Alienware X51: The Xbox With Teeth
by Dustin Sklavos on February 17, 2012 12:00 AM ESTConclusion: Gaming Made Fun Size
It's hard not to walk away from the Alienware X51 feeling at least a little impressed. While I have to wonder a why Dell and Alienware didn't opt to wait for Kepler and Ivy Bridge, at the same time we can probably be certain that a refresh with those technologies will be en route once they launch. In the meantime, Alienware has produced a system that wouldn't look at all out of place next to other gaming consoles or other home entertainment hardware.
What's inside counts just as much, though, if not more, and here Alienware again delivers. The internal design of the X51 is smart, consisting of standardized hardware that's assembled in such a way as to allow the end user a measure of freedom and configurability while also doing an excellent job of keeping the internals organized. More importantly, the system runs coolly and quietly. While the 150-watt limitation on the graphics card does hurt at least a little bit, 150-watt cards have been perfectly adequate for gaming at 1080p for a while now, and we're already on the eve of another refresh that should continue to push impressive performance into tighter and tighter thermal envelopes.
If we had to find fault with the X51, the glossy plastic front finish is definitely going to be prone to smudges (not to mention just looking cheap in general), and there's really no reason for the front USB ports not to be 3.0 capable. That front finish also seems to be at least a little bit on the fragile side. Understanding that SSDs are still on the expensive side, I also wish that Alienware had made an allowance for including a 2.5" drive inside the system; there should be at least a little space beneath the optical drive for one, and SSDs don't exactly throw off a lot of heat. Having to live with a single 3.5" hard drive really hampers performance and thus the user experience somewhat. An SSD doesn't need to be mandatory and it would drive the price up, but the option should exist.
Ultimately, though, the X51 is a heck of a product. It's essentially Alienware's "budget" PC, but it's also very capable, and the small form factor and low power consumption make it compelling in ways that transcend Alienware's target market. A visit to NewEgg reveals virtually nothing in the way of competition on price, either; only pre-built machines from CyberpowerPC compete, and those don't have the benefit of being small form factor, let alone everything else the X51 brings to the table. Were it not for the quibbles with the finish and connectivity, the X51 would be in the running for a silver or even gold Editor's Choice award. As it stands, though, it's certainly worth of a Bronze Editor's Choice Award and a place on the shortlist of anyone looking for a relatively inexpensive but powerful gaming desktop.
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jeremyshaw - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
o.0 Well... that's a new one I didn't expect to ever see, lol.ViperV990 - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
I'm a little surprised at the low power consumption at 172W under load.Have you tried, or will you consider trying to run a stronger card in the system? I'm very curious whether the system can handle a 6870, 6950, 560Ti, 560Ti448, or 570 with relatively little down side to the power supply's longevity.
KineticHummus - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
It is limited to a gpu pulling 150 watts or less. to my knowledge, none of those cards would work, except MAYBE the 6870. not sure thoJarredWalton - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
I'd think that unless you want to try the Molex-to-PEG adapter route, your biggest limit will be GPUs that can work off a single 6-pin PEG connection. Of the available GPUs right now, that eliminates anything above the HD 6850 (so no 6870 or 6950) on the AMD side. The HD 7770 would work, but that's actually slower than the 6850 in most games so let's not worry about that one. As for the NVIDIA side, the GTX 555 is actually pretty well specced, all told. The GTX 550 Ti is a step down from the GTX 555, while the GTX 560 uses two 6-pin PEG connectors.Of course, the 330W PSU is probably potent enough to actually power one of the moderate GPUs that use two 6-pin connectors. Looking at our power numbers here http://www.anandtech.com/show/5541/amd-radeon-hd-7... (which include a much beefier CPU that's running overclocked), you could "safely" go with something like the HD 6870 or the GTX 560. Those two GPUs trade blows in our gaming tests, and I'd probably give a slight edge to NVIDIA on performance, but the HD 6870 wins out with better overall power characteristics. If you're really daring, you could even try for an HD 6950 or HD 7950, but then you're really pushing the envelope (http://www.anandtech.com/show/5476/amd-radeon-7950...
