually picking up my system was lost in the "Phase Game", about which more later. So, while we were in NY, my wife monitored my email remotely and surprise, surprise, we got the word that it had shipped. We contacted my shipping address and they promised as soon as it hit the floor on their side they would ship it to me. I mean, it was in New Jersey, I'd pay for the cab-ride myself at this point!
Long story short, the day we left for the UK, it arrived a few hrs before our driver did.
So how did the AW start out its life with me? Well, by sitting next to me in a stretch limousine that's how!
But before we get there, let's start at the very beginning.
A long time ago...in a country far far away.....
About 6 years ago was when I first came upon an Alienware ad in some PC mag or another. This machine fired my imagination and it started a life-long desire to own one. After many false-starts and some delays, like getting married, having kids, buying a house, work...I finally got myself in a position to order one.
ORDERING:
Simplicity itself. I went on-line, followed the on-line configurator and pressed "BUY." In a few moments in came a confirmation email and it was done. From start to last email maybe took 30 minutes tops.The only difference I think was that although based in the UK for a few more months, I ordered this rig off the US site as the UK site was not giving me the same options the US site did, and I would be back in the USA permanently in a few months.
The "PHASE GAME":
During my research I linked up to this forum and what a fount of information it proved to be! Nowhere else did I find such a plethora of information about Alienware and the customer experience, both good and bad. the upshot was that before I ordered I knew exactly what I was getting into.
So began my Phases, oh the bloody hell they put me through! I thought I could be blase and just kewl my way through the anticipation....YEAH RIGHT! Within the first week the AW Status Page was added to my homepages. Refreshed almost on an hourly basis I spent the other 59 minutes reading all the posts and responding to a few....okay, a LOT! But it served a purpose...I was with a like-minded bunch of nutters all going through the same symptoms as myself.
The build seemed 
S-L-O-W
The Arrival:
The box was brought into the hotel and I was informed that it had arrived. I ran down and just looked at this monolith of a box, this huge, black rectangular box. My immediate problem, after the euphoria had died down was simply this: HOW THE FRICKING HELL was I going to get this into the taxi? Along with 3 full-size suitcases, four pieces of carry-on luggage, 2 adults and 2 kids?
Well the fact that my wife, unbeknownst to both of us, due to her job rated a stretch-limo to cart her around...that helped. So we left the hotel, in the belly of the white beast, my AW system next to me in the back-seat! I'll post the pix online here for you all to see.
Unpacking, THE OOBE <out-of-box experience.>
Quite honestly, I think you could drop the shipping box off a 10ft drop onto concrete and it would survive. I have never seen such a well-packed and protected piece of equipment anywhere. Even though covered with big red "FRAGILE" stickers courtesy of British Airways, it still managed to get off the plane without showing much abuse, well, it did look like it had been knocked about a bit, the box had a tear down the one side as if the red stickers were a challenge.
When at home I unpacked and soon the machine sat gleaming on the floor. After about an 1hr's worth s/w finding and burning onto a cd, I was ready to disconnect my old PC and get the Beast going. <Did I ever mention all my pc's have names? Ridiculous-sounding names like....The UberBeast, GameZilla etc etc. Well this is simply called The Beast.>
Also the Accessories box held my manuals, cd's, t-shirt, mouse-pad, all the cabling and extra bits-and-bobs that came with the motherboard. All neatly packed though my deranged ploughing through all these bits and pieces left both myself and said extras a little disorganised.
Using the System:
Once unpacked, setting up was a cinch. Plug in monitor, plug in power-cable...oh shit....where's the US power-converter? Oh hell, all this getting it from the States to the UK and I can't plug it in....anyway, I carefully figured out the correct way of opening the case and wow, what an interior! I was impressed by both the space inside and the quality of the workmanship displayed. All I can say is that so far I am more than impressed. The fiddly catch system (%£$&€ SWEET-SPOT!!!) is fiddly and unnecessarily panic-inducing when you can't get it to latch first time out.
