alienware posts

When Dell purchased the Miami-based Alienware in 2006, it was a signal that the big PC makers wanted to get into the hearts and minds of PC gamers, many of which spend thousands of dollars each year upgrading and/or building new systems on their own. The idea, of course, is to get those heavy gamers and DIY PC makers to purchase the high end models that made Alienware successful.

However, for a while it looked like Dell was fighting with itself on the high end PC gamer market with Dell's own XPS systems which had cool designs, liquid cooling, special lighting and more. Thankfully Dell decided to retire the XPS brand, at least for high end gaming, and do what it should have done in the first place: let Alienware PCs and branding be Dell's representative to PC gaming.

When Dell and its Alienware unit announced the Alienware M11x gaming laptop at CES last month we were genually thrilled. The promise of a small-ish laptop (11 inch display and 4.5 pounds) that could run even high end PC games well would seem to be the Holy Grail. Now comes word that the product is available for sale at Dell's online store.

The starting price for the product is $799. That gets you a PC with a Intel Pentium SU4100 at 1.3GHz and a 2MB Cache, a NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M grahics card with 1 GB of RAM, 2 GB of RAM memory and 160 GB of hard drive space. You can choose to upgrade the processor, memory, hard drive and a few other features but that will increase the price, of course. At the moment it looks like Dell is prepping to ship the first Alienware M11x out the door in the first week of March. We may have to see if we can get our hands on this puppy.

[Via Engadget]

It's a new year and the first month of January 2010 was a busy one for PC gaming news. Part of the reason was the annual Consumer Electronics Show where there were a few interesting announcements that concerned PC gaming. However there were also plenty of other news items in the past 31 days that will affect us in the coming year.

In fact our normal top 10 list was so full of things we could report that we managed to stick in a couple of extra items as honorable mentions. If this list is any indication 2010 will be a very busy year for news in our industry.

Click on the image above to continue reading The Top 10 PC Game News Stories For January 2010

To the surprise of almost no one (except maybe Old Man McKinkle down the street from us) Apple made its introduction of the iPad today. It's basically a much bigger version of the iPod Touch with a 9.7 inch screen and can run most iPhone-iPod touch apps that are already out. However, Apple is also pushing the fact that developers can make apps specifically for the big-screen iPad including games. Two such titles were shown at the iPad debut today; a sci-fi FPS called N.O.V.A and a revamped version of the iPod Touch port of Need For Speed Shift.

So what is the iPad anyway? It's not designed to be a phone but the processor and OS that were revealed today don't seem to be on the high end of the PC laptop market either. Apple is promoting the device for gamers (indeed many gaming media outlets including our sister site Joystiq, were invited to the iPad unveiling today). But the iPad's big screen would certainly suggest that developers could make games that are more complex that the somewhat simplistic titles that mostly are on the iPhone/iPod Touch.

We've heard rumors in the pipeline that Dell's Alienware unit was going to make a new product announcement at CES and the company didn't disappoint. During their CES press conference, Dell announced the Alienware M11x, a netbook-style laptop that's designed for PC gaming.

Our sister site Engadget reports that the Alienware M11X will have an 11.6 inch screen and run under the NVIDIA GT335M graphics chip. Dell claims the netbook can run Crysis at 60 FPS and Modern Warfare 2 in 30 FPS. Battery life is supposed to be two hours in dedicated graphic mode and 6.5 hours running under intergrated graphics. The netbook will be available later this spring and priced at under $1,000.

Dell also announced hardware refreshes for their other Alienware laptops the M17x and the M15x models. The M17x now has Intel Core i7 processors available. They also announced the 23 inch Alienware OptX AW2310 monitor which supports Nvidia's 3D Vision technology.

One of the biggest gaming PC makers is giving its customers a free game with every new system purchased from the company. Dell's Alienware division and Valve announced today that from now on Alienware's Area-51 and Aurora desktop PCs and their M15x and M17x gaming laptops will have the full version of Valve's puzzle shooter Portal pre-loaded into their system.

The Portal freebie also comes with an install of Valve's Steam download client on Alienware's systems and is a not-at-all sneaky way for Valve's download service to be made available to all of Alienware's new customers. The PC maker will also have a dedicated page on the Steam web site with links to purchase new systems, peripherals and more.

After a few months in beta testing, the free-to-play RTS-FPS hybrid game Battleswarm: Field of Honor is scheduled to officially launch to the the public on Thursday. The game's publisher Reality Gap plans to make the most of it with a launch sweepstakes that will include the grand prize of an Alienware gaming PC laptop.

The game's launch will also include the addition of the in-game and web based stores where players can use real money or gold from the game itself to purchase new weapons, armor and other items. As we have reported before, Battleswarm's gameplay lets players choose from either the first person-based humans or as the RTS-themed alien race.

Even though the high-end gaming PC is supposed to be an endangered species, a number of companies are still going old school and making PCs that cater to that particular audience. A number of former Alienware team members have decided to go out on their own and form their own company, Origin.

The Miami-based company has just announced their first products, the Genesis desktop and the EON18 notebook. In addition to offering high end componants and overclocking (they will even let you pick whatever case design you want) Origin also provides for custom paint jobs for both their desktop and notebook model. The big question: can this new company compete with all of the other gaming PC vendors already out there?

PC maker Dell bought Miami-based gaming PC company Alienware back in 2006 and since the Alienware brand has continued to be used by Dell as their main brand to sell PCs to hardcore gamers. Today at the Tokyo Game Show, Alienware has revamped almost their entire line of PCs with four all new desktop models (such as the new Aurora model above) as well as a 15 inch version of their high powered gaming laptop.

One of the most interesting things about these new products is what's not inside them. In a phone briefing to Big Download earlier this week, Alienware confirmed that their current product line that is announced today will not have any AMD processors. Alienware simply feels that Intel's current line-up of Core i7 processors outperform AMD's current line up. Alienware will still give gamers options to put in AMD's ATI Radeon graphics chips.

Check out Alienware's new products after the jump:

As we approach the start of the Tokyo Game Show, gaming PC maker Alienware continues to tease us with images about what they will be announcing at the event later this week. They have now issued a new teaser image that looks like some space ships making its way through the stars . . . or are they.

Alienware has already released not one but two teaser videos via YouTube with some pretty high production values about their upcoming product launch. Hopefully we won't have to wait too much longer as the Tokyo Game Show is set to open its doors on Wednesday in our time zone.