Alienware X51: The Xbox With Teeth
by Dustin Sklavos on February 17, 2012 12:00 AM ESTBuild, Heat, and Power Consumption
Where I think Alienware has benefitted the most from their relationship with Dell is actually in these areas, and the X51 makes a strong case for buying a prebuilt instead of going the DIY route for Mini-ITX. The X51 uses a custom chassis and everything inside is sandwiched fairly neatly together. Although it was a little difficult to take apart, the tower is still basically laid out in a logical way, with the graphics card mounted to a riser card and essentially being an entire removable piece. The hard drive bay is then located beneath it, while the motherboard sits under the optical drive bay. The power supply is an external power brick connected to the back of the system.
What I'm not as much of a fan of is the glossy finish accent on the front of the case, as well as the USB 3.0 connectivity being confined to the rear ports. Our review unit also unfortunately came to us with a crack next to the power button, and the button itself would stick a little bit. This system has seen more than its fair share of shipment and manhandling to be sure, but it's something to keep in mind: the X51 feels pretty solid, but it's far from bulletproof.
Finally, Alienware includes their traditional configurable lighting scheme: the rotateable alien logo on the front of the case can have its illumination color configured across the spectrum, just like the two dim lights on the sides. The lighting is cute and not at all obtrusive, but if you're not a fan, their Control Center application will allow you to disable it entirely.
With such a compact design one would expect the X51 to be both loud and hot, but surprisingly this isn't the case. Quite the opposite actually; the X51 is cooler and quieter at both idle and load than the first-generation Xbox 360 was.
The CPU thermals are nothing short of excellent, with peak temperatures well under 70C, while the GPU's peak temperature of 79C isn't much to worry about. While there's some variation in fan speeds and the system is actually quite loud at POST (where the fans initially run at max RPM), in practice the X51 runs below 40dB at both load and idle, and you have to really listen to hear the difference.
For such a compact system, Alienware has done an excellent job of keeping heat and noise in check while producing a reasonably powerful computing experience. So what about power consumption?
Alienware is able to leverage NVIDIA's Optimus technology to produce idle power consumption that's nearly half of the next system up on the chart. Under heavy load, the X51 still barely draws any juice from the wall and clearly has some wiggle room on the power supply. 172 watts for a reasonably comfortable 1080p gaming experience isn't too shabby at all.
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Anonymous Blowhard - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
"With such a compact design one would expect the X51 to be both loud and hot, but surprisingly this isn't the case. Quite the opposite actually; the X51 is cooler and quieter at both idle and load than the first-generation Xbox 360 was."I'm pretty sure I've heard quieter power tools than a first-gen 360. That's not exactly shooting for the moon there.
How far away is that 40dB measurement being taken from? This makes the difference between "gaming capable HTPC" and "banned from the living room."
haukionkannel - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
This is something like a paragon of "the best you can get" when thinking next generation consoles.The consoles are most propably even more cripled by power consumption and this would be too expensive, so they would reguire allso cheaper parts...
Nice to see when xbox 720 comes out how it would compare to this...
A5 - Saturday, February 18, 2012 - link
Take this and replace the GPU with something with DX11.1 support and similar thermals (a 6850 with DX11.1 features added seems reasonable instead of a 7770), and you're probably in the ballpark.Good-looking console games come from the incredible amount of optimization possible due to a single hardware configuration, not from the power of the hardware.
A5 - Saturday, February 18, 2012 - link
You'd also replace the CPU with some kind of PPC variant if the rumors are to be believed.tipoo - Saturday, February 18, 2012 - link
The first revision 360 had a 200W maximum power draw, this has a 172W draw. I think they could do it, but I think Microsoft at least, and probably Sony too, will re-think the selling for a loss strategy this round as it took them a looong time to recoup losses. There's a rumor the Nextbox will use a 6670-like card, but I think (and hope) that is false, as the original 360 dev kits used an old x800 graphics card before they finally came with the x1900-like chip in the 360.Traciatim - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
It's really unfortunate that you couldn't have done the gaming benchmarks with the I3, i5, and i7 models to see how much of a difference each step makes in a variety of games.Wolfpup - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
The answer is power gating, not switchable graphics. Until we have that better, we need the GPU acting as a GPU.These articles keep acting like it's fine, and in practice, it's one person after another getting blue screens, driver weirdness, difficulty installing Nvidia or AMD's drivers, etc., that you just don't see on most systems without switchable graphics.
Articles like this that keep promoting it have casual users trying to buy stuff confused, when you've got 10 people on a forum trying to talk them out of it.
I'm used to Anandtech being dead on with everything, so this Optimus push of the last few years is BIZARRE.
TrackSmart - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
Switchable graphics makes a lot of sense for a mobile system, where an extra couple of watts of power draw can mean an extra hour or two of battery life. I'm already amazed at how little energy *very powerful* modern graphics cards use when idling. How much lower do you think they can realistically go? Until they can get within range of their mobile parts at idle, switchable graphics will continue to be a compelling feature for keeping laptops running longer.If you are talking specifically about desktop computers, then I agree that the benefits are minimal. Aside for access to Quick Sync for those few people who would use it.
JarredWalton - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
"...in practice, it's one person after another getting blue screens, driver weirdness, difficulty installing Nvidia or AMD's drivers, etc., that you just don't see on most systems without switchable graphics..."I disagree. I've had very few BSODs, taking all of the Optimus laptops I've tested/used together over the past few years. I'm sure there are probably exceptions, but certainly within the last 18 months I've had no complaints that I can think of with Optimus on my personal laptops.
I don't think Optimus fills a major need for a desktop, but posts like yours claiming that Optimus is essentially driver hell and problems are, in my experience, the rantings of someone who either had one bad experience or simply hasn't used it.
But let's put it another way: what specific laptops have you used/tested with Opitmus where there were clear problems with Optimus working properly, where drivers couldn't be updated, etc.?
TrackSmart - Friday, February 17, 2012 - link
Gamers are the target audience, yet a marginally bigger case would have allowed for a more powerful GPU. Or a similarly powerful GPU for a lot less money. This is not a mobile system where every square cm of space counts, so why force the consumer to make such large compromises in price:performance?Obviously I'm not the target audience. Just like I will never own an "all in one" desktop computer that has the performance of a laptop. It just doesn't make sense unless you have absurd space limitations.