imo, alienware is pure garbage they completely overcharge, you get the worst looking case and every gamer laughs at you. the xps line was the only line in the "mainstream" gaming that i liked. apart from smooth creations, voodoo, and the hp blackbird which are very very niche. im sad to see the xps line die, i remember doing a comparison for a friend about alienware and they charged something like 1,300 for a tower with a 6200 and touted it as a gaming computer.... that ruined it for me.

I agree, I do think the dell XPS deparment did a damn good job on designing the XPS desktops. Most of them are high gaming caliber matching custom built systems. I have always hated Alienware. I've had to fix way too many of them when I did computer repair and I only saw one Dell XPS system come inand it was because the owner was stupid enough to remove the thermal compound off of the CPU.

Does this mean the entire XPS line is going away? Because for a long time I remember seeing the big XPS laptop (now the M1720 or something) as a continuing favorite in PC magazines. After seeing a friend's M1720 in use I was fully convinced that it deserved the praise, but now it looks like we won't be seeing something like that again.

 ^ You will find that alot of manufactures do that, though usually not botiques. Hp had a lot of machines they touted as game ready that had low performing gpu's and cpu's. They rely on the general public not being savvy enough to know the difference, and most enthusiast will build themselves, or at least know what to purchase and know enough not to spend that kind of money on an under performing machine. 

I think the consolidation makes sense, sure but the best not go to the Alienware chassis design... UUUUUGLY IMHO. The new XPS designs are gorgeous though. Let's hope they adopt an XPS look to the Alienware theme. Sort of counter-intuitive but what the heck.

Yeah, Alienware is ugly and way too expensive.  I can understand paying a little premium for good case work (Smooth Creations anyone?), but Alienware isn't attractive and it's an enormous premium.  XPS was a better choice fo sho.  Hopefully prices come down a bit now, but I'd still never recommend an Alienware at their current value. 

the old alienware chasis, the full tower ones were good, but the current ones look so ugly. i personally prefer the xps line because it is usually cheaper than other products and performs good. at digital life i got to see the xps h2o and that was a beauty, the alienware rigs that i played css on though were ugly and overpriced junk that had bloatware on it.

I agree with you, Davo. Alienware could take some design ideas from the XPS design team.

 I agree but thier cases are sorta of nice but they need new designs. I kinda liked the XPS line. Alienware overcharges because you get the name of alienware.