Dell’s newest high-end gaming rig is a true monster. The Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Edition weighs in at a hefty 28 kg, has a massive triangular casing, and, as is customary for Alienware, is adorned with many LEDs.
At £5169, it is not precisely inexpensive, but there is a solid reason for that price. This updated edition of the Area-51 combines two GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards and AMD’s range-topping Threadripper CPU.
Creating the Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Edition
Alienware Area-51 Threadripper makes quite the initial impression. It has a height of 569mm, and a width of 272mm, and most of its front is covered with black, glossy plastic slats. The front has the classic Alienware emblem as the power button, while RGB LEDs encircle the slatted part and sit on the side panels.
The metal handles at each corner of the triangle shell make it simple to tilt the device to access its many ports and sockets. As might be anticipated from a computer of this size and price, the build quality is excellent. The plastic and aluminum utilised in the construction of the casing are reliable.
While this is encouraging, the Alienware Area-51 Threadripper is still a problematic piece of equipment. Aside from being too bulky to transport to LAN parties and other gaming gatherings, this rig’s unusual form factor also makes it more difficult to conceal under a desk than a standard tower. On a more fundamental level, it’s also frustrating. The CPU is topped off with a massive 120mm water cooler with a single 120mm fan, and the two graphics cards are plastic-clad ones that seem very much like bog-standard reference units. Lacking fancy RGB LEDs, fancy heatsinks, or any other frills, the motherboard is bare bones.
Most of the cords are different colors, and the power supply is an unsightly metal box. These wires need to be neatly organized; they are scattered throughout the casing and grouped in a large mass at the base of the chassis. The only true potential for expansion comes at the back of the chassis, where you’ll find three hard disc bays and one 2.5 slots replete with pre-installed connectors.
Since Alienware’s side panel doesn’t have a window, having a tidy or eye-catching interior isn’t necessarily necessary. Nonetheless, considering the exorbitant price, I would expect more from such a high-end computer. Dell’s competitors perform a better job overall. To give you an example, the Asus ROG GT51CH, the most recent high-end gaming PC I examined, has a cleaner design on the inside and more capacity to grow in terms of storage and RAM. The compact Corsair One Elite packs a lot of intelligence and ingenuity into a small form factor.
Or, you may take it a step further by looking at local PC businesses like Scan, Chillblast, or Cyberpower. Those manufacturers provide computers at prices that are on par with or cheaper than Alienware’s. In addition, you may get more attractive, standard cases with custom water cooling and plenty of extra capacity for upgrades for the same price.
This Edition may be managed like other Alienware machines using the dependable Command Center software. With this program, you may adjust the system’s RGB LEDs’ color settings and set up custom game-specific illumination.
The Performance-Optimized Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Desktop
There is no question that the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X is the highlight of Alienware. This processor is the top of the line for AMD’s blazing 2017 architecture, and it has an enormous 16 cores that can handle 32 threads simultaneously.
The 1950X provides more than simply a large number of cores. It has a respectable base clock speed of 3.4GHz and can be turbocharged to a speed of 4.2GHz. The 32MB of cache and Threadripper architecture at its heart allow quad-channel memory support and enhanced Precision Boost turbo performance.
A 16-core CPU is unnecessary for playing any game currently available. The 1950X is optimized for more involved projects, including video creation, CAD design, content development, and database management. Productivity is boosted by Alienware’s 64GB of 2,666MHz RAM, which is, again, an abundant quantity that only the most taxing programs would need.
A simlar PC I’ve seen lately can’t compare to the 1950X in speed. Core i7-8700K, with its six Hyper-Threaded cores, was installed in the Corsair One Elite. However, It wasn’t built to handle such processors. Instead, it’s intended to compete with Intel’s Core i9 line of processors. These components start with the 10-core i9-7900X and progress to the 18-core i9-7980XE as they go up the range.
The 1950X, then, is impressive in theory but unimpressive in reality. The multi-core Geekbench result of 26,353 is a new benchmark, although the lead over the Corsair One Elite and its i7-8700K processor is just around 3000 points.
