surprise is the lack of re-attachable cover-plates for the PCI slots at the back - once you've bent away the metal plates to make room for a GPU, they can't be reused. For a step-by-step rundown on how we built this unit, please feel free to check our in-line gallery above, which chronicles the "making-of" process in pictures. Once we're all cabled up and switched on, we find the option to overclock the CPU through the BIOS is there, which surprised us bearing in mind that the H61 chipset is renowned for its lack of overclocking prowess. We prefer to keep the core clocks at default values regardless, and find that the processor idles at 30 degrees Celsius and runs at 54 under load, suggesting that there's no need to buy an aftermarket cooler for this set-up - the bundled heatsink and fan that came with the chip does just fine. Speaking of fans, the hardware runs very quietly while idle, and inevitably picks up the most noise from the graphics card's dedicated cooler while gaming. It's no deal-breaker, and certainly not a patch on the volumes produced under load by the Alienware X51 's graphics card - the GTX 555. It runs quietly overall, and under load holds out at a maximum of 60 degrees Celsius. Performance Analysis: Benchmarks So let's see it in action. To start, we run the rig through a series of graphics and physics-based tests with 3DMark 11, culminating in a combined run. Here we