This is what is looks like when brands actually listen to consumer feedback!

Summary

In his latest video, JayzTwoCents takes an in-depth look at Alienware's new 2025 Area 51 PC. An ardent fan of Alienware since 2004, Jay appreciates the company's shift back to its roots, focusing on consumer feedback. Sponsoring this review, Alienware's design allows for independent opinions, leading to honest insights. The Area 51 showcases a chunky design with an emphasis on fully positive pressure, improved ventilation, and a focus on standardization over proprietary designs. With an enthusiastic exploration, Jay highlights the balance between tradition and modern expectations in Alienware's approach.

Highlights

• Alienware returns to its gaming roots with the new Area 51 PC, emphasizing consumer feedback. 🕹️
• The design features fully positive pressure for maximum cooling efficiency. ❄️
• Standard components replace proprietary designs, allowing easy upgrades and part swaps. 🔄
• JayzTwoCents demonstrates the robust build quality, including the impressive GPU anti-sag bracket. 💪
• Interactive QR code manuals offer easy access to system info and maintenance tips. 📖

Key Takeaways

• Alienware's new Area 51 PC listens to consumer feedback by improving design and functionality. 😎
• JayzTwoCents appreciates Alienware's return to its roots, focusing on gaming excellence. 🎮
• The 2025 Area 51 showcases a full positive pressure design for improved cooling. ❄️
• Standardized components allow for future upgrades, enhancing user flexibility. 🔧
• Alienware's QR code manuals are a handy tool for users, especially newbies. 📱

Overview

JayzTwoCents is back with another tech review, diving into the 2025 release of the Alienware Area 51. As a long-time fan, Jay is thrilled by Alienware’s pivot towards integrating consumer feedback— a move that has revitalized their flagship gaming PC. Armed with a design that's both hefty and accommodating, the Area 51 promises not just performance, but an unprecedented ease in upgrades and maintenance.

In his video, Jay, independently sharing his thoughts thanks to Alienware’s hands-off sponsorship, explores the nuances of this new gaming powerhouse. The Area 51 is all about embracing change with its fully positive pressure design that ensures exceptional cooling. However, it's not all roses as Jay points out— the lack of rubber on the feet can make the tower slide a bit more than desirable.

With a narrative that combines technical critiques and admiration, JayzTwoCents paints a compelling picture of the Alienware Area 51’s potential. Its standardized components mean that when the time comes, users can easily upgrade their PCs without the usual constraints. Added to that, the accessible QR code manuals are a win for newcomers needing a little extra guidance.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Sponsorship Disclosure The speaker shares a personal anecdote about their first SI computer purchase in 2004, which was an Alienware Area 51. The chapter transitions into a discussion about the 2025 version of the same model, highlighting interesting changes attributed to customer feedback. The speaker expresses excitement about these developments and acknowledges Alienware.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Area 51 Design Overview The chapter provides an overview of the Area 51 PC design, highlighting what sets it apart from previous Alienware towers. It emphasizes that the Area 51 feels like an evolution, while also reclaiming elements that Alienware was initially renowned for. Historically, the Area 51 series has been a flagship product for gamers, though some of its appeal seemed to have diminished over time.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Opening the Chassis The chapter 'Opening the Chassis' begins with a disclaimer about receiving an Alienware system for review while maintaining independent opinions. The reviewer emphasizes that not all aspects will be positive. The chapter starts with an external tour of the 80 L chassis, which was showcased at CES 2025. It's noted as a substantial and hefty piece of equipment but is easy to slide across a desk.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Internal Features and Wiring The chapter discusses the internal features and wiring of a device, highlighting some areas for improvement. Initially, it points out the lack of rubber on the bottom of the feet, which makes the device heavier and prone to sliding on surfaces. The chapter suggests that adding rubber could prevent this issue.
• 05:00 - 07:00: Cooling System and Build Specifics The chapter discusses the cooling system and build specifics of a system featuring a GPU-fed ventilation through the bottom of the chassis, with notable ventilation areas. A 360mm radiator at the top pulls air down, ensuring positive pressure. The absence of exhaust fans is highlighted, with the back of the system being fully open. Additionally, a 632 screw used for shipping purposes is mentioned.
• 07:00 - 09:00: Motherboard and Power Supply Discussion The chapter discusses the mechanism of securing and removing the GPU from the motherboard of a computer. It highlights the necessity of unscrewing a component at the back to unlock certain buttons that enable the side panels of the computer to be opened. The process is described as somewhat secure, ensuring that parts won't fall out easily. The chapter concludes with a reference to the thickness of the side panel and gaining access to the interior components.
• 09:00 - 12:00: Graphics Card Details This chapter, titled 'Graphics Card Details,' describes the robust structure and features of a particular graphics card, highlighting its strong anti-sag and support bracket. The chapter notes the minimalistic and clean wiring design, offering easy access to all components by opening the back side of the card. Overall, the focus is on the card's build quality and practical design to ensure secure transit and efficient setup.
• 12:00 - 15:00: Connection Adapters and Modular Design The chapter discusses the integration of connection adapters in modular design, specifically focusing on a hub that supports additional fan control. This hub integrates with the Alienware Command Center for managing fan and pump speeds, and features temperature monitoring by zones, enabling users to view temperatures in different areas of the case. This offers a comprehensive and convenient approach to managing and optimizing cooling systems within a modular setup.
• 15:00 - 17:00: Drive Bays and Storage The chapter discusses the organization and management of cables in drive bays and storage systems. It highlights the convenience of using retentive tabs instead of zip ties for cable management, ensuring that wires are secure without being permanently fastened. This method simplifies accessing the cables, minimizing the need to cut zip ties. Moreover, the cable lengths are specifically tailored to the chassis, avoiding excessive cable clutter.
• 17:00 - 18:00: System Manuals and QR Codes The chapter discusses the system manuals and the integration of QR codes used for system setup. It highlights the ease of expanding storage with pre-wired drive bays, specifically noting the availability of two 2.5-inch drive bays and a drive sled for a 3.5-inch drive. This setup simplifies the process by eliminating the need for additional wiring, promoting cleaner and more efficient installation.
• 18:00 - 20:00: Air Filtration System The chapter discusses the storage features of the Air Filtration System, including the accommodation for large storage drives such as 10 TB or 20 TB spinner drives. It mentions the convenience of pre-installed wiring for easy expansion without the need for additional wiring. The narrative takes a tour around the system and highlights the presence of QR codes strategically placed, which serve as manuals for the system.
• 20:00 - 27:00: Thermal Design and Testing The chapter 'Thermal Design and Testing' discusses various components of a system, including the power supply and graphics processor, which is located on a bracket. It also covers basic maintenance aspects like filters. The narrator mentions scanning a QR code to gather more information, highlighting the importance of understanding all elements of thermal design and testing.
• 27:00 - 44:00: Graphics and Gaming Performance Testing This chapter discusses the process of maintaining fan filters specifically for an Alienware Area 51. It provides a step-by-step guide on how to remove and clean the fan filters, including identifying and dealing with screws marked with air symbols. The content focuses on practical demonstrations and specific actions to ensure proper air filtration management for optimal graphics and gaming performance.
• 44:00 - 50:00: Conclusion and Value Discussion The chapter discusses the unique design and functionality of Alienware computers. One point of interest is the intake, which must be filtered. It is noted that the intake function is not sideways, which requires the computer to be pulled away from the wall. Additionally, the chapter notes a shift in Alienware's design approach toward more standardized components, which marks a departure from their previous norms.

This is what is looks like when brands actually listen to consumer feedback! Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 So, fun fact, something you may not know about me, going back to about 2004, the very first like SI computer I ever owned or ever bought was actually an Alienware Area 51. So, that's why right now we're going to take a look at their 2025 version of the Area 51 and what's kind of different and changed. I'm actually kind of excited about this because for the first time in a long time, I feel like there's been a lot of changes when it comes to Alienware that are directly due to customer feedback. So, thanks to Alienware for
• 00:30 - 01:00 sending us Area 51 PC to take a look at today and sponsoring this video. Okay, so we're going to be doing a few things with the uh tower today. We're going to be taking a look at like the design, what makes it different than previous towers from Alien uh wear in the past, what makes Area 51 kind of a real evolution. um and almost feels like getting back to some of the roots that Alienware was sort of known for. Um the Alien the Area 51 was always like the one of their top tier product offerings for gamers and such. And I feel like over time a lot of that was lost and
• 01:00 - 01:30 we've kind of started getting our way back to that right now. Um another thing that's important to note is yes, Alienware did send us the system to take a look at but they do not control the messaging. I want that to be very very clear. This is a completely independent opinions of mine and uh not everything's positive and I have some things to talk about with that. But let's start with a tour of the outside. This is an 80 L chassis and they showed this off at uh CES 2025. It is a chunky boy. So um you might notice it slides kind of easy on the desk. That's one thing I kind of
• 01:30 - 02:00 wish they had, which they don't, is on the bottom of the feet. Oh boy, it's heavier than I thought. There should be rubber. There's no rubber. It's just plastic. So, um, first kind of point I want to make, I do wish they'd put some rubber on the bottom. That way they don't slide all over the desk. It is a big chunky boy. Also, too, um, they are really kind of talking about their full positive pressure design. So, we have two 180 mm intake fans on the front, two 140 mm intake fans on the uh, bottom
• 02:00 - 02:30 feeding the GPU coming in through the bottom of the chassis. I think you saw as I tipped it, too. There's a lot of ventilation in the bottom right here that that air is coming up through. I don't know why I keep doing this to myself. And then we have a 360 millimeter radiator at the top uh pulling air down. So, this is a full positive pressure. There is absolutely no fans anywhere assisting the exhaust. As you can see, it is fully open in the back. For shipping purposes, there is a screw right here on the back. It's just a 632 screw, the same kind you'd use to
• 02:30 - 03:00 like hold down a GPU. Once you take that out, it is now unlocked, meaning uh this button can turn. So, you can't push these buttons in right here, which is what you use to open the side panels, unless this is turned, but you can't turn that until you take the screw out. So, this button right here, pop side panel is somewhat retentive, so it's not going to just fall out on you. So, then you can pick it up. Oh, it's a chunky boy, too. Very thick. And now you can access the
• 03:00 - 03:30 insides. First thing you might notice too is this probably the beefiest I've ever seen of a graphics card anti-ag and support bracket. It's not just an anti-ag. It's a full support bracket that also keeps the GPU secure during transit. Um, if we go ahead and open the back side right here, this will give us access to everything in terms of the wiring. And as you can see, very minimalistic and very clean. There's one thing I like about this. Although you don't need it
• 03:30 - 04:00 because they're already fully populated with fans, we do have access to 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 eight more fans that we could control through this hub. Now, this hub does tie in to the Alienware Command Center, which is how you control your fan speeds and your pump speeds and and all of that. And they do have temperature monitoring by zone, so you can actually see temperatures of different zones of the case, uh, which is just uh kind of a nice thing to have and and to see. But as you can see, it's fully wired in, fully integrated.
• 04:00 - 04:30 Nothing to have to really change um or you don't have to worry about wires flopping around. It's all nice and secure in these retentive like tabs right here. They're not even zip tied down. They're literally just in these plastic tabs that do nothing but hold the cables in place. So, that's nice. You don't have to sit there and kind of start cutting a whole bunch of zip ties if you need to get into it. But the cool thing is because of the fact that this is all built specific for this chassis, all the cable links are only as long as they need to be. You don't have tons and tons of coils of cables hidden
• 04:30 - 05:00 somewhere. They literally are cut to length so that they're nice and clean when they go into the system. You'll notice two 2 and 1/2 bay uh 2 and 1/2 in drive bays right here that are pre-wired with SATA plug uh and SATA power. The second one is actually over here just kind of tucked away, but you could expand the storage with 2 and 12 in drives if you wanted. So, they're pre-wired, which is nice. You don't have to worry about wiring any of that stuff in. If we take a look at the bottom, we do have a drive sled right here for a single 3 and 1/2 in drive. So, if you're
• 05:00 - 05:30 running like a big, you know, storage like a 10 TB or 20 TB spinner drive or something for mass storage, uh, that goes right there in the bottom. And the wiring for that is actually right here. and it is clipped in there. So, there are the wires for that drive right here. So, you don't have to wire anything up if you want to do any additional expansion for this. It's already all right here. Uh, now finishing our tour around the front right here. We'll talk about the insides here in a second, but you might notice these QR codes that are kind of strategically placed around the system. Those are actually the manuals
• 05:30 - 06:00 for the system. So, like as you can see, this one here would tell us about the power supply. I guess this one would probably be a general Area 51 manual. Um, over here we have the graphics processor, which is actually on the bracket. And then over here we have the basic maintenance filters. And interestingly enough, I'm going to actually use that because I know we have a filter right here in the front, which is magnetic. But since everything on here is intake, I would have to assume there's potentially another filter somewhere. So, I'm going to scan that QR code real quick and I'm going to see
