Alienware computers are typically good computers for gaming, but it really depends on how you customize them. They also tend to be really overpriced, so I would reccomend building one over purchasing one from Alienware. That way you can exactly what you need (or better) while still keeping your general price range. How much would you be willing to spend on this future computer?

Laptop graphics cards are typically difficult to find, as well as difficult to install. You won't be able to find any laptop graphics cards on newegg, tigerdirect, or anything of the sort; you may have to resort to eBay, Amazon, or a local geek shop (if one is available). Installing one is a long, strenuous process (there are some tutorials online, but laptop graphics card replacement involves removing the keyboard, the monitor itself, and etcetera). Your laptop may also get blazing hot with the installation of a new graphics card, so make sure your temperatures are relatively low. Also make note that purchasing a laptop video card can take quite a lot out of your wallet.

Well, generally, laptops are never a good choice for gaming, as desktops are usually more powerful for less money. And laptops cant really be upgraded as easily as desktops. But it is a nice rig, you will probably be running most games out already on Medium High and Crysis will most likely be Medium if you want very good performance. But I would look into oveclocking that Graphics Card. I overclocked my 8800gt standard and am getting 50 frames in Crysis, all high, and....... 16xQ Anti-Aliasing 720p!! If you look around, there are great overclocking info sites and it is a way of turning a good rig into a great rig.

wii_123

This is true, laptops aren't the best choice for gaming at all. You'd be able to run most games, but there will be few graphics intensive games that you'll be able to crank up. Gaming laptops are overpriced, have terrible battery life, and are usually gigantic and hot. Desktop gaming PCs get much better performance, especially for the price. It's not bad for a laptop by any means, however.

Before (or if) you overclock, though, make sure to check your graphics card temperatures with something along the line of HWmonitor. If your temperatures are low enough, overclocking will definitely improve performance.

Haha wow, he doesn't exactly have the best motherboard does he?

Unfortunately, there are a very limited amount of PCI graphics cards (not to mention powerful PCI graphics cards). The best PCI graphics card you're gonna be able to get your friend is probably the ATI 2400... =/

Maybe you can buy him a new motherboard with some PCI-Express slots and then have him purchase a new graphics card with some extra birthday money? Otherwise I'm sorry to say he won't get much performance =(

Haha I see that you've pasted this from a custom PC website. ;D

That's a pretty nice build for the most part, the 4GB RAM is nice and the 9800 GT is a pretty powerful card considering the price. If there's an option for the ATI 4850 or the 9800 GTX, however, I reccomend you look into those and compare the prices.

The AMD processor isn't bad by any means, it's just not great. For a budget gaming PC though it's pretty good.

I'm gonna guess somewhere between 7.5-8/10

All those parts mentioned above are great, if he wants a Crossfire system then he should get

Asus Maximus formula board

2x 4870 X2's in CrossfireX

and the other parts mention above are good(CPU and what not0

DarxPhil

4870x2 CrossfireX is also an ideal configuration (thanks DarxPhil, I can't believe I never mentioned that!)

Well if you're going to use it for music and web programming you probably shouldn't be looking at Alienware haha

Alienware laptops are pure gaming laptops; this means that they're powerful, but have terrible battery life, run really hot, and are oftentimes humongous. MACs can be good for that sort of thing as far as my knowlege goes, but for other laptops you can always look into HP or Dell.

Haha well for unlimited budget I think pretty much everyone's just going to say the most high-end parts they can think of.

Here's what I can think of:

-1 Terabyte Seagate Barracuda 7,200 RPM

-300 GB Western Digital Velociraptor 10,000 RPM

-EVGA 790i SLI FTW ATX Motherboard

-3x EVGA GeForce GTX 280 896mb GDDR3 SSC Edition GPUs in Tri-SLI

-8 GB Corsair Dual Channel PC12800 DDR3 16000MHz

-Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit

-Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9775 3.2 GHz Quad Core (overclock) OEM (buy seperate heatsink w/thermal paste)

-1200w Power Supply

I guess the disc drive doesn't matter quite as much, but if you wanted to possibly watch HD video content/blu ray you could always purchase a DVD/Blu Ray drive.

500w should be enough to run everything, but if you want to upgrade in the future there might be lack of power. You'll be fine for now though, so I wouldn't worry! =D

The 64-bit version of Vista used to have compatibility issues, but I'm not sure if this is still the same. If you have the 32-bit version of Vista, however, you can install as much as RAM as you want but it will only recognize and utilize 3GB. 64-bit can handle as much as your motherboard can.

Supposedly the Blue Orb is a great heatsink, but there are a lot of other nice heatsinks. Make sure that you look at plenty of customer reviews. Copper heatsinks are nice too!

You could get a particularly nice DVD Drive for a low price just about anywhere, just make sure to compare read/write speeds between possible contenders.