It really comes down to the type of display you intend to use with the Aurora 5500 and what level of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering you want enable, but it won't even break a sweat up to 1600 x 1200. Beyond this it starts to struggle slightly when you enable 4x FSAA, at least if you expect to see 60+ FPS in games. Comparing it to the higher specced, but more expensive, Mesh Xtreme Essential TRX you can see that the Aurora 5500 is actually faster in all of the 3D benchmarks. This is down to the Aurora using a single-core processor that's faster in games than the lower clocked dual-core chip used in the Mesh.

At £1399.00 including VAT plus delivery, the Aurora 5500 isn't cheap, but it's not over priced either. However, I have some reservations about the configuration we received from Alienware, especially with regards to the PSU. This isn't the best system we've seen from Alienware, but it's a lot more affordable than previous machines, which goes some way to making up for that. Still, I'm a sucker for the nice big Alienware cases and this new mid-sized case just doesn't do it for me.

Verdict

The Alienware Aurora 5500 offers good performance, a fast graphics card and the Alienware touch. But the new case isn't cool enough and the poor choice of power supply is disappointing. However, if you want an Alienware PC on a budget, it's not bad value.

Review by