There was a time , even if it was just a few years ago , when an Alienware gimmick look like nothing else on the market place . Now , in 2025,Alienware ’s Area-51 desktopis built to compete on ease and customizability , all while take the guise of every other towboat out there . There ’s a welfare to that . It means this additional - big , 85L desktop tower will adapt any and every new constituent you desire to stick in it from now until judgement day . The downside is the Area-51 is an excessively - large , samey brick of a screen background that lose the stigma ’s sense of ego in its quest for the practical .
The Area-51 is made to be your forever display case . There are half a dozen small , though still notable innovations that make it a great case for a first - time PC gamer , from the USB - loaded port selection to QR codes on every component . All this attention to detail help future proof the Area-51 so well that I bid I could tip off my hat to Alienware rather than sit here in the stagnancy of black bile .
Alienware Area-51
An image of a glowing desktop, mouse, keyboard and monitor.© Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
The Area-51 has a lot of small innovations and an interesting cooling mechanism , but it does n’t scream " Alienware " like it should .
Pros
Cons
© Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
The principal thing you notice about Alienware ’s late desktop is that its great . It ’s so big , you need two people to cabbage it onto your desk . It ’s so mundane looking , I might not want it on my desk at all . The agio build quality also comes at a premium price . The big Alienware pre - build up PCstarts at $ 3,750 . Our review model , which include the high - end Intel Core Ultra 9 285 K and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 , will set you back $ 5,500 . Alienware choose for an Intel chipset , though currently the chipmaker ’s eminent - end desktop central processing unit is notably less efficacious for punt scenario , sometimes even missing benchmarks of the fourteenth - gen Intel chips . I would have prefer an AMD choice , but that ’s not available outside corrupt your own disjoined motherboard and installing it yourself . Otherwise , if it was n’t already clear , the rest of the specs are going to utterly blast through benchmarks thanks to that 5090 and 64 GB of DDR5 XMP 6400 MT / s computer storage , though you should know beforehand the board only has two RAM slots .
The Area-51 is fundamentally an upscaledAurora R16 from 2024 . I liked that personal computer , and I remember that rendition feels more evocative than this rendition . The silver coloring does n’t do much to accentuate the relatively few RGB accents lining the front intake mouth or internal element . The Aurora sported hexangular build on the side panel , whereas the Area-51 is far more of a box with every instrument panel line highlighted by its bright coloration . It ’s not ugly , but it ’s not something I imagine looking at next to my desk with the smug satisfaction of a PC gamer with the coolheaded hardware .
The best facet of Alienware ’s new excogitation are centered around its vast body . There ’s a lot of empty space deep down , and that allows for a Brobdingnagian slue bracket that hooks onto the end of your graphics card . Even when it ’s pack a 2.5 - slot Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 , there ’s still an extra five inches in duration you could go before attain the front intake fan . That should leave you plenty of elbow room to set up a next - gen GPU when they inevitably make it pricier and prospicient than the current genesis .
© Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
And while that swappable motherboard is good news , you will also need to purchase a disjoined $ 35 conversion outfit to check that everything ’s go right . That kit include cables to help the novel motherboard interact with the AlienFX table on the side panel . The FX board control the RGB for the organisation , and it ’s a testament to the design that it ’s so well-off to access by simply removing the veracious - manus side panel . Alienware hardware reps told me they choose to not include it in the boxwood since they predict “ only a very small per centum ” of customers will want to do the rising slope like a shot . The company promised it will extend the outfit for “ several years ” after the death of the Area-51 ’s lifespan .
Even though the kit is a silly skip , the PC is still the most easy - upgradable Alienware unit in year . The panels are detached by unscrewing a lock , twist a dial , then hitting a button . Dell even took a page from Framework ’s playbook . Every component , from the graphics card to the top fan bank , has a QR code that takes you to a consecrated pageboy describe how to safely remove and exchange the GPU , SSD , PSU , and RAM . If you have any experience with PC building , all the advice will seem rote . If you do n’t know what you ’re doing , the television are relatively helpful with some basic but reasonable advice for handling constituent .
The most dramatic feature of the redesign Area-51 is the positive pressure environment used for cooling . The CPU use a 360 mm liquid ice chest unit plus fans in the front and bottom to draw in in zephyr , but the system makes use of thermodynamics to push the hot air out the rearward vents . The screen background does n’t have any exhaust system fans . Instead it bank on a number of gaskets and its check panels to keep pressures at the necessary level inside . I would be dwell if I severalize you I was n’t sceptical , but it does indeed work . If you brook behind the rear blowhole , you may feel the raging air move . In my tryout , using Alienware ’s build - in Command Center software monitoring , the PC was n’t get overly steamy .
© Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
Above : An previous version Area-51 Desktop compared to the 2025 Alienware Area-51 .
Just to liken , I attach an old 120 mm sports fan to the rear exhaust to recover if the PC performed any better . I did n’t experience any major difference of opinion with or without the devotee after running PC Mark and expend 15 minutes apiece playing intensive games includingCyberpunk 2077andMarvel ’s Spider - Man 2 . I ’m certain someone might eventually find a way to soup it up with additional fans , but for now I can say is it wreak . Alienware claims this supplies well airflow , allow for well temps which should also help it unravel better . I do n’t have enough system to offer apple to apples comparisons to check those claims . I also would n’t say the Area-51 system is any more silent than its contemporaries . It still will sound like a reverse lightning locomotive when you want to get the most out of your performance .
I do n’t even need to tell you the PC absolutely shoot through benchmarks , though perhaps less dramatically than a PC like theCyberPowerPC Gamer Supremeprebuilt that sported an AMD Ryzen 9800X3D. If you want to know just how much H.P. a RTX 5090 can put out , you’re able to findmy impressions from February . set up in the Alienware tugboat you get the kind of rig that will let you push even the most demanding games to full ray trace and course tracing and still manage to get around 60 FPS at 4 super C , and that ’s before you adjudicate to opt for 4x framegen to push the number to over 200 . The 5090 is an expensive and demanding card , so Alienware stuck a 1500W Platinum - rated ATX12VO PSU , which offers 500W more dynamic headroom than Nvidia suggests for apex carrying into action .
© Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
Alienware pulled out all the stop for this bod , all the path down to the efficient cable direction . This is a primo machine made to twin with other premium hardware , like a 240 Hz QD - OLED monitor . At that distributor point , you ’re expend $ 6,000 on a apparatus , so you well like the looking of it . Back in December , when Dell first show off the novel Alienware desktop , it show us former exemplar of the triangular Area 51 that look like the landing place gear for an extraterrestrial spaceship . The new Area-51 looks like a big screen background . I bonk which one I ’d punch in first .
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© Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
© Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
© Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo
