advice on x51 purchase

I would either wait on placing the order or bite the bullet and go ahead and order. It looks like the 660 issues are driver related and should get resolved soon. In fact I am waiting on my i7 3770/ gtx 660 to ship right now(just got delayed till 9/28 today).

go with an i7 cpu to future proof your machine, get the standard gt 545 for now, when the unit is out of warranty next year upgrade the gpu with whatever is hot at that moment.

545 is bad GPU. It already outdated and would be a bad investment as you mentioned.

core i3/i5 can max out virtually all popular games right now "maybe" in the next 2 years games will benefit from something like the core i7. So if you want to future proof your CPU the i7 is the way to go, but right now GPU is way more important.

You can always upgrade the GPU or the CPU, so i would buy the i5/660 combo. The driver issues 'should' be resolved by the time you get your system.

On a side note if you want to build a small PC check out the bitfenix prodigy case...

It looks like they pulled the i7 GTX660 option from their site.  It says GTX 660 GPU in the info bubble, but when you click Customize and Buy it lists GTX-555 in the order summary box.  Also doesn't let you upgrade to the 256gb SSD drive.  It's a shame too because I almost pulled the trigger on the order last night.  I wonder if the driver issues or some i7 / GTX 660 OEM compatibility issue made them remove it.

http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-x51/fs

At least the GTX-555 version has a discount on it now... sucks it's not offered on the i7 w/ GTX 660 and SSD drive.

the gtx 660 simply draws too much power for that little board to handle, theres nothing left for the i7 to have, i think an i7 machine with a gtx 555 is more than enought to game on for a few years with a little help from 16gb of tri channel ram.i'm also going to mention that the pci port angler could also be at fault and not being able to transfer the data fast enought.

Umm you should look again the i7 with a 660 is still listed for sale.

My bad you are right if you try to buy one it does change the card from the 660 to a 555. If the computer does not come with a 660 like I ordered then I will probably cancel mine. It's a shame though since I wanted the more powerful card. Power wise the 660 is supposed to be a lower power draw card than a 555. They might have removed it more because of the fact that the drivers are more stable with the 555.

Actually looking at the new "high end system" they removed several options. It automatically has 16gb system ram rather than an 8 or 16 option. It also no longer has a blu ray option and it does not have a SSD option either.

yes this seems to back up what i had said, adding extra ram to compensate, i will take back what i said about the power draw and replace it with lack of system board resources, hence why they have taken out the blu ray and ssd and upped the ram, could someone tell me the actual issue people were having with the blu ray, ssd, i7 and the 660 combo?

Umm for the issues with the 660 look at the sticky on the main page... :) I am not sure there is an issue with the SSD or Blu Ray(at least none that I am aware of).

Currently www.alienware.com/.../promotions.aspx lists  1GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 555 under Highlighted Options for the X51.  Even from the build variety page at www.dell.com/.../fs you can only get the i7 with the GTX 555.  Only the 'new and improved' i5 currently comes with the GTX660, the rest either 545 or 555.

Yeah go and look and actually CHECK the listed specs... The listing for the i7 system has changed ALOT from what I ordered on 9/10/2012. There are MANY options either changed or no longer even an option. System ram is now fixed at 16gb(used to have 8gb option). There is no bluray drive option or SSD(used to have a 256 gb option).

GTX555 is no longer offered on X51.  It transitioned to GTX660 for the high end card.

Ok, now which system looks best?

i5 with the 660 or i7 with the 555. I'm thinking the i5/660 but that still leaves me with driver support issues.