• 06:00 - 06:30 where that actually brings us cuz now I'm kind of curious. Maintaining a fan filter. In this video, we show you how to maintain the fan filters in your Alienware Area 51. And pull the filter out. Oh, it's in the back. Okay. All right. So, we already got the one off the front. And I did see and look that little screw right there, which you just mentioned actually has a little like air whoosh symbol above it. So, obviously that is going to be for the rear filter. Let's
• 06:30 - 07:00 see. The only downside is that them part is that comes out backwards. So, you got to pull it away from the wall. It would have been neat if it goes sideways, but Okay. Well, there we go. Since it's it's an intake, it's important to have this filtered. Okay. Let's talk about the insides. This is where Alienware has really sort of deviated from some of their norm. And that being the fact that you might have noticed, it's fairly standardized in terms of the way that the components fit. Because in the past with the Alienware, it's always been
• 07:00 - 07:30 like a bespoke motherboard that had a very weird layout, nonupgradeable in the sense that you couldn't take it out and just put in like a standard size component. So, we have, as you can see right here by the screw pattern on the back, we have a standard size power supply. Although it is a ATX 12V uh VO, which means it's not a standard 24 pin or an EPS, it actually means it's a 12vt 12volt only um type of power supply. So the downside here, and this is one of the negatives I'm going to give it, if
• 07:30 - 08:00 you want to change the the motherboard and you don't find another 12volt VO motherboard, then you have to change the power supply with it. Now, this is a 1500 W platinum rated power supply. You might be asking yourself, well then why the heck don't they just switch that with a uh like an adapter cable or something so you can adapt it to a 24 pin? Well, that's cuz a 24 pin contains ground. It contains 12vt. It contains 5.5 volt and 3vt. So this one does not. So to change out the motherboard, you'd
• 08:00 - 08:30 have to change the power supply with it. But you can, which is going to be at least the other half of the positive on that aspect that you can change it with standard equipment in the future. Now, that would be like way in the future cuz right now this is a Core Ultra 9285K. It's an RTX 5080 Dell version. So, this is actually a Dell skew. It's not made by a different manufacturer. This is their own like design of a graphics card. We'll take it out and look at it in a second. Um, but because of the fact that it has a standard Intel
• 08:30 - 09:00 mount for like the CPU, it has the 360 millimeter AIO, you could easily take out this motherboard, put in a new one that's whatever future-f facing technology that might be an upgrade for this and make it all work. I don't know about you, I've personally never seen an ATX 12VO motherboard like in retail. I've only seen it with like Dell and and other like workstations and stuff like that. You tend tend to find that more in workstations. But anyway, moving on. Let's talk about the graphics card right now because I feel like I could pick this whole case up by this because it is
• 09:00 - 09:30 probably the beefiest solution I have ever seen for a graphics card anti-ag. So, as you can see right here, it is using a 12volt high power plug. So, there is that. I do like that it has those markings on the top and on the bottom. By markings, I mean like that stripe. That way, you can tell if it started to back out at all. So, that's kind of a nice thing. But to get the graphics card out, it's kind of interesting. Let's just say we've decided, oh, we're done with a 5080. We want a 6090 or whatever might be coming out in the future. You can take out I'll
• 09:30 - 10:00 leave one screw in there. You loosen this screw right here in the back. Oops. There we go. That's captive so it's not going to pop out. You can see it's spring-loaded. Okay. Then you can loosen up this one. Support the graphics card. Flip down the little tab. Scoop this back. Okay. Not quite so violently. And there's the graphics card. So, this is our uh RTX 5080. Take our giant Astro. Wow, that is okay. That That is barely
• 10:00 - 10:30 gonna fit in there. That actually looks like it was meant to be in there, huh? Now, the only downside about this is the bracket that's on here is actually not like a step. Oh, there's actually there's actually a peel on there. Okay, sure. But yeah, this bracket is not actually standard size. Like, so yeah, there is the server mount stuff on the back of of the graphics cards, but
• 10:30 - 11:00 it doesn't look like it's going to screw onto that. So, let me take this back out and see. But check it out. I mean, we're able to switch the graphics card. That's not anything too exciting to write home about cuz I mean, you could change your graphics cards in the past, but they're not using any sort of bespoke power cable or anything. They're using the same, you know, 12vt high power that we've been seeing for the last several generations of Nvidia cards. So, this is the Dell the Dell 5080. Um, they also have 5090s and other versions as well.