Due to its emphasis on a massive core count, Threadripper’s single-core performance suffers. Its 4024 single-threaded Geekbench score is almost a thousand points lower than the Corsair’s and about on par with the Ryzen 7 1800X. This Threadripper received a score of 4184 in PCMark 8, which is lower than the scores of its more reasonably priced competitors.
However, this fascinating data set highlights a delicate dilemma about AMD’s newest CPUs. Although the 1950X has more cores than nearly anything else, only a select few programs can make full advantage of them. The great majority of professionals and gamers alike will benefit from more traditional Ryzen and Core i7 processors. Furthermore, the massive number of cores always slows performance for a single thread. As a result, overclocked Intel processors and the more expensive Ryzen models will perform better with games and more traditional apps.
Two Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards provide the graphical muscle. The most powerful range-topping GPUs have 7168 stream processors and 22GB of GDDR5X.
There is no new game that the two graphics cards can’t handle at 4K resolution. The plethora of virtual reality (VR) headsets, widescreen displays, high refresh rate screens, and multiple monitor configurations on the market today will all function well with the two cards. They are also helpful in the workplace since their processing power is sufficient for video editing and other graphic design tasks.
With Tomb Raider, the Area-51 managed 91 frames per second, while the benchmark for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor in 1080p achieved a staggering 154 frames per second. They’re fine, but the system truly shines at 4K resolution. If you’re playing Tomb Raider at 3840 x 2160, you’ll get an impressive 84 frames per second on average, which is far faster than the 68 frames per second the Corsair manages. Its 143 frames per second in Shadow of Mordor far outpaced the Corsair’s 88 and the Asus’s 91.
To further verify the raw performance of the Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Edition, 3DMark may be consulted. Alienware got a score of 12,479 on the Fire Strike Ultra test. The best score Corsair could get is 7075.
There is a lot of muscle here, more so than the Corsair, with its single GTX 1080 Ti, or the Asus ROG GT51CH, with its dual GTX 1070 graphics processing units. However, the well-known Area-51 brand will need to catch up to regionally-made, specialized devices again. Two GTX 1080 Ti cards in a system built by Chillblast, Scan, or PC Specialist would probably be overclocked versions of the cards.
Also, a typical SLI problem is imperfect scaling, which you see with these two GPUs. Keep in mind that the same GPU arrangement on an Intel-based SoC will make it much quicker for gaming.
Its thermal performance was adequate. Hence, Area 51 may be recommended. It ran quietly under most scenarios and had acceptable peak CPU and GPU temperatures of 65°C and 84°C, respectively. The system makes a low, almost inaudible rumbling, but you probably won’t notice if you’re not stressing the components.
However, when demanding games or professional software are used, the silent whirr turns into a loud, low rumble when the critical components are pushed to their limits. If you’re using headphones or speakers for your game, this won’t be a big deal, but it could be distracting if you’re in an otherwise silent workplace. It’s also noticeably noisier than the Corsair and most other British-made computers.
All of the primary parts plug into a standard Alienware 08FN1W motherboard. It doesn’t provide any premium features like onboard POST displays, buttons, or RGB LEDs, and it doesn’t have any spare RAM slots or PCI connectors. The 64GB of 2666MHz RAM is enough for professional uses but excessive for the average user.
There includes a 512GB SK Hynix PC401 M.2 SSD and a 2TB hard drive for storage. Although the previous drive’s read speed of 2671MB/sec is impressive, its write speed of 659MB/sec is slightly faster than SATA SSDs.
Many different configurations of this computer are produced by Dell, as is customary. Although it only costs £2149, the base model is not recommended since it only has 8GB of RAM, no solid-state drive, and a GTX 1050 Ti graphics card (although a Threadripper 1900X). This requirement is quite unclear.
Customizing your own Edition on the Alienware website is the best option to maximize performance while minimizing cost.
Verdict
The most recent Alienware Area-51 Threadripper may look the part, but it falls short in almost every significant way. If you need one badly enough, you should look at it before settling on a CPU. Traditional computers powered by Intel or AMD will satisfy your professional needs just as well, if not better. If you choose that path, you can acquire a more functional, cost-efficient computer that is well-suited to an office setting. And, if you really need Alienware , then more competent and inexpensive systems may be purchased elsewhere.