Yes, now that I have a plug, away we go....configuring it was easy, getting on-line was no problem. The machine has not yet sounded like as if it's breaking a sweat playing Half Life 2 or Deus Ex 2....just hums along quietly...I still can't get used to the size though, it's truly HUGE <note to self: buy new desk.> After running 3DMark for about 3hrs it's running at a constant 41 degrees Celsius which in my book isn't bad though I have a sneaking suspicion it could be better.
<After 10 minutes here typing it's down to 39 Celsius.> What's your thoughts?
Regarding games it's brilliant...cards seem to open much quicker now when I play Solitaire and the flipper reaction in Pinball has to be experienced to be believed. Jokes aside, HL2 runs beautifully, NFSU2 does NOT need any more speed and Deus Ex 2 is smokin'. They were all tested at the highest in-game settings possible.
I'm at this point not very objective as this experience so far has been so amazing, I'm awed by this machine, the way it breezes through tasks that gave my old machine several different kinds of seizures, the way it nonchalantly shrugs of any demand made on it so far is just...well, it's just shatteringly overwhelmingly competent. I am having some what I think are issues/problems with the SLI configuration, but I will elaborate when I have more details.
More Details regarding SLI:
My benchmarks here are not matching the benchmarks in my documentation. At least 40% to 50% slower using 3DMark. and about 20% slower according to SiSoft Sandra. I at this point must say I had used the NTune and Nvidia s/w tune-up programs and was messing around with faster clock and memory timings. At this point, random lock-ups and system restarts are happening erratically, however these glitches only happen while running benchtests, normal gaming usage seems unchanged. I'll play around some more and see how it goes.
Well now.....this is interesting. Resetting machine to defaults and re-running 3DMark resulted in a much-improved score of 9160. Also SiSoft shows a good improvement in line with what I was expecting. When I say I reset to defaults I used the Global Settings on the Nvidia Profiler and used the default NTune settings in the Performance Manager. So that resolved any niggling doubts I may have had regarding the graphical performance.
Final thoughts:
Well, what can I say...it's all good. This whole experience has been very good. Tech-support when needed has been excellent, the responses via email have been quickly answered. Help from fellow forum members has also been amazing and not enough words can express my feelings of gratitude to AW Juan, Richard <Thanks mate, you know why>, Steve and the Moderators, with special thanks to Aurora and Craig. Also mention must be made of DB, NassauMike, Hammerhead, Astu222, the Commish, Ruxor, Mjdart and all the other inhabitants of this crazy forum whose comments, thoughts and ideas made my choice of AW so much easier. Thanks guys!
Now in closing let me say this. All in all I rate this system at 9.8 out of 10, my only niggle being the *&%$£ SWEET-SPOT YOU HAVE TO TOUCH BEFORE ANYTHING OPENS!!! All kidding aside, it's just a niggle, nothing else. And also the size...I really thought it was smaller and sleeker, not once did it ever occur to me to actually measure out the dimensions, maybe 'cos I can visualise in cm and mm, not feet and inches. It dominates the room, the wall and the desk...it's the only pc I have ever bought that makes me feel like I need a new room and a new desk! But I wouldn't change it for a thing!
Addendum:
I feel I can confidently keep my rating at 9.8 out of 10. And in case you wonder why such a high rating when I had these issues? Well simple, they were all PEBCAC, or Problem Exists Between Chair And Computer issues, or in other words, User-induced failures, I messed with the settings, so the machine cannot be faulted. It was fast out of the box and it's back that way right now. No overclocks or tweaks...really speaking? I don't need them.
THANK YOU ALIENWARE! YOU HAVE EXCEEDED ALL MY EXPECTATIONS. LONG MAY I WORSHIP AT THE ALTAR OF ALIENWARE!!!
********ADDITIONAL INFORMATION***************
I have been running the latest Nvidia drivers for the last few weeks now,. Very stable, slight increase in framerates generally and more support for games, about 70 extra profiles added I think.
But as with all beta drivers, use caution when installing.
