We’ve already seen Alienware’s new Area 51 gaming desktop, but now the Dellsubsidiary is announcing availability and pricing for the triangular systems.
The 2014 Area 51 desktop features a rather unique design, which is unlike anything we’ve previously seen. Of course, internally you’ll find all the hardware you normally find inside a gaming PC (although perhaps a bit more high-end than the average rig), but you’ll also notice a rather odd layout. The motherboard is rotated about 45 degrees, angling the rear I/O connectors upwards.
Inside the Area 51 there is room for up to three dual-slot graphics cards, water cooling, and up to 1500 W PSUs. According to Alienware, the triangular design aids cooling, as neither the front nor the rear of the case can be placed parallel to a wall, so airflow inwards or outwards is not restricted as much.
The case also comes with nine independent lighting zones, each of which has 20 different color options. You can control this through the Command Center 4.0 software, which also lets you monitor details about (among other things) your CPU, memory and graphics cards.
The Area 51 is built on the X99 platform, and it can therefore be configured with either 6-core or 8-core Intel Core i7 Haswell-E processors. You can install up to 32 GB of DDR4-2133 MHz memory, and graphics options go all the way up to three GTX 980’s or two GTX Titan Z’s, depending on your preference.
In addition to the launch of the 2014 Area 51, Alienware also announced that it is to become exclusive partners with Roccat. The AlienFX lighting will be coupled with the lighting on Roccat’s peripherals, allowing you to control the lighting of your keyboard, mouse and PC all from one software interface. The updated software for this should hit around the end of November.
Pricing for the 2014 Area 51 systems starts at $1699, although if you’re daring, you can easily configure the systems far beyond that.
