Alienware's Core i7-980X-infused Area-51 desktop gets reviewed, puts other rigs to shame
Surely you recall that snazzy new Alienware Area-51 desktop that popped up last week with Intel's flashy Core i7-980X Extreme Edition within, right? The benchmarking gurus over at Hot Hardware have since put the stratospherically priced ($4,569 as tested) rig through its paces, and suffice it to say, there's hardly a machine on the planet that's faster than this rig today. Put simply, the test machine -- which was equipped with a pair of ATI Radeon HD 5970 cards -- bested every other gaming desktop they'd seen, with the only shortfall coming up in the HDD tests. Naturally, SSD-equipped rivals were a good bit faster there, but nothing's stopping you from swapping out those traditional platters and installing a bit of NAND yourself. Ah, why bother with the details -- if you're looking for "quite literally the fastest desktop PC on the earth," this can definitely be it with the right configuration. Hit that source link for the mind-boggling benchmarks and a hands-on video.
