New Intel Core i7 Computers roundup

Alienware

Now that Intel's mighty Core i7 is all out in the open, it's no shock to see a wave of gaming rigs come along boasting said chip. Following in the footsteps of Dell and Gateway comes Alienware with the Area-51 X-58 -- a beast that's a leap above (in terms of power and price) the recently revealed Area-51 750i. Serious gamers can select from the Core i7 920 (2.66GHz), 940 (2.93GHz) or Core i7 Extreme (3.2GHz) along with dual gigabit Ethernet jacks, one or two 2GB ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2s, up to 2TB of HDD space, an optional dual-layer Blu-ray burner and the usual complement of ports. The sky's the limit once you really start speccing it out, but the ball gets rolling at "just" $1,649. View 



Dell
Well, the wait is over -- we've got the skinny here on new Dell systems, and if you feel so moved you can even go over to their website and order one up right this very minute. The XPS Studio desktop's base $949 model boasts 2GB memory, 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3450 graphics, and 500GB storage, while the top-end $1,499 configuration features a 512MB2 ATI Radeon HD 4850, 6GB memory, 750GB storage, and comes bundled with a 24-inch S2409W Flat Panel monitor. For you game-playing types, the XPS 730x updates the popular XPS 730 line with the new processor, up to 6GB DDR3 memory, updated thermal monitoring system and chassis and either ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB or NVIDIA GeForce GTX280 1024MB graphics -- starting at $2,599. As you'd expect, all systems ship with Vista Home Premium Edition. So, how do you feel? Better? We hoped you would.

Read - Dell Studio XPS Desktop
Read - Dell XPS 730x Gaming System



Gateway
Although we actually got to see just how potent the Core i7 was way back in September (at least, that's what was hinted at "off the record"), the chip had yet to go on sale until this week. Now that it's had its formal launch party, Gateway's joining the masses in offering up two new FX Series PCs with Intel's freshest silicon. For the gamer on a budget, the FX6800-01 gets going at just $1,249.99 and packs a Core i7-920 processor, 3GB of DDR3 RAM and an ATI Radeon HD4850 video card. For those with cheddar to burn, the $2,999.99 FX6800-05 steps it up with a Core i7-940, ATI Radeon HD4870 X2 graphics card and 6GB of DDR3 memory. The high-end beast also includes a 1TB hard drive plus an 80GB SSD, and both models can be outfitted with aBlu-ray drive should you choose. For the complete specs list, have a glance at the full release just after the break.



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