Becuz u get teh pr0 cas3!!1!

No serious they are way too overpriced. Aren't they a division of Dell? Their sites are very similar and so are the prices.

AirGuitarist87

Dell bought Alienware some time ago.

When Alienware used to independant, their "pretty" cases were actually very bad cooling-wise. They got alot of critique all over the place about that. Hopefully they fixed at elast that,when they charge you double for basicallly arranging the cables neatly in your case.

Well it is always necessary. If you get a under-powered Power Supply or one from a disreputable manufacturer, you will have either not enough power when the power supply heats up or "unclean" power. Both of those will make your computer unstable and it is possible that can even damage your parts int he long run.

Generally look for PSUs with Efficiency over 80% under load at 115-120V and with at least 25A on the 12V rail. Most fo the good quality PSUs today have quite abit more than 25A there.

Companies like PC Power and Cooling, Seasonic, Antec, Enermax/Tagan, OCZ make good quality power supplies.

I moved from a 19" CRT to a 24"LCD (native resolution 1920x1200)and if I switch to a non-native resolution the picture si still good. I dont see mcuh of a different. A little bit, but nothign irritating.

The bad picture on non-native resolutions was valid for the earlier LCDs and maybe the chep ones today.

Just buy a good quality LCD and you wont have problems. Plus the contrast and colors are much better on my LCD I think. I don't regret buying it at all.

Well 200 pounds thats about 500 dollars, right?

I don't think you can get a machine that playes Crysis at decent framerates for that much, you would have to replace the motherboard, RAM, CPU and video card. Most likely the power supply too.

If you want to do a partial upgrade now you could get this motherboard:

Abit: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813127030 - $180

Core 2 Duo 6750 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115029 - $190

and something like this memory http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098 - $50

For Crysis you will need at least the 8800GT for a video card though if you want high frames..well that depends on what resolution you are running it at and what graphics quality.For a graphics card you better wait until February or so when the new generation of nVidia cards come out and get one fo them, since NONE of today's cards can run Crysis at highest graphics with constant, above 30 FPS.

Getting all that might mean an upgrade of the power supply as well, depending on what you have.

You can check Tom's Hardware VGA charts:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html

For some reason my browser doesn't want to refresh it to show me the numbers.

If you have a copy of Windows XP you can install it. Fist check for drivers though, go to Toshiba's website and see if they have drivers for XP. Most likely they will. If not you could actually sear for your hardware piece by piece and find them that way. Just make sure you have the drivers before you install the XP.

About the RAID - not all motherboards supposrt RAI), and since this is a laptop, there is very good possibility that its mtherboard does not. You might be stuck with having them as they are.

To check this go into the BIOS and look for RAID options. If RAID 0 is possible it should be listed somewhere in there.

Maybe try finding sites that reviewed both? I have experience with PC Power and Cooling and those have been the most stable, power suppies I have seen. Them and SeaSonic.

Very clean electricity. Very well built inside. I haven't disassembled an OCZ power supply so can't say anything about them.

For this pricve range I would definitely go with the ATI 3850

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/diamond_viper_hd3850_crossfire/

Next price bracket up would be the 8800GT.