My best recommendation however would be to wait and see what AMD can do with their Pitcairn GPU. I'd expect power to be in the <150W range on the HD 7850 and probably not much more than that on the 7870 (yeah, I'm taking a guess at the card names). Judging by the HD 7770 and HD 7950 results, performance should also be very good, assuming it lands about midway between those two. NVIDIA might also have some reasonable options with Kepler when that comes out (and you might be able to keep Optimus support). But I'm not going to recommend buying an X51 right now just to upgrade the GPU, no.
If you don't like the GTX 555 setup for $950, I think your best bet is to wait for the Ivy Bridge refresh in April -- probably May for Alienware/Dell to update the X51? Then you could probably get an equivalent IVB CPU that's somewhat faster than the i5-2320 and has better power characteristics, and you get HD 4000 graphics onboard as well (which will surely be better than HD 2000, even if they might not be awesome). What's more, there's a reasonable chance the next refresh will also have support for a mainstream Kepler card that should outperform the GTX 555.
All you have to do is wait a few months and something better will come along. Except, then there's another "something better" a few months after that. :-)
Calin - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
There's always something better down the road.Great article, and that's a wonderful little system.
ViperV990 - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
(replying to both Jarred and Roland)Given the X51's video card limitations, I wonder how it'd compare to a system built on the Shuttle H67 barebone, with or without the 500W first-party P/S upgrade.
Also, regarding desktop Optimus support, I seem to remember the Z68 supporting something similar, but with a performance hit. How exactly is desktop Optimus different?
extide - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
Several of the Z68 boards support the Lucid Logix Virtu stuff, which is similar to Optimus.JarredWalton - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
It's similar but only in the loosest sense. I don't know precisely how Lucid's tech works at a low level, but AFAIK it requires profiles for the games/apps to use the dedicated GPU, just like Optimus. Last I looked, the list of titles supported by Lucid was a lot shorter than the Optimus list.theclocker - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
Probably the best post I have seen about what the X51 in terms of what is has and what you can do as it is configured at the moment. I would add....The 7850 is a PCIx3.0 card, while the spec for 3.0 is backwards compatible, the specs given for the 7850 are in PCIx3.0. I don't own one, haven't tried this set up, but unless the motherboard in the X51 supports PCIx3.0 the 7850 probably won't run at full throttle as advertised. Let's assume this isn't the case for the next few paragraphs.
I at first wasn't sure about your advice you gave on certain cards, but rather than being a troll (hate it when people post without doing at least some research before posting) I did some looking into what you are saying. It appears with current die technology the AMD7850 is a step up and those who claim to have upgraded to the GTX560 have seen some improvements.
According to what wiki radeon7850 shows is : a GT rate of 55 and memory at 153 GB rate. Nvidia says the GTX560 comes in at (non OC keeping power usage down) GT rate of 45 and memory in 128 GB rate. All this compared to the standard best card offered GTX555 GT rate of 37 and memory at 92.
The 7850 comes in at 1.48x's the GT rate and 1.66x's GB rate higher and the GTX 560 gt rate1.2x's and 1.4x's GB rate, I couldn't agree more with your advise that your going to spend $1150 for X51 then shell out @150 for a GTX560 or @240 for a 7850. Although you could recoup a little back if you felt safe selling the GTX555, no thank you as you said.
The X51 is not all bad for what it is, most everyone is incorrectly comparing it to the normal tower PC. Anyone who has built that small home theater PC and what it lacks compared to a tower PC knows there are limitations as most of those mini boxes only have a few hundred watts to play with.
The X51will probably migrate to a better offering further down the road, as there are quite a few reviews mostly liking it, followed by a lot of haters in the comments. Never the less, you could read all day long and never hit the same website twice with all the buzz Alienware has created with the X51.
As a profession Electronic Technician for 28yrs and dealing with the design and repair of switching power supplies, I do like the external supply idea. It removes one of the more offending heat sources, but this has been somewhat alleviated with new designs in cases separating the area where the power supply resides from the motherboard area. However I would like to see some active cooling to these bricks as they probably will go higher than 330w. A sealed brick of this type of power (and higher if this idea flies), they tend to get quite warm.
Sufo - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
Instead of upgrading, how about a hefty overclock? I know that the mobile 555 can achieve close to a 100% OC (not sure if the 2 cards have anything in common bar the name tho). Either way, there seems to be about 100W and 5-10C safe wiggle room for power and temp, you could squeeze another 40-50% out of that I bet.