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Product: Aurora 7500 Manufacturer: Alienware Retail Price: From $1,779 USD (our configuration $4,022.00) Date of Availability: Now Available Alienware’s Aurora 7500 simply looks intimidating with its gill-like AlienIce Air Intakes, trademark glowing alien logo, and an assortment of lights when the machine is turned on. It looks and feels like a serious computing machine. Our Aurora 7500 configuration came outfitted with Windows XP Media Center 2005, running on a dual core Athlon 64 X2 4600+ , 2x512 MB PC3200 modules, dual Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX, a Western Digital 74GB 10K Raptor HDD and a Samsung 160GB HDD as well as a LaCie DVD writer. Gigabit Ethernet and onboard sound is provided via the motherboard’s nForce4 chipset. To support the media center options, Alienware has included a video capture card from Avermedia. All of this is powered by a 650 watt power supply. Setting up the Aurora 7500 is relatively easy. The machine comes pre-assembled and other than hooking up a keyboard, mouse, a cable TV input for the video capture card and the monitors we didn’t encounter any issues. With dual PCI Express cards from Nvidia, this meant up to four DVI outputs are supported. So our main challenge was finding space for four monitors (two when SLI is enabled). Alienware has also included DVI to analog outputs for those LCDs still running on analog. Boot up was swift into Windows Media Center 2005 and indeed, any of the usual tasks we did like copying files, running e-mail or web browsing didn’t seem to exhibit any toll on the underlying system. Like most Alienware machines we’ve tested, there is barely any software included with the computer. Provided with the machine is Cyberlink’s PowerDVD, Nero Express, and SureThing for disc labeling. Alienware does include some skinning options that are unique to itself but otherwise you’re on your own for everything else. Although we understand that most Alienware customers are advanced users or PC enthusiasts, we would have appreciated some form of anti-virus software, even if it is a trial. Going along the same lines, a trial version of Microsoft Office would have also been a plus. However, that point of view overlooks where the Aurora 7500 shines best and that’s gaming. No doubt, we were able to run modern games like Battlefield 2, Tomb Raider: Legend and Ghost Recon: Warfighter at maximum detail on high resolutions without issues. For the last title, at the time of writing, we received notice that Alienware will be partnering with Ageia to include the PhysX card with certain Alienware PCs. We can’t help but wonder what kind of a performance impact and enhancements you will get when the PhysX card is installed on an Aurora 7500. Less intensive games, such as Age of Empires III did not seem to make the Aurora 7500 break a sweat. Indeed, we found that if you have a 19” or under display in 4:3 format, you’ll run into the maximum resolution of your monitor more often than the performance ceiling of the Aurora 7500. Those who are looking to truly take advantage of the Aurora 7500 machine should look for a widescreen monitor 20” or above. It goes without saying that the Aurora 7500 was able to post impressive benchmark numbers.
In terms of expandability, there is considerable room because you get four 3.5” internal bays (two occupied in this configuration), two 3.5” external bays (one occupied by a floppy drive), and four 5.25” external bays (one occupied by the DVD writer). For external storage there are four USB 2.0 slots in the front and four in the back. Curiously enough, there is no option for fireiwre.
As the computer comes with Media Center software, we decided to hook the machine up to an analog cable outlet and test out the DVR capabilities of the machine. Because our test machine was built in the US and tested at a Canadian location, we had to use a registry fix and work with a technical representative from Alienware to get the Media Center software to latch on to the Canadian cable provider. If you’re buying a machine directly from Alienware, you won’t encounter this issue but if you are purchasing a second hand Alienware machine from someone not in your own region, you may encounter the same issues we did.
With the regional setting issue solved, we used the remote control included with the Aurora 7500 to schedule recording of some television shows. We then shut down the PC off using the media center remote to put the computer into standby. About five minutes before a show starts, the computer will wake up and start recording television shows. The Aurora 7500 comes with dual tuners, which means you can watch one television show while recording another. Or, if you have media center extenders, like the Xbox or Xbox 360, you can stream live television from your Aurora 7500 to your console in another room while you watch another channel in front of the Aurora 7500. Normally, it takes a lot of CPU power to pull this off but the Athlon 64 X2 4600+ processor was able to handle the additional stress. It also meant the recorded show did not suffer from any skips or encoding errors.
There were a few things we would have preferred to see with our Aurora 7500. First, the default hard disk the Media Center chose to record to the 74GB boot drive. We had to switch this manually to the secondary drive. Second, while Alienware claims its cooling system is low-noise, there really is only so much noise you can reduce with quality bearings and fan components. When you have cooling for dual video cards, a fast CPU, chassis fans and a 10K primary hard disk, it’s difficult not to notice the Aurora 7500 when you place it in a quiet living room.
Beyond that aesthetic concern, there is little to complain about the Aurora 7500. It’s definitely a machine built for performance. Although our configuration was not the best, it still boasted impressive performance numbers. From time to time, we run older Windows 2000 operating systems in our test lab and find the older operating system too simple because any modern machine can run through it blazingly fast. The Aurora 7500 makes Windows XP look old because none of our day to day usage tests really stressed the machine at all. We would advise buyers to increase their memory to 2GB. With PC3200 so commoditized, and 1GB modules actually affordable, it would be a shame not to go with at least a 2GB configuration.
By leveraging the best hardware and putting it in a stylish chassis, Alienware is doing things that not even PC enthusiasts are able to do these days; at least not very easily. Alienware was recently acquired by Dell but its support was already one of the notable ones in the high end PC market. 24/7 phone support, standard one year warranty, onsite hardware replacements during warranty and a download/support website tailored for enthusiast and gamers means the premium dollars going into your Aurora 7500 investment is being well spent.
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