I Wasted $4000? 😠Alienware Area-51 Desktop Review (6 Months Later)
Did I just waste $4000 on the Alienware Area-51 Desktop? There are so many people saying it’s super overpriced, and you can get the same setup for much less. But the main reason it fell into my radar is that reputation for being super silent with excellent thermals. In my line of work, I need something powerful for video editing, gaming and VR, but I need that silence even more because when I’m recording sound samples or shooting videos, I don’t want to catch the noise of computer fans.
Actually using it for the past 6 months, it’s even better than I thought! Even when I’m playing Cyberpunk 2077 on Ultra Settings, Ultra widescreen with HDR and Path Tracing (which is an even more intensive version of Ray Tracing), this thing just hums along. I can barely hear it! 👉 Listen.
And nothing is getting throttled because temperatures barely exceed 70 degrees celsius at the component level. The positive pressure fan system is just pulling air from 3 different inlets, front, top and bottom, and warm air is getting pushed out the back.
It’s not the only PC using positive pressure cooling but this is one of the quietest implementations, and the main reason I bought the Area-51 Desktop. And I’m glad I bought it 6 months ago because now, prices have gone up so much outside of the US, that the same config that cost 6000 Singapore Dollars now cost $9700, or around 7700 USD!
Most likely because of the crazy memory prices these days, but in the US, the Area-51 Desktop is still around $4000 on Dell’s website.
My Alienware Area-51 Desktop Specs:
Intel Core Ultra 7 265K processor (20-Core, 66MB Total Cache, 3.3GHz to 5.5GHz)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 16GB GDDR7
64GB Dual Channel DDR5 XMP (2x 32GB - Black) 6400 MT/s 1 TB, M.2, Gen 4 PCIe NVMe,
SSD 1500W Platinum Rated ATX12VO PSU,
360mm Liquid-Cooled CPU,
Tempered Glass Door
Any disappointments?
I was a little disappointed after testing it with 3DMark. The results were good, but for the price, I was hoping it would be one of the best for the same specs. It’s not. It’s actually somewhere below average for a system with an RTX 5080. Still, after 6 months with it, I’ve had no problems running any games at top settings. And if I want smoother frame rates, I just turn on DLSS. (Just not for competitive multiplayer like Battlefirld 6 because of the latency issues DLSS will cause for competitive multiplayer games.)
What I do think can be better is the placement of the bottom fan. I put my Area-51 on the floor but I can totally understand why some people say you should not place it on the floor. That’s because there’s a series of fans at the bottom so it’s just sucking up all the dust on the floor around it like a Roomba. But this only means I have to clean the filters more often.
Conclusion
Overall, it is a powerful machine, and I don’t think I wasted $4000 because, like I said, it’s super quiet and I bought it specifically for that sweet spot between noise-level and performance. Would I recommend it for everybody though?
Nope!
Not only because it’s now super expensive outside the US, but because it’s true that a similar setup or better can be put together for less money, and not everyone is blown away by the aesthetics. It is a huge computer and that’s great for thermals, but not for people who don’t have enough space for such a machine. And you’ll also have to make sure that your table can take the weight, because it is, after all, 27 Kilograms.
The racecourse LED looks nice but there are other configs from Singaporean brands like Aftershock or Dreamcore which look flashier.
Again, it’s not for everybody, only for people who appreciate its special qualities.
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