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Dell spikes game site with Alienware systems

The PC maker is promoting a peaceful coexistence for both XPS and Area-51 notebooks as it works to integrate the two development teams.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers
2 min read

Dell is taking steps to promote Alienware PCs on its Web site as the PC maker tries to collaborate more--rather than compete outright--with its Alienware unit.

Dell has added the Area-51 m9750 to its gaming laptop Web site, according to a Dell company blog.

Dell Web sites features new Alienware game notebooks.
Dell Web page features new Alienware game notebooks Dell

"The Alien invasion has continued, with the addition of the Area-51 m9750 to the Dell gaming laptop Web site lineup," according to the post. The 17-inch notebook offers two 512MB GeForce 8700m GT cards as an option.

The blog also notes: "It was never really in the cards to do away with the XPS gaming products early, but instead to integrate the development teams from both Alienware and XPS...The XPS isn't going away, though it may go in new directions as hinted by the XPS One and the slimline XPS m1330."

A Wall Street Journal report had stated that Dell would quickly kill off its XPS line, which Dell later denied.

The starting prices for two featured Dell XPS M1730 notebooks are about $600 and $1,100 more than the starting prices for two featured Alienware systems on Dell's notebook gaming page.

An Area-51 m9750, for example, starts at $1,399. But add a 17-inch WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 screen, an Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 2.33GHz processor, another gigabyte of memory (for a total of 2GB), and a 160GB 7200 RPM hard disk drive, and the price jumps to $2,524.

This brings the Alienware notebook a lot closer to the Dell 17-inch XPS M1730 World of Warcraft Edition in price ($2,599) and features. Interestingly, the Alienware m9750 notebook is not available with 45-nanometer Intel T8300, T9300, T9500 (or X9000 Extreme) processors. Dell does offer these processors.