Note,
Even with your alienware pc, it might not have worked.
Early features are made and tested in a much more 'empty' game.
And as testing progresses and lots of features are added, even the best pc's that the testers used prove that certain things just won't go in the end. They just end up being too resource heavy, even for the best pc's.
And thus, need to be changed or tuned down. It's inevitable. And I've seen it with other games I've been part of somehow, aswell.
The maximum effect you get out of tweaking your graph card settings, with the game on full quality, is the best you're going to get, I am afraid.
Fred.