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.
posted March 23rd 2010 11:34PM
Man you guys don;t know what you are talking about.
/s
@Jehryan
I have this with i7 975 :( and the case of the pc is the only good thing about it. Sorry engadget you guys don't know what your talking about this time around. Another gaming rig with the 980x and duel 5970's is sure to beat this pc. Everything from the liquid cooling to the fans in the alienware area 51 are cheap and very stock.
@Jehryan
Yeah, like they already forgot this : http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/17/evga-classified-sr-2-fits-two-980x-cpus-for-24-threads-exemplif/
@BrownSound
I really like the case, but everything else I'd rather build myself (if I were to). Does anyone know if I can buy the case separately somewhere?
Is the motherboard standard size? If I could get my hands on this case, I'd just gut my PC and throw it into that awesome case.
@Janvito5
the MR2 EVGA mobo rox, and i already started dreaming of a combo of it + 2x 5670 CPUs... do u know the price? almost 4.3k euro only for CPUs and motherboard! so... sorry to say but no way u can find that combo at a pc less than 7k euro.
TBH my dream was abandoned at that price... :(
I've built computers for years and I do it for a living but when someone calls a PC a "rig" I die a little inside.
so what we learn here is that the more you spend on a computer the more powerful it will be. shocking. nonetheless that is a sick rig.
the combined value of my two cars is less than that price tag
All I can say? Wow.
Hearing Engadget talk about gaming desktops is like hearing a veterinarian talk about auto repairs (sorry that was the best analogy I could come up with).
@ScienceProUSAcom
I completely agree. Also, to say this Alienware is the fastest desktop PC in the world is like saying a stock Enzo is the fastest car in the world: kinda close, but not really close at all. Dual air-cooled HD5970's can't even touch overclocked Quad LN2-cooled HD5870's.
@aznofazns
Oh, that's not even mentioning the lack of SSD's in RAID 0 in a $4500+ rig!
@ScienceProUSAcom
I have to say it's a very good analogy at that.
@aznofazns Yes because people regularly use LN2 cooled 5870s to game.
I just wee-wee'd in my pull-ups...
lol puts other rigs to shame for maybe 2 more months... we got fermi and 6-core cpu coming out very soon... this is an obvious cash grab before the next-gen hardware blows this rig away...(literally)
should have axed the ridiculously priced intel, OC'd an AMD and got raid 0 SSD...
@pstasyna calling Fermi next gen is debatable. the ATi 5000 series beats it last time i checked.
@pstasyna You obviously have not been paying attention. The intel chip in this machine is a 6-core chip, and we've only seen Fermi in a single-GPU card, whereas, the 5970 is a dual-GPU card. Besides that, Fermi hardly "blows away" the flagship ATI card. Please educate yourself.
@kojo87 It doesn't blow it away, but it was tested and is about 10% faster than the 5970, I think. However, ATI released a new driver which should bring the 5000 series even closer to Fermi
@pstasyna and is next gen hardware going to LITERALLY create a force of air that sends this computer flying away? no? then don't say literally.
Am I the only one that noticed that there are only 3 RAM slots. For a machine of this class, I was expecting 6. Even HP's Elites have 6 ram slots on their puny uATX board. Other than the case, and the CPU the PC is a joke. 6GB for $4,600?. I can build a better machine for less. I dont understand why Dell seems to think that computers are disposable.
@rstoplabe14 Apparently they think customers are disposable too.
@rstoplabe14 They will try and make as much profit as they can off of the majority of consumers who don't know what they are buying. If people did their homework before droping nearly 5,000$ on a pc, they would be able to notice things like 3 RAM slots. If you looked up videos on YouTube they would give you the jist of how to build a much better computer for your money.
@rstoplabe14
yes I noticed there are three ram slots; after I bought it that is. fail...
@rstoplabe14 This computer is aimed at people who have more money than sense. The rest of us, given enough cash, could easily build an even more powerful, less tacky-looking computer with less money.
In any case, dual 5970s is practically wasted on games due to the poor scaling of Crossfire/SLI with more than 2 GPUs. As is the six-core Core i7 since even the latest games barely overstretch a quad core.
@rstoplabe14
It's much, much cheaper to build a popwerful gaming laptop than to purchase one. The money you pay for "alienware" or other brands is payment for service and warranty as well as profit on top of man-hour cost associated with the design & production of the machine. It can get pretty expensive.
When you do a DIY, you only have your own man-hour cost and we, as individuals, cost less per day than an individual working in an organisation where total overheads factor into the cost of any product/service.
I can build a very pwoerful machine for ~$800. In USD that's about ~$500 or so. But factor in my travel cost, personal time cost, and the real cost of my DIY machine is about $1800. If I sold it and wanted to make a profit, I would have to sell it @ $2500. So actually the Alienware is pretty reasonable.
I had no idea that was 6-cores, I did a quick price check and it rolled up 1000+$; no thanks... I don't follow Intel or ATI... I'm strictly nvidia and AMD and have been for the last 7 years atleast... i did own a pentium 500 back in the day
guess I better upgrade from my apple 2-c since im not educated enough to own a 5000$ cash grab
@pstasyna ATI is AMD now
@pstasyna
AMD cpus have been lacking lately and ya ATi was boughten out by AMD, ATi's are better the Nvidias lately
@pstasyna What do you have against ATI? Nvidia is just now getting ready to release a DX11 compatible card and ATI could have something even better come along soon.
So I went to the source page and the only machine that had specs close to this one is the Origin's and the rest have less powerful CPU compared to 980X. We all know that 2 5970 and a 980X make a very powerful system but it's not fair when you make comparison to systems that contain core i5 750 and GTX 275. Lets have all the manufactures make their systems with the same specs and tweak them and see who comes on top. So you really can't say that it smocked other manufactures systems if you don't compare it with their 980X systems. Do that then we can talk but til then hold your tongue!!
Chassis layout and cable runs look like crap. For that kind of money you would think they could put more effort.
@Jehryan and others
I'am pretty sure that you don't have a Alienware rig. You're jealous of the power of a computer ? Help yourself, talk to a psy and stop trolling !
ouch!
Who buys these stupid machines?? If you really need all that computing power then you're much more likely to build the rig yourself. the watercooling in this pc look cheap and everything is stock. airflow looks pretty bad too. A HAF 932/Antec 1200 would be so much better
I'd sooner kill myself than order from Alienware/iBUYPOWER/CyberPowerPC.
They're all crap companies who overcharge for their products.
I would never in my life buy an Alienware, but damn, I wish they sold that case alone!
But the question still remains...Can it run crysis?