After the order, about which more below, my wife and I planned a trip to NY, business for her, pleasure for me because I calculated that my PC would arrive during this time-frame - but after playing the Phase Game.......we realised it would arrive after we left to come back to the UK. We knew that the original hope of actually picking up my system was lost in the "Phase Game", about which more later. So, while we were in NY, my wife monitored my email remotely and surprise, surprise, we got the word that it had shipped. We contacted my shipping address and they promised as soon as it hit the floor on their side they would ship it to me. I mean, it was in New Jersey, I'd pay for the cab-ride myself at this point!
Long story short, the day we left for the UK, it arrived a few hrs before our driver did.
So how did the AW start out its life with me? Well, by sitting next to me in a stretch limousine that's how!
But before we get there, let's start at the very beginning.
A long time ago...in a country far far away.....
About 6 years ago was when I first came upon an Alienware ad in some PC mag or another. This machine fired my imagination and it started a life-long desire to own one. After many false-starts and some delays, like getting married, having kids, buying a house, work...I finally got myself in a position to order one.
ORDERING:
Simplicity itself. I went on-line, followed the on-line configurator and pressed "BUY." In a few moments in came a confirmation email and it was done. From start to last email maybe took 30 minutes tops.The only difference I think was that although based in the UK for a few more months, I ordered this rig off the US site as the UK site was not giving me the same options the US site did, and I would be back in the USA permanently in a few months.
The "PHASE GAME":
During my research I linked up to this forum and what a fount of information it proved to be! Nowhere else did I find such a plethora of information about Alienware and the customer experience, both good and bad. the upshot was that before I ordered I knew exactly what I was getting into.
So began my Phases, oh the bloody hell they put me through! I thought I could be blase and just kewl my way through the anticipation....YEAH RIGHT! Within the first week the AW Status Page was added to my homepages. Refreshed almost on an hourly basis I spent the other 59 minutes reading all the posts and responding to a few....okay, a LOT! But it served a purpose...I was with a like-minded bunch of nutters all going through the same symptoms as myself.
The build seemed 
S-L-O-W
The Arrival:
The box was brought into the hotel and I was informed that it had arrived. I ran down and just looked at this monolith of a box, this huge, black rectangular box. My immediate problem, after the euphoria had died down was simply this: HOW THE FRICKING HELL was I going to get this into the taxi? Along with 3 full-size suitcases, four pieces of carry-on luggage, 2 adults and 2 kids?
Well the fact that my wife, unbeknownst to both of us, due to her job rated a stretch-limo to cart her around...that helped. So we left the hotel, in the belly of the white beast, my AW system next to me in the back-seat! I'll post the pix online here for you all to see.
Unpacking, THE OOBE <out-of-box experience.>
Quite honestly, I think you could drop the shipping box off a 10ft drop onto concrete and it would survive. I have never seen such a well-packed and protected piece of equipment anywhere. Even though covered with big red "FRAGILE" stickers courtesy of British Airways, it still managed to get off the plane without showing much abuse, well, it did look like it had been knocked about a bit, the box had a tear down the one side as if the red stickers were a challenge.
When at home I unpacked and soon the machine sat gleaming on the floor. After about an 1hr's worth s/w finding and burning onto a cd, I was ready to disconnect my old PC and get the Beast going. <Did I ever mention all my pc's have names? Ridiculous-sounding names like....The UberBeast, GameZilla etc etc. Well this is simply called The Beast.>
Also the Accessories box held my manuals, cd's, t-shirt, mouse-pad, all the cabling and extra bits-and-bobs that came with the motherboard. All neatly packed though my deranged ploughing through all these bits and pieces left both myself and said extras a little disorganised.
Using the System:
Once unpacked, setting up was a cinch. Plug in monitor, plug in power-cable...oh shit....where's the US power-converter? Oh hell, all this getting it from the States to the UK and I can't plug it in....anyway, I carefully figured out the correct way of opening the case and wow, what an interior! I was impressed by both the space inside and the quality of the workmanship displayed. All I can say is that so far I am more than impressed. The fiddly catch system (%£$&€ SWEET-SPOT!!!) is fiddly and unnecessarily panic-inducing when you can't get it to latch first time out.
