back to article Alienware injects EVEN MORE ALIEN into redesigned Area-51 gaming PC

Alienware has spent five years honing its Area-51 gaming PC, and - in the process - has sexed up the beast with a menacing-looking new "triad chassis" design. The company said it had chosen the unusual and frankly intimidating shape (the inspiration may just have come from Hollywood: perhaps the movie Batman: The Dark Knight …

  1. NoOneSpecific

    eBoner!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    Or... if Apple made it...

    iBoner

  3. Tom 35

    No garbage can for us

    Triad is centered on two one main design principle: We thought it looked cool.

    1. venezuelan beaver cheese

      Re: No garbage can for us

      Agreed. The wanking Mountain Dew obsessed Star Wars fanbois will love it...all 6 of them that can afford it that is.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Paris Hilton

        Re: No garbage can for us

        > wanking Mountain Dew obsessed Star Wars fanbois

        Who they?

  4. Michael Habel

    I think I can hear the death knell

    Really I know that Alienware was always a "Niche Market", but is there even the slightest justification to even misuse this as a gaming rig? I could understand having one for video editing / encoding. But I'd be hard pressed to want this just to play the latest hyped up Muder-sims. Which will undoubtedly be ported to the PS4 and, the Failbox One.

    And then there's the Electricity drain... I don't even want to know what it costs to run it for a mindless Hour.

    Plus you just know that this thing is gonna be infected with Windows 8 all over it! YUCK!!

    1. returnmyjedi

      Re: I think I can hear the death knell

      Failbox One! Ha ha ha! That is GENIUS!!!***????ROFLOLOLOL&#%*)%£

    2. Jerren

      Re: I think I can hear the death knell

      Yes but with Quad GPU it might make a half decent (albeit expensive) password cracking rig... once you get Jack to compile properly to use it...

  5. Truth4u

    phew

    I thought Alienware was going to coast by on putting ugly plastic aliens on stock Dell cases forever.

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: phew

      Once you have access to Dell's supply chain and production faicilities, the cost of putting a plastic alien and making a whole plastic alien chassis is not that different. From there onwards the stuff which goes in is not that different. Stock MB, an upgraded CPU cooler to cope with an extreme edition CPU, stock (just bigger) power supply and an upgraded (but rather standard) set of cards.

      I d not see anything revolutionary here. An embedded on-Ethernet NIC firewall with some accel functions would have been nice. Appropriate keyboard, mice, joysticks would have been nice too. Oops... These actually require development. Verrrrrrrrrrry dirty word for a "Buy-N-Large" shop.

  6. Mephistro
    WTF?

    Slanted hard disk bays???

    Read some time ago -in the time of RLL HDDs - that this kind of design would cause more wear and mechanical problems in the HDDs. It would seem that Alienware is sacrificing durability in exchange for prettiness.

    Is this really a good idea? Or is this beast using only SSDs? Inquiring minds want to know...

    1. Steve Knox

      Re: Slanted hard disk bays???

      Those aren't hard disk bays -- they're video cards. There are no hard disks or recognizable bays for them in the shot of this side, and no shot of the other side. So we have no info on how they're mounted.

      1. Mephistro

        Re: Slanted hard disk bays???

        Thanks for your answer. I thought that the structures to the left of the box - just behind the front panel - were HD housings, but I'm not sure of that and I wasn't able to find other images displaying the HDs.

    2. Rabbit80

      Re: Slanted hard disk bays???

      HDDs are mounted behind the cover on the right hand side. They are not slanted.

      Piccies here

      http://www.cnet.com/products/alienware-area-51-2014/

    3. the spectacularly refined chap

      Re: Slanted hard disk bays???

      It would seem that Alienware is sacrificing durability in exchange for prettiness.

      That isn't unusual at all - it's been going on for years. Consider two examples that are endemic in the gaming market - clear side windows and polished chrome heatsinks. Perspex is not effective EMI/RFI screening and it's impossible to imagine a worse finish for something whose whole point is to radiate heat.

    4. Jo 5

      Re: Slanted hard disk bays???

      erm no it doesn't matter anyway. Did you ever play with a gyroscope as a kid?

      Also if you wish take a disk you don't care much for, run it loosely connected to a PC wait for it to spin up when reading it, then lift it up in your hand - it will act just like a gyroscope and will have a will of its own.

      just saying.

  7. DropBear
    Alien

    Heeeeey....

    Wut, no flux capacitor?!? No deal!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Much cooler cases:

    http://goo.gl/HpWxUs

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Good find! Thanks!

  9. DrXym

    Just two design principles?

    I think there are actually three design principles, the first being pure marketing bullshit and that feeds into principles two and three.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sad Gits.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Yeah but Svn is so yesterday.

  11. Christian Berger

    How reliable are those systems?

    I mean those systems are probably cheaper than actual workstations and the operating system could probably easily be replaced by something more suited for professional use (like some Linux or Windows Server instead of Windows 8 or whatever they are shipping this with).

    How reliable are those systems? Is this typical "if it left the shop it's already half broken" quality, or is this something decent?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Have to say...

    If I was still a hand-assisted self-abusing, acne-ridden, bedroom-dwelling, porn-obsessed, blinkered, depressed, egotistical, selfish, smelly and vapid teenager, I'd really want one of these.

    Now I'm all grown up, I have Apple to cater for my needs.

    1. GregC
      Trollface

      Re: Have to say...

      So now that you're a hand-assisted self-abusing, acne-ridden, bedroom-dwelling, porn-obsessed, blinkered, depressed, egotistical, selfish, smelly and vapid grownup, you've switched from lusting after products from one overpriced, overhyped vendor to another?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Have to say...

        People go to extreme lengths of loquacity to declare themselves to not be what they actually perceive themselves to be on the Internet. Film at 11.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Have to say...

      I've just had another look, and actually, it's very cool and I now want one. So add 'shamelessly shallow and fickle' to the previous list, please internet.

  13. <--- whats that ?
    Devil

    unimpressed

    I dont like it. Ill take my case to my grave..... http://store.donanimhaber.com/11/4f/18/114F189C5E7582BE0D4338AD27FA313E.jpg

  14. John H Woods Silver badge

    I think I'd rather have...

    3 2k monitors and double the framerate? Anyone with a 4K monitor (I've never seen one in the flesh) care to disagree, I'm genuinely interested.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I like it...

    Looks like a toilet from the future. It's missing something though...

    The Mac Pro was missing a pedal and a lid, but this seems...different...three seashells?

    1. Kane
      Boffin

      Re: I like it...

      He doesn't know how to use the three seashells!

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Watch the lights go out in your town

    every time the local clans boot up.

  17. ecofeco Silver badge

    Alienware?

    They're still around?

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