Dell is set to announce a new Alienware gaming laptop at E3. The company hasn't launched too many gaming products since taking a stake in Alienware in 2006, so this machine represents a couple of years' worth of development.

As you'd expect from an Alienware machine, it's packed with high-end components. Single or Dual 1GB nVidia GeForce GTX 280M graphics cards, an integrated graphics chip for when you don't need the extra oomph, an Intel Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Extreme Quad-Core chip, 4 to 8GB of DDR3 RAM and 250GB to 1TB of traditional disk storage or upto 512GB of solid state disks.

There's a slot-loading optical drive, which is a DVD writer by default but can be upgraded to Blu-ray, a nine-cell battery, 802.11n Wi-Fi and a whoppiing 17" 1920x1200 glass edge-to-edge LCD display. Ports-wise there's 4 x USB ports, eSATA, Firewire, Card reader, DisplayPort, HDMI and VGA-out, along with surround sound.

Plenty of customization is present, too. The colour of the backlit keyboard, numpad, touchpad and lights on the case can be adjusted to whatever colour you like using the Alienware software.

As you can imagine, it won't come cheap. UK pricing will be revealed next week, but to give you some idea, it's going to cost at least $1799 for the basic model in the States and most tech products come over at a straight dollar-to-pound conversion. Once you start adding solid-state drives and double-graphics cards, that'll skyrocket further.

We're looking forward to getting our hands onto this beast, and getting one in for review, so stay tuned for more information.