Alienware's strange looking, triangular PC, which was shown off at trade shows earlier this year, is now available to buy. The Area 51 pre-built PC can sport up to three GTX 980s, paired up with an extreme edition Intel Core i7 5930k.
As you would expect, the base model is pretty weak. It costs $1699 and features an Intel Extreme Edition Core i7 5820K, 8GB of RAM, a 2TB hard drive, an 850W Power Supply and a disappointing AMD R9 270 graphics card. If you step up to the $2499 model you will get the same CPU and power supply but you'll be upgraded to 16GB of DDR4 RAM, you'll get a 128GB SSD to pair with the 2TB hard drive and you will get a much more capable GTX 980 graphics card.
The $2599 model comes with an Intel Core i7 5930K CPU overclocked to 3.9 GHz, a 1500W power supply along with the same RAM and storage options as the previous model, although you will be getting a pair of 6GB GTX 780 GPUs in SLI.
The final option will set buyers back $4549, it comes with the same CPU, RAM and PSU as the previous model but you'll be getting a 256GB SSD paired up to the 2TB hard drive and you'll have three GTX 980 graphics cards for SLI.
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KitGuru Says: While I do like a few of Alienware's builds and products, I'm not a fan of the Area 51. The triangular case seems overly bulky and I don't think it looks all that great but that's just my own personal opinion. I also think that the overall value of the builds could be boosted, the base model would be much more attractive with an R9 280x, the R9 270 just seems overly weak for the CPU. That said, i'm interested to see what you guys think, does the Area 51 case design suit your tastes?
ok, so lets be honest here, yeah you’re paying out the rear for hardware AND for a name here, but the people that actually NEED and USE dual and triple GPU setups aren’t gonna buy an Alienware, they’re gonna BUILD their system at half the cost that Dell is charging. the people that buy these are the same kind of people that buy a suped up muscle car then only drive it, under the speed limit, to car rallys on weekends
i never understood the appeal of spending that much money on something you’ll literally never take full advantage of. i guarantee you half of these sales will be made to people who will use their 2-5k machines for Facebook games and Youtube videos
This kind of economy is pretty much built on people not knowing what the fuck they are buying.
Its a market for idiots. Its why crapple is so minted.
I totally agree, even the top of the range graphics cards run every single game on max settings excessively, spending 1k on a GPU and ending up only realistically using 30% of its output is a massive waste 🙁 Best analogy on this site though “the people that buy these are the same kind of people that buy a suped up muscle car then only drive it, under the speed limit, to car rallys on weekends” There are of course some people who will use these gpu’s and make a multi-screen monster of a computer to run a huge amount of software all at once but for the audience this gear is focused at will only use it for the things you’ve just said aha
heck, a $1000 custom pc would totally beat the $1699 Area 51
I think the case itself looks pretty cool. Little awkard to fit into a setup so i would never personally want one but for someone like my friend who moves his pc between his mothers and fathers house weekly it would be pretty useful i would think. Looks like it would be pretty easy to move from place to place, for someone like him not worried about fitting it into a dedicated setup like my own i think it would be perfect.
Value wise im not fond of their builds, a 5820k with an r9 270 seems like a pretty big failure in my opinion. i think i would do an I5 haswell/devils canyon to budget in a stronger gpu had i been them. The step ups seems pretty big there is no midground, its either a far to low end )in my opinion that is) R9 270 or a gtx 980 and up. i think there should have been options for things such as 970’s R9 280/x’s etc to cater to a mid range build.
Is that 850W power supply genuinely powering an R9 270? I wouldn’t have thought even Alienware are that thick. That system is probably drawing 400 Watts.
That 850w PSU for the base specs.. haha.. this truely is a market for idiots.. haha
Hi just go a 51 reconditioned 16gb 2x 980 sli , 5820 CPU plus dives ssd for 1500 and buy the parts for that ?