Yes, now that I have a plug, away we go....configuring it was easy, getting on-line was no problem. The machine has not yet sounded like as if it's breaking a sweat playing Half Life 2 or Deus Ex 2....just hums along quietly...I still can't get used to the size though, it's truly HUGE <note to self: buy new desk.> After running 3DMark for about 3hrs it's running at a constant 41 degrees Celsius which in my book isn't bad though I have a sneaking suspicion it could be better.
<After 10 minutes here typing it's down to 39 Celsius.> What's your thoughts?
Regarding games it's brilliant...cards seem to open much quicker now when I play Solitaire and the flipper reaction in Pinball has to be experienced to be believed. Jokes aside, HL2 runs beautifully, NFSU2 does NOT need any more speed and Deus Ex 2 is smokin'. They were all tested at the highest in-game settings possible.
I'm at this point not very objective as this experience so far has been so amazing, I'm awed by this machine, the way it breezes through tasks that gave my old machine several different kinds of seizures, the way it nonchalantly shrugs of any demand made on it so far is just...well, it's just shatteringly overwhelmingly competent. I am having some what I think are issues/problems with the SLI configuration, but I will elaborate when I have more details.
More Details regarding SLI:
My benchmarks here are not matching the benchmarks in my documentation. At least 40% to 50% slower using 3DMark. and about 20% slower according to SiSoft Sandra. I at this point must say I had used the NTune and Nvidia s/w tune-up programs and was messing around with faster clock and memory timings. At this point, random lock-ups and system restarts are happening erratically, however these glitches only happen while running benchtests, normal gaming usage seems unchanged. I'll play around some more and see how it goes.
Well now.....this is interesting. Resetting machine to defaults and re-running 3DMark resulted in a much-improved score of 9160. Also SiSoft shows a good improvement in line with what I was expecting. When I say I reset to defaults I used the Global Settings on the Nvidia Profiler and used the default NTune settings in the Performance Manager. So that resolved any niggling doubts I may have had regarding the graphical performance.
Final thoughts:
Well, what can I say...it's all good. This whole experience has been very good. Tech-support when needed has been excellent, the responses via email have been quickly answered. Help from fellow forum members has also been amazing and not enough words can express my feelings of gratitude to AW Juan, Richard <Thanks mate, you know why>, Steve and the Moderators, with special thanks to Aurora and Craig. Also mention must be made of DB, NassauMike, Hammerhead, Astu222, the Commish, Ruxor, Mjdart and all the other inhabitants of this crazy forum whose comments, thoughts and ideas made my choice of AW so much easier. Thanks guys!
Now in closing let me say this. All in all I rate this system at 9.8 out of 10, my only niggle being the *&%$£ SWEET-SPOT YOU HAVE TO TOUCH BEFORE ANYTHING OPENS!!! All kidding aside, it's just a niggle, nothing else. And also the size...I really thought it was smaller and sleeker, not once did it ever occur to me to actually measure out the dimensions, maybe 'cos I can visualise in cm and mm, not feet and inches. It dominates the room, the wall and the desk...it's the only pc I have ever bought that makes me feel like I need a new room and a new desk! But I wouldn't change it for a thing!
Addendum:
I feel I can confidently keep my rating at 9.8 out of 10. And in case you wonder why such a high rating when I had these issues? Well simple, they were all PEBCAC, or Problem Exists Between Chair And Computer issues, or in other words, User-induced failures, I messed with the settings, so the machine cannot be faulted. It was fast out of the box and it's back that way right now. No overclocks or tweaks...really speaking? I don't need them.
THANK YOU ALIENWARE! YOU HAVE EXCEEDED ALL MY EXPECTATIONS. LONG MAY I WORSHIP AT THE ALTAR OF ALIENWARE!!!
********ADDITIONAL INFORMATION***************
I have been running the latest Nvidia drivers for the last few weeks now,. Very stable, slight increase in framerates generally and more support for games, about 70 extra profiles added I think.
But as with all beta drivers, use caution when installing.
