Intimidating. Sinister. Otherworldly. These are the words we uttered while uncrating Alienware’s chilling new machine. But Alienware’s new PC case isn’t just an homage to H.R. Giger’s creepy biomechanical artwork. It’s also an in-your-face statement to PC enthusiasts: We might have morphed from a boutique manufacturer into a mainstream OEM, but we’re still hardcore. Our editorial staff hasn’t done a hands-on preview of a prototype OEM machine since the days when the magazine was called boot. But when we saw Alienware’s new case design, our hearts were all a-twitter. Then, when an Alien elder told us he’d stuff the rig with a working prototype version of the new GeForce FX videocard (a treasure no other system vendor could wrangle), we took the bait. “Give us that machine,” whispered Jon Phillips in his Cigarette Smoking Man voice. “We must have it now.”
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