Earlier this month we announced a competition to win an Alienware Area 51M Gaming laptop featuring an Intel Core i9 9900k, RTX 2080 with a 144hz gaming panel. We announced the winner for this competition last week but unfortunately we ran into some serious issues behind the scenes.
We got the Alienware Area 51M laptop last week and after initial post up to confirm everything was ok, we smelt that lovely burnt silicon (likely from the VRM's) and the machine switched off – completely dead. Dell said they couldn't possibly get a replacement for at least 45 days so we had to return it.
Obviously this put us into a rather tricky situation so we checked with UK system builder PCSPECIALIST and after discussing the problems with the winner Brian McAvoy he was happy accepting a PCSPECIALIST OCTANE VI ULTRA series spec'd with the following hardware.
- Processor: Intel Core i9 9900k (3.6ghz)
- Monitor: 17.3 inch Matte Full HD 144hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen + NVIDIA GSYNC
- Memory: 32GB Corsair 2666mhz 2x16GB
- Graphics: Nvidia GTX 2080 8.0GB
- 1st Storage Drive: 2TB Samsung 860 QVO 2.5 SSD
- 2nd Storage Drive: 2TB Samsung 860 QVO 2.5 SSD
- 1st M.2 SSD Drive: 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 (BOOT Raid 0)
- 2nd M.2 SSD Drive: 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 (BOOT Raid 0)
- Battery: 82WH
- Audio: Creative Sound Blaster X Pro Gaming 360 with Premium Onkyo Speakers
- Keyboard: RGB backlit with Fingerprint scanner
- Primary Outputs: HDMI, SuperSpeed USB 3.1 Gen 2, Thunderbolt 3, Displayport
- Thermal Paste: Cooler Master MasterGel Maker Thermal Compound
- Operating System: Windows 10 Home
- Software: Office 365 Trial
- Warranty: 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 year collect and return, 1 year parts, 3 year labour)
- Dead Pixel Guarantee: 1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee including Labour and Carriage Costs
Yes 6TB of SSD Storage!
It just so happens that our man LEO checked out a very similar specified system from PCSPECIALIST in March.
If you want more information on this system read the full review HERE
Congratulations to our competition winner and thanks PCSPECIALIST for the quick rescue !
KitGuru says: We want to thank PCSPECIALIST for coming to the rescue and for building and shipping this high end monster gaming system within a week ! If you want to check out what they offer head over to their home page here – they have laptop, desktop systems and watercooled rigs galore at all price points.