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Alienware vs Rockdirect vs Dell : Finding the Best Gaming Laptop-Part 2.

(Part One Is Here)

Compiled and Written by Titus Hoskins

These three are Alienware, Rockdirect and Dell. All produce serious contenders for the ultimate gaming laptop. Here's a brief rundown on all three makers and their gaming rigs which may be of some help to anyone looking to purchase a high-end gaming monster.

Alienware Notebooks

First, we will start with the most distinctive looking gaming laptops on the market. Those coming from Alienware, a company founded by two avid gamers, Nelson Gonzalez and Alex Aguila, in 1996. It has become one of the leading producers of revolutionary gaming PCs and Notebooks. It has also won raves and rewards from such top industry publications as CNET, PC Gamer, Computer Games and many more.

Their flagship model is the Area-51m 7700 . This scary monster can be outfitted with an Intel Pentium 4 Processor with Hyper-Threading Technology - (2.8GHz - 3.8GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1MB Cache, Socket 775) Intel 915P + ICH6 chipset with NVIDIA GeForce GO 6800 ULTRA with 256MB DDR3. It has a 17 inch WideUXGA 1920x1200 LCD Display and 4 dedicated SO-DIMM slots for Dual-Channel DDR2 Memory. Warranties can be purchased for up to 4 years.

The Alienware Area-51m 7700's base price starts at around $2000 but if you want to max out this system, be prepared to double that amount. High price for high performance. Runs quiet and cool. This one is dressed to kill.

Rockdirect Notebooks

Next, we go across the pond, for a company that produces some high priced yet powerful gaming machines. Rockdirect gaming notebooks are another group of machines that many gamers should consider. Rockdirect, formerly known as Rock, is a British company that's on the cutting edge of notebook technology. They have had a long history of making high quality laptops for business and gaming. Rockdirect laptops are expensive, there's no way to get around that fact.

Rockdirect's Xtreme 64 is one of the world's first dual core notebooks using AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ processors and twin 100GB 7,200RPM hard drives. With NVIDIAGeForce Go 7800 GTX graphics and a 17 inch WSXGA+ (1680x1050) display with X-Glass for better viewing. Around 2,300 pounds or $4,000 USD. Three Year Collect and Return Warranty.

Dell Notebooks

Hey dude, this can't be a DEll?

Dell with the introduction of its XPS second generation gaming laptops has to be considered by the serious gamer. Don't laugh! With the introduction of the XPS Gen2 laptops, Dell entered the gaming market for real. A lot of people stood up and took notice.

Even more people stood up when Dell introduced the XPS Renegade 600 desktop gaming system with 4 NVIDIA 7800GTX GPUs at the CES this year. Now that's putting SLI to some good use!

Dell's top Notebook Model is the XPS M170 powered by Intel Pentium M Processor 780 (2.26 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB) and 2GB1 Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm Memory on a 100GB 7200rpm Hard Drive. It uses 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX and has a 17 inch UltraSharp Wide Screen UXGA Display. Priced at around $3,896 with a two year warranty and longer warranties may be purchased.

Show me the Facts!

Anyone can pick a top gaming notebook and say its the fastest in the world. However, you have to prove it or back it up. That's where benchmark testing enters the picture, these are standard tests that rate the performance level of your gaming laptop. Hey, tests are good for something!

One good site that has performed a whole slue of tests on the gaming notebooks mentioned above is www.hexus.net - You can see the different Benchmark tests here: https://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4188

Testing for memory bandwidth and latency, picfast, cryptography, raytracing, realistic render, encoding and so on. The dual core Rock XTreme 64 showed impressive numbers, even beating out an Athlon 4000+ Desktop in many areas.

WildCard Entry: M-TECH!

There's another laptop maker many novice gamers don't consider when buying their ultimate gaming machine. It may not be as well known as the ones above but the real wildcard entry is M-TECH. This is basically the American equivalent of Rockdirect, although the companies are in no way connected. They just have a similar philosophy of working with and using cutting-edge technology and firms to produce some superior gaming machines.

M-TECH, a Michigan company, started in 1995 and has close strategic partnerships with Tech firms in Silicon Valley. It is favorably reviewed by many industry magazines such as Laptops, Mobile Computing, CNET, PC TODAY and others.

M-TECH produces some powerful low priced (relatively speaking) gaming rigs such as the D900K and the D900T:

You can configure your D900T with two 100GB (7200RPM) SATA HDD Hard Drives with Pentium 4 3.8GHz 2MB L2Cache with a RAID setup. With Nvidia GeForce Go 7800 GTX w/256MB DDR3 and a 17" TFT WSXGA+ Glassview LCD display for around $3500 USD. One year warranty, longer warranties may be purchased.

When buying your laptop, keep in mind, just because a gaming laptop has a lot of style doesn't mean it has sacrificed performance. It is not a matter of style over substance - it just means you have to pay highly for all that style/advertising/packaging. If you can afford it, go for a higher priced gaming laptop. People buy Ferraries don't they? There's no accounting for how people spend their money - if you want one of these dual core laptops from Rockdirect and you can take a little bit of heat and noise with your games - go for a Rockdirect Xtreme 64 or the older Rock Xtreme Ti.

If you want a dressed to kill Alienware laptop - go for the Alienware Area-51m 7700. If you're on a budget, look closely at the Dell XPS M170 or the other XPS systems and watch for special Dell coupons and discounts. Dell is known for giving some great discounts so keep your eyes peeled. And if you really want to go against the mainstream, why not check out M-TECH. Especially the M-TECH D900K or the D900T, ultimate performance at a good price.

No matter which gaming system you go with, try to pick one that has a fully upgradeable open architecture structure so you can easily upgrade when the time comes. Keep in mind, laptop technology is changing so fast by the time your dream machine is configured, it is probably already out of date. Sobering thought but more true than any of us would like to believe.

Finding the fastest gaming laptop may be an on-going process of outfitting your dream machine with the latest technologies and hardware as they come on stream. Hey, nobody said life would be simple.

Just wondering how can you fit Quad SLI with 4 GPUs into a laptop. Hey, it can happen and probably will!

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For more information on a computer or laptop memory upgrade Click Here: Crucial.com

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