 This is Sean Hollister with The Verge and we're here with the Alienware X51, desktop gaming computer that isn't much bigger than a standard game console. Take a look at the back here, you can see we've got the dual DVI and mini HDMI ports of a GTX 555 graphics card. Take a look at the back panel, it's a full array of ports on the H61 mini ITX motherboard including full audio, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, 4 USB 2.0 ports, gigabit ethernet, HDMI and even a pair of digital audio jacks here, optical and coaxial both to connect it to your home media center. You'll also notice a tiny port down at the bottom here, that's for power. In order to save on space, Alienware included a giant power brick instead. Because the Alienware X51 is designed to take a place in your home media center, the crew at Alienware made it look like a video game console too. You can see we've got the matte finish on the sides, similar to the Xbox 360, a nice big diagonal strike through the center like the Xbox 360 slim and this shiny coat in the front like the PlayStation 3 along with this slot loading optical drive right here. Just like the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 before it, you can turn the logo right here, you've got it horizontally. Alienware's X51 is actually one of the most upgradable miniature PCs we've seen in a while. One screw in the back, push off the frame here to the side, detach the wire here, get at the innards. This particular one connects to the lights on the side panel and you can see all the insides. And as you can see here, both the DVD drive and the GPU rack are modular and you can pull them right out and upgrade them. Now to the inexperienced PC builder, this may look like an impenetrable fortress of metal, but Alienware's actually designed these internals to be completely modular. You can remove any one of them at a time. For the entry-level price of $699, the Alienware X51 comes with a Core i3 processor, 4GB of memory, an NVIDIA GeForce GT545 graphics card, and a DVD drive. What you're looking at here is the $1,249 version, which upgrades the optical to Blu-ray, adds a GTX 555 graphics card, and a Core i7-2600 processor running at 3.4 GHz. So this is the AlienFX app that comes with the Alienware X51 and it's got pretty much one purpose. It lets you change the mood lighting of the computer on the front and on the sides to one of these colors in the circle. And if you go into the advanced mode, you can actually set those lights to different system events or applications. For instance, if you get an email, we can set the alien head to light up red at that point to give you a notification. So now we're going to take a look at the performance of the Alienware X51 and the first mission of Battlefield 3. It's not too bad. Can't really do this on ultra and high as a bit of a crap shoot, but at medium settings, Battlefield 3, definitely playable. Similar to Battlefield 3, the Witcher 2 isn't comfortable on ultra settings or even high settings on the X51 in its $1,249 configuration, but it does a pretty good job at medium. Last but not least, we've got Just Cause 2 set on the island nation of Pnau. And we're running here with maxed out everything, except we're only running 8x anti-aliasing instead of the 16x possible. It runs well over 30 frames per second and looks pretty great. As long as you're not using the most demanding latest PC games and got a slightly older title like Just Cause 2, you shouldn't have any problems with the top spec X51. Unless, of course, you don't know how to drive.
 This is Sean Hollister with The Verge and we're here with the Alienware X51,
 desktop gaming computer that isn't much bigger than a standard game console.
 Take a look at the back here, you can see we've got the dual DVI and mini HDMI ports of a GTX
 555 graphics card. Take a look at the back panel, it's a full array of ports on the H61 mini ITX
 motherboard including full audio, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, 4 USB 2.0 ports, gigabit ethernet,
 HDMI and even a pair of digital audio jacks here, optical and coaxial both to connect it to your
 home media center. You'll also notice a tiny port down at the bottom here, that's for power. In order
 to save on space, Alienware included a giant power brick instead. Because the Alienware X51 is
 designed to take a place in your home media center, the crew at Alienware made it look like a video
 game console too. You can see we've got the matte finish on the sides, similar to the Xbox 360,
 a nice big diagonal strike through the center like the Xbox 360 slim and this shiny coat in the front
 like the PlayStation 3 along with this slot loading optical drive right here. Just like the
 PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 before it, you can turn the logo right here, you've got it
 horizontally. Alienware's X51 is actually one of the most upgradable miniature PCs we've seen in
 a while. One screw in the back, push off the frame here to the side, detach the wire here,
 get at the innards. This particular one connects to the lights on the side panel and you can see
 all the insides. And as you can see here, both the DVD drive and the GPU rack are modular and
 you can pull them right out and upgrade them. Now to the inexperienced PC builder, this may look
 like an impenetrable fortress of metal, but Alienware's actually designed these internals to
 be completely modular. You can remove any one of them at a time. For the entry-level price of $699,
 the Alienware X51 comes with a Core i3 processor, 4GB of memory, an NVIDIA GeForce GT545 graphics
 card, and a DVD drive. What you're looking at here is the $1,249 version, which upgrades the
 optical to Blu-ray, adds a GTX 555 graphics card, and a Core i7-2600 processor running at 3.4 GHz.
 So this is the AlienFX app that comes with the Alienware X51 and it's got pretty much one purpose.
 It lets you change the mood lighting of the computer on the front and on the sides to one
 of these colors in the circle. And if you go into the advanced mode, you can actually set those
 lights to different system events or applications. For instance, if you get an email, we can set the
 alien head to light up red at that point to give you a notification. So now we're going to take a
 look at the performance of the Alienware X51 and the first mission of Battlefield 3. It's not too
 bad. Can't really do this on ultra and high as a bit of a crap shoot, but at medium settings, Battlefield
 3, definitely playable. Similar to Battlefield 3, the Witcher 2 isn't comfortable on ultra settings
 or even high settings on the X51 in its $1,249 configuration, but it does a pretty good job at
 medium. Last but not least, we've got Just Cause 2 set on the island nation of Pnau. And we're
 running here with maxed out everything, except we're only running 8x anti-aliasing instead of
 the 16x possible. It runs well over 30 frames per second and looks pretty great. As long as you're
 not using the most demanding latest PC games and got a slightly older title like Just Cause 2,
 you shouldn't have any problems with the top spec X51. Unless, of course, you don't know how to drive.