• 11:00 - 11:30 This is just the way that this one was spec. Um, you can see right here the bracket in the back. So, it has these two like rail uh pieces, if you will, that fit into these grooves right here. So, one thing you need to keep in mind is that um this bracket right here doesn't transfer over to other graphics cards. It does it's not like the standard mount for like how all graphics cards have those screws in the back. If you've ever wondered what those are for, those are for server rack mounts. So, those are not standard. And I did try to mount it
• 11:30 - 12:00 with another card in there, but it doesn't line up uh perfectly. So, just kind of worth pointing that out. But anyway, if you were to upgrade this card in the future, um if you were to, I guess, get a Dell version, then it would just simply go right in. All right, so about some of the connections on here, too, cuz this is where I talked about if you wanted to change out the motherboard with a non Alienware motherboard, you're going to need some adapters. So, this kit right here uh is actually $34.99, but what it gives you is all of the provisions to convert all of the chassis
• 12:00 - 12:30 cables, which are somewhat custom to standard headers so that you can use them on a non-alienware motherboard. So, let's just take a look at these. Okay, so these are some standoff screws of some sort. This right here is the power button switch. So, as you can see, the button on here is pretty
• 12:30 - 13:00 non-standard cuz if you look down here, you can see this is more or less harnessed. Like the SATAS are normal. Uh the HD audio and the USB stuff normal, but like the front panel connector type stuff is not standard. They're just like these big giant harnesses. So, this converts the power button to your standard two pin uh push button and power LED. So, you can use this chassis with a standard motherboard. This guy right here allows you to be able to still feed uh the different RPM. See,
• 13:00 - 13:30 this is our fan power headers right here. Fan power 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16. So, these are basically feeding each of these fans with their power signal. And then this allows you to be able to still use this hub, but you can convert the actual fans right here. Uh, their inputs to this guy, which I think I might have just turned it upside down. Yep. This is now how you could convert this hub into being used Whoops. Upside down again. With a standard motherboard and not have to change up this hub is really nice. Like
• 13:30 - 14:00 I would not want to lose that hub with this chassis. So, this comes with that. And then the last but not least, the USB 3.0 adapter. the standard USB 3.0 and this USB 3.0 might look very similar. However, they are not. You can see this one has this kind of a double metal tab that you can push down right there. The standard USB 3.0, as you can see, normally just has this little plastic nub. So, what this does, this
• 14:00 - 14:30 converts that 90° to a standard USB 3.0. So, you'd be able to still attach it to your motherboard. Can we just standardize something like that? I like this retention system better, too, by the way. Okay, so some other things to mention here. I like It's interesting how they're using an M uh SATA wireless right there. So, it's not actually built into the motherboard. It's actually socketed on. Anyway, our main drive is up here, the M.2 uh solid state drive right there. And there's a QR code. You can learn more about it. We have room for two more drives down here if we want to expand. Um, you might notice there's
• 14:30 - 15:00 only two RAM sticks in here, and there's only two slots. And the reason why Alienware has chosen that is just simply due to speed and compatibility. You can check any QVL on any motherboard that exists today and you'll find that the only way you can get full speed, whether it be Expo or XMPP, is to be running dual sticks instead of quad sticks. Quad sticks are still dual channel. It's just two dims per channel. Once you populate a CPU, whether it be AMD or Intel, with four of them, you are not guaranteed to
• 15:00 - 15:30 get the XMP or Expo profiles. In fact, they have to slow down quite a bit usually to be able to run at those speeds. And if you don't believe me, check the QVL for your motherboard. You'd see of a massive list, there might only be five or less kits that actually will run with four sticks at their advertised speed. Almost everything else says two sticks only. So, Alienware being the uh OG kind of overclocking type of enthusiast that they are are sticking to two dims for ultimate compatibility regarding CPU and XMPP/ Expo overclocking profiles. Oh, one other
• 15:30 - 16:00 thing I wanted to mention too, Phil already pointed out. We're not entirely sure how to take the front piece off right here. It obviously does come off, but down inside here, although we have 180 mm fans pre-installed, there are provisions for 140s and 120s. So, if you ever wanted to change these fans or potentially do a custom water loop in here, look, you have the depth right here to be able to do it, you could absolutely take these fans out and convert them to a standard size. I'm just not entirely sure where you do
• 16:00 - 16:30 that, like how you get this front cover off, but that's not important for today's video. What is important now is firing this thing up and seeing how the thermals are and then uh seeing basically is it all landing where it's expected to land based on its uh components that are in here. Like is it throttling in any way? Is it overheating? Let's take a look. Uh okay, so I got to put the graphics card back in obviously cuz we have to do some performance testing on this. But I absolutely love this bracket. I also love that the wire is going through it. Um, but check out how easy it is to
• 16:30 - 17:00 actually reinstall it. Push that out of the way. Slot that in on our motherboard. Put in our two screws, but loosely, not full tight yet. One and two. Slide this guy over. And I'll show you the little pieces that stick out. Slot right up against the card. Once you do that, give this screw right here a snug. Boom. Now that graphics card is
• 17:00 - 17:30 going nowhere. And we can go ahead and tighten these up. Now it is fully structural with the case. And that's why I was saying I feel like I could almost pick up this case. We'll try it with this graphics card, though. And then we just plug this guy back in. Boom. There we go. All right. Let's do some temperature and performance testing. So, one of the old school uh things that they never really got rid of is the fact that the alien head is always the power button. So, I wanted to check out the BIOS, which looks really neat. Uh it's in 4K, is it?
• 17:30 - 18:00 No, it says neighbor is 4K, but um it's 120 Hz. And look, mouse control, but unfortunately, we only get left and right and not up and down. So, that's why I'm laughing. Okay, whatever. We still we still have a cursor here. I mean, uh rebar off. Oh, good catch. Yeah, rebar should indeed be on. When enabled, allows CPUs to adjust flex ratio and voltage in turbo mode environment can be modified for the sake of this video. I should not mess with this, but I I'm happy to see that it's unlocked and available. I'm
• 18:00 - 18:30 just not happy to see that bar was disabled. Okay, so this piece of paper taped onto the back exhaust right here just so that we can visualize how much actual positive pressure is in there. Don't forget these fans are all intakes. There is no exhaust fan whatsoever. They are highly counting on the ventilation on the back to be enough to allow all the intake fans to be able to push it out. Remember, we got 280s, 2140s, and 3120s all acting as intakes. So, I'm going to go to the Alienware command center here where we can kind of play with some of the fan controls. I mean, there's RGB lighting stuff in there. Um,
• 18:30 - 19:00 there's a whole tour you could take if you want. Alien FX, that's where we can actually change the lighting and stuff. So, any of the Alienware devices that it recognizes, like the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and all that, all have lighting that can sync. Um, or we can just choose devices that we want. And then we can change the different types of, you know, lightings, stuff, but I like to leave it on just the static blue. I love the Alienware tealy blue color. So, we'll just stick with that. You might be looking at this going, "Big deal, Jay. They're freaking fans." Well, it's actually a pretty big
• 19:00 - 19:30 deal cuz I don't think I've ever seen fans like standing up that are this. They're pretty loud when you go to 100% which you absolutely don't need. But don't forget that's all positive pressure right there. There is absolutely no exhaust fan making that do that. It is pretty loud when you go to 100%. But remember that's unnecessary and that's what the fan filter's on. Oh my
• 19:30 - 20:00 god. Can you hear it? How about now? I am in a tornado. That is crazy. Finally fell off right there. Totally unnecessary and in normal like usage. It will absolutely positively never ever sound like that. But if you're like, "Screw your roommates. I want the best thermals I could possibly have." Well, then you just go in there
• 20:00 - 20:30 and max out all of the uh offsets. But I'm going to go ahead and go back to the balanced preset. because it is actually still pretty ridiculous at what it's capable of of doing temperature- wise on the balance preset. And one of the reasons why it's actually such high positive pressure coming out the back is there's actually gaskets uh built in around this chassis right here. They're soft kind of kind of a rubbery gasket and it's designed to seal off the side panels as much as
• 20:30 - 21:00 possible, the glass side and the back side so that the air truly is forced out of the rear exhaust. Okay, so I did my temperature testing. Let's go ahead and start with the CPU. So, this was Cinebench R23 ran for 15 minutes. Uh the fan profile was obviously set to balanced like I already showed you. Uh so, we have a couple things here. You can see our uh CPU package temp and then our core average temps. So, our CPU package temp uh only a few times really kind of spiked above 80. It stayed below 80 uh pretty much through the entire run. And then you can see our core
• 21:00 - 21:30 temperatures actually stayed uh under 75 the entire time. Now, these crazy dips like this, this is every time the test restarts. Uh, so when the test restarts, it it kind of goes offload and back on load for a minute. So, because of the way Cinebench R23 works, it allows us to actually maintain basically the full boost clock uh for the entire test. So, as you can see right here, the temperatures are pretty solid. They equalized uh right about the 400 second mark on the bottom there is where the temperature start stopped climbing, but as you can see, they really didn't climb to begin with. Uh, the fans did ramp up
• 21:30 - 22:00 a little bit even though it's in the balance profile, but still not enough to be intrusive at all into, you know, hearing anything in the room. Like, it wasn't super loud. It wasn't like you heard when we had the fans set to 100 just for fun. Um, but the core temperatures, as you can see, they stayed below 75 C. Anywhere between 70 to 75 C. Uh, that's the actual core temp. So, as you can see, there's no throttling whatsoever. There was plenty of cooling to make sure it stays nice and cool. Um, I have no idea what the actual turbo timer set uh setting is in
• 22:00 - 22:30 this. The BIOS was kind of hard to navigate as you saw the mouse was not working right. Um, but anyway, this is out of the box settings and it all performed as we expected. We were seeing the frequencies as you already saw go to 54 all core on the PC cores and 46 on the E cores. So, we're getting full performance out of that. Now, moving on to GPU here. This is with Firm Mark I running for 15 minutes, which is a very difficult test to run. It's designed to really saturate the GPU full of heat. Um, and as such, uh, we tested two different things here. So, as you may recall, 50 series graphics cards, they
• 22:30 - 23:00 have removed the hotspot temperature. So, we can't show you hot spot, but we can show you edge temp, which is the pink line, uh, hovering right around 71 12 C for the entire test. As you can see, it equalized very quickly and then just stayed solid whatsoever. Uh, as the GPU got warmer, there's clearly more than enough air flow in the chassis to keep that temperature from climbing. It is very, very steady. very very solid. The light blue line, as you can see here, is the GPU uh memory junction temperature. It climbed up to 72C and
• 23:00 - 23:30 then stayed right there. It never went any higher than that, which is pretty solid. So, that means obviously this cooler has active cooling touching the the memory, which is important because as you know with the Founders Edition uh cards, we found that some of the memory was warmer than we would wanted it to be. So, obviously the uh Alienware version of the graphics cards have active cooling on the memory, which is important. So once again, because of these temperatures being so good, it just above 70C, uh, tells us that there is plenty of active chassis cooling in
• 23:30 - 24:00 there to handle the heat being displaced into the chassis and then all that positive pressure is just pushing it right out the back. Now, those are just synthetic benchmarks. We need to see what actual gaming kind of looks like here. So, we're running Cyberpunk 2077 because it's a uh high-end title to run. We are running 4K right now. Uh, GPU is at 65, 63. This is so this is GPU temp. This is GPU usage. This is GPU frequency and GPU power right there. And then memory. Uh that says quote unquote memory used. It's actually really memory requested. Um just want to say that's
• 24:00 - 24:30 not like the actual memory used. It's kind of confusing in that aspect. But this is what we currently have going right now settings wise. So we're getting just in the middle of night city, right? Just super smooth. By the way, I didn't point out I absolutely love this 32-in Q or OLED monitor. It is absolutely insane. I have the ultra wide version on my desk, but I really like the 32 in 16x9. Um, yeah, Phil actually really likes it, too. He was like, "Hey, are we going to be using that after we're done?" So, anyway, just wanted to point out now looking at it in a game
• 24:30 - 25:00 how beautiful it is. Uh, it is running DLSS right now in performance mode. I'm going to go up to quality just to see cuz DLSS has improved so much. Um, so we're still at 163 FPS. So, it is a 240 Hz panel. And again, we are in 4K as I showed. Uh, why is frame gen on? Let's try that. That's a little more like it for a 580, but still not bad. So, with frame gen on, I noticed a little bit of anti- lag or input lag.
• 25:00 - 25:30 Not terrible, though. Uh, 75 fps right now with DLSS on. And I think I should also note we are in ray tracing ultra. So I am asking a lot of this GPU right now because we have ray trace reflections, ray trace sun shadows, ray trace local shadows, ultra for ray trace lighting. We are not path tracing because that is also pretty nuts on the amount of uh uh lighting and such that it has to actually map or do math for. So let's do this then. I'm going to go ahead and go actually I guess I can go
• 25:30 - 26:00 performance. So the transformer model DLSS4 performance looks as good as the old quality did. So, now you can actually get some FPS back by going to quality. Look, now we're Well, I guess I didn't gain anything. Let's see. Ultra performance. Sure. There we go. So, we're at 107 FPS. Damn, that looks really good, though. It really does. Well, let's see what native resolution would look like here, shall
• 26:00 - 26:30 we? With rateracing ultra. Okay. So, clearly very cinematic, but that's raw 4K ultra on ray tracing. So, if I were to let's just go ray tracing low DLSS off. That's just rateraced shadows. That's it. That's back up to 70. It's that's how quiet that system is. I just want to point out our AC is way louder than this system right here. So, I'm go back to
• 26:30 - 27:00 rateracing ultra. I'm going to go DLSS super resolution. Sure. Transformer model. We'll do it on. We'll go performance mode. And you know what? Sure. We'll just do frame gen 2x. Standard frame gen 132 fps. Damn, that's freakishly smooth. The input frame rate is pretty high, so I'm not really noticing much like input lag to be honest. Like for a single player game like this, I would have no problem playing it. But guess what? It's
• 27:00 - 27:30 performing exactly as a 5080 should. The frequency is going to where it should. The FPS or the wattage is actually lower than its actual 360 watts, but that's because of the fact that the GPU, as you can see, is not being 100% loaded. I mean, there's other factors to keep a GPU from going as full speed or not. Okay. Uh the Alienware Area 51, uh it I'm really happy to see that they are using standard mounts for stuff. Like for instance, the motherboard is standard ATX screw hole patterns. You can change a mother motherboard in the future if you ever wanted to upgrade the
• 27:30 - 28:00 system. The amount of ventilation like the opening of the hex like the honeycomb absolutely huge. So it's plenty of air flow. Don't forget this is air coming in through the top uh air coming in through the bottom and obviously air coming in through the front. So all of the heat that I'm feeling right now, which is very warm actually. It's very toasty. Um is because of positive pressure. And the fans are still running very slow. If you recall how fast and how loud the fans were at 100%. Completely unnecessary. Um, but could do it. So, depending on
• 28:00 - 28:30 the environment that you live in, it could be really hot. Maybe you don't have air conditioning in your gaming room or wherever your computer may be. So, you can just make up for it with volume. Um, but it's also important to note that the reason why they're using 180 mm fans in the front is just because of CFM. The big fans move a ton of CFM. And not only that, these can run very high RPM as well. So you get that crazy exponential curve of of fan blade surface area and RPM, giving you a crazy amount of CFM to go along with it. I'm
• 28:30 - 29:00 not sure exactly what the fans are in the top right here. They're not RGB, I don't think, because you can't see them. So why would you, right? Cuz they're in between the top of the case and the radiator. So they're sandwiched in between there. So they are technically pushing air down through but pulling air in through the vent on the top right there. I also kind of like the fact that the side panel stays um if you push the button. Not that you not not that you would need to, but it's you're like I need extra vent. Not that you ever would do that.
• 29:00 - 29:30 It's just I don't know. That's kind of fun to do. But I never would have considered doing a build to be honest in pure positive pressure. Uh I've always used a helper fan in some way. But the literature is saying that their thermal designers and their engineers that have done a lot of testing regarding having an exhaust fan here versus not having an exhaust fan here here versus those being intakes and these being exhaust. Apparently, they have tested all of these different scenarios and they found that the pure positive pressure in this chassis and the way that it's laid out
• 29:30 - 30:00 is actually the better option uh for all of the possible configurations they could have done with fans. So, I don't necessarily have a way to test that myself, but I'm going to have to kind of take their word for it because the temperatures, as we've already showed in the charts and right now during live gaming, are definitely speaking for themselves. In fact, they kind of have me maybe rethinking the way I do some of the fans in the future. Some of the things, the critiques I have that I would like to see, to be honest, rubber feet on the bottom. Like, you've got a the big rubber or the big plastic feet that go all the way from side to side on it make it very stable, so it's not very
• 30:00 - 30:30 tippy. But as you can see, I can slide it on the desk pretty easy because there's no friction. So, I would like to see some rubber added to the bottom of the feet. That way, they don't slide around so much. I think it would be kind of nice if they if we were able to get some sort of bracket that would allow you to be able to mount the uh if you change a graphics card in the future. That's realistically that's probably the thing someone would change in this soonest would be the graphics card in 2 or 3 years or whatever. And it would be nice to be able to retain that uh bracket that holds them the graphics
• 30:30 - 31:00 card in place. It's a very solid mount. As I showed though, they are not a standard bolt pattern for the server mount screws that are on the back of graphics cards, rendering it kind of useless. You can't move it over to another graphics card. You could still get away with putting a graphics card in here and not using that bracket. That bracket really comes in handy for shipping and moving it around a lot. This is not exactly a LAN rig at 80 L. Uh, but if it's just sitting there on your desk, I don't think I would have too much of a problem letting it uh, just sit there because the chassis is rigid enough to where you're not going
• 31:00 - 31:30 to see flