Alienware Area-51 Gaming PCs Now Shipping With Intel Core-X Power
Dell has gone and abducted Intel's Core-X series processors for its enthusiast Alienware division, affording gamers the opportunity to spec out a beastly system built around some of the fastest and best performing CPUs on the planet. Gamers also now face the choice of running with Intel and one of its Core-X processors based on Skylake-X, or AMD and its top-shelf Threadripper 1950X or 1920 CPUs, all of which are now configurable in an Alienware Area-51.
We spent some hands on time with the Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Edition with a 1950X nestled inside and can attest that it is a blazing fast machine. Pricing for one of those starts at $3,200, or $2,700 if you are willing to roll with a Threadripper 1920 CPU. In comparison, an Alienware Area-51 configured around an Intel Core-X series processor starts at bit cheaper at $1,900 currently, albeit the baselines specs are lower as well.
Alienware Area-51 setups with Core-X inside all sport an Intel X299-chipset motherboard (socket R4 with 2066 pins) with an unlocked BIOS for overclocking. Users can choose between an Intel Core i7-7800X (6-core), Core i7-7820X (8-core), or Core i9-7900X (10-core). Sometime later Dell will add the option to configure an Alenware Area-51 with an Intel Core i9-7920X with 12 physical cores and 24 threads—woof!
Buyers have plenty of graphics card options to build around from both AMD and NVIDIA, though nothing based on Vega yet. On the AMD side, there are second generation Polaris parts to choose from, including Radeon RX 560, 570, and 580. And on the other side of the fence, NVIDIA's Pascal architecture is represented with GPU options ranging from a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti up to a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.
Storage options are fairly fleshed out as well and include Intel Optane Memory configurations. Here is a look at the available storage schemes:
Alienware Area-51 configurations with Core-X inside are available now.
We spent some hands on time with the Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Edition with a 1950X nestled inside and can attest that it is a blazing fast machine. Pricing for one of those starts at $3,200, or $2,700 if you are willing to roll with a Threadripper 1920 CPU. In comparison, an Alienware Area-51 configured around an Intel Core-X series processor starts at bit cheaper at $1,900 currently, albeit the baselines specs are lower as well.
Alienware Area-51 setups with Core-X inside all sport an Intel X299-chipset motherboard (socket R4 with 2066 pins) with an unlocked BIOS for overclocking. Users can choose between an Intel Core i7-7800X (6-core), Core i7-7820X (8-core), or Core i9-7900X (10-core). Sometime later Dell will add the option to configure an Alenware Area-51 with an Intel Core i9-7920X with 12 physical cores and 24 threads—woof!
Buyers have plenty of graphics card options to build around from both AMD and NVIDIA, though nothing based on Vega yet. On the AMD side, there are second generation Polaris parts to choose from, including Radeon RX 560, 570, and 580. And on the other side of the fence, NVIDIA's Pascal architecture is represented with GPU options ranging from a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti up to a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.
Storage options are fairly fleshed out as well and include Intel Optane Memory configurations. Here is a look at the available storage schemes:
- 128GB M.2 PCIe SSD + 2TB (7,200 RPM) HDD
- 256GB M.2 PCIe SSD + 2TB (7,200 RPM) HDD
- 512GB M.2 PCIe SSD + 2TB (7,200 RPM) HDD
- 1TB M.2 PCIe SSD + 2TB (7,200 RPM) HDD
- 16GB Intel Optane Memory + 1TB HDD
- 32GB Intel Optane Memory + 1TB HDD
- 32GB Intel Optane Memory + 2TB HDD
Alienware Area-51 configurations with Core-X inside are available now.
