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 …
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!!
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.
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...
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.
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.
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?
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