We admit it: We have a history of being hard on Alienware. We're not apologizing for this, since we think maintaining high standards is crucial when dealing with a company that has such a standard of maintaining high prices. Two entries in Alienware's Area-51 line of gaming desktops we've looked at over the past year or so, the ALX and the ALX CrossFire, didn't have quite the stormbringing performance we would demand from systems costing upwards of $8,000.