When it comes to gamers, drop the name “Alienware” and you’ll be met with Pavlovian looks of envy on the faces of those who know that the machines from the Dell company are for industrial-strength gaming (alienware.com).

Consider the Area-51 ALX, which is the highest performance machine the company has produced to date. The machine has a copper cold-plated cooling unit to keep the Intel Core i7 CPUs running cool. The desktop is available with Extreme Edition quad core processors that are available with 3.73-GHz and 3.86-GHz speed choices. It has a 1,100-kW power supply that helps drive the standard Dual 1.8-GB NVIDIA GeForce GGTX 295 graphics card. There is up to 12 GB of 1,600 MHZ DDR3 triple-channel memory, and there is an array of storage options—hard drives and solid-state drives. Then there are some trick design features, like anodized aluminum surfaces, a motorized front door, an Active Venting louver system, and the AlienFX lighting system that permits customization of the chassis with up to 64-million lighting combos.

Or say you don’t want to stay put while you game but to be out in the world. Then there is the Alienware M17x, a 17-in. laptop that runs the optional Intel Core i7 920XM 2.0-GHz processor, that is ideal for high-end gaming—as well as for HD video and audio editing and 3D animation. You can get an optional 1-TB drive—that’s as in “terabytes,” or one-trillion bytes. And check out the design, with the integrated cooling fins to keep the machine running.