Alienware vs Dell laptop

[mmcneil.70140]

I've posted this in the hardware forum, but wanted to also place here for more eyes to see. I'm comparing the Alienware area 51 m7700 to the Dell Inspiron 9300. I'm only concerned with performance... not price, weight, etc. Does anyone have an opinion or recommendation for either of these? Also, I know Alienware laptops used to have an issue with fan noise in the past... is this still the case?

Thanks in advance for any help!