Alienware, headquartered in Miami, Florida USA is best known for its gaming-oriented, high-powered extraterrestrial-theme machines. According to external sources, the company is pushing aggressively into the workstation market. In this review we'll look at their top-of-the-line DCC machine, the Alienware MJ-12 7750. Let's see what this established system builder has to offer.

The specifications should put a grin on any workstation user: (see table right)

Compared to the Alienware's gaming machines, the Alienware MJ-12 line sticks to a more conservative styling formula. Gone is the allure of an alien-inspired chassis, Alienware seems to believe that the workstation market prefers a more conservative silver/black look. On first impression, the Alienware MJ-12 workstation's styling looks similar to BOXX's own workstations. Updating their retro-looking alien theme, something that Alienware is known for, would have helped them to visually differentiate their workstation.

Our configured MJ-12 is a real brute, weighing in at 22kg (excluding the Creative Labs Audigy's breakout box). That's quite heavy for a workstation; it might as well be the Battlestar Galactica. The case is made from steel, although tough, makes for a significantly heavier machine than some of the competition's aluminium chassis.

Alienware X2 Motherboard (Intel E7525 “Tumwater” chipset)

Onboard 2xPCI-E x16, 3x regular PCI, 6xUSB 2.0, 1xIEEE 1394, 1xGigabit Ethernet, ps/2, serial, parallel port

Onboard sound SoundMAX 4.0

2GB DDR2 ECC PC3200 RAM (Dual Channel)

4x Serial ATA Western Digital Raptor 74GB (10k RPM).

NEC 8x DVD R/W ND-3500AG dual layer writer

The autopsy

Fitted with some of the fastest, hottest hardware, the cooling is taken care of with a 92mm front and 120mm rear fans. Unlike what it says on the Alienware web site, the noise output is quite loud. This isn't a machine that would fit into a quiet office without an enclosure. With the advent of the very quiet Apple Dual-G5 Powermacs, I wonder why more manufacturers don't make quieter machines. The Alienware MJ-12 7750 includes a very-capable Enermax 660 watt power supply.

An aluminium front features the Alienware badge, just below it is an opening for two USB ports. The machine's front panel door is completely plastic in construction, supported on plastic hinges that are just begging to be broken off. The rear of the door features a molding mark, confirming the slight tackiness of the case. Behind the door are the power, reset, and a mysterious third button. This last button is not mentioned in the printed manual.

Undoing the side door's thumb screws reveals some top-quality hardware, with some very neat cabling work. The Quadro FX 3400 and Audigy 2 ZS were secured in place with locking posts. Once the front cover is removed, the 5.25-inch drives can be removed without the need of a screwdriver. Likewise the 3.5-inch drive bay cage can be removed by undoing the front fan assembly.

In terms of expandability, the Alienware MJ-12 7750 case can fit four 5.25-inch drives (one fixed drive without front slot access), four 3.5-inch drivers in the drive cage, and the bottom compartment suits the optional hot-swap cage. The Alienware X2 motherboard features three 32-bit PCI slots, two PCI-Express x16 slots, and can hold up to 4Gb of DDR2 SDRAM. The Alienware MJ-12 7750 should have no problem expanding for workstation applications.

To make best use of the onboard Serial ATA RAID controller, the four Western Digital Raptors are configured for RAID 10. Here, two mirrored RAID 1-like arrays are striped together, allowing for greater hard drive performance and data redundancy. Up to two drives in the system can fail and the system keeps on working! In RAID 10 configuration, total formatted hard drive storage came to around 140Gb.

The Alienware MJ-12 7750 includes SoundMAX onboard sound codec chip, but our system was optioned with a Creative Labs Audigy ZS, which includes a breakout box. The dual layer DVD writer performed as expected. For games and movies this system certainly will not disappoint.

The system comes bundled with a support CD that includes a complete set of drivers, utilities, and Windows XP updates. Our system was shipped with Windows XP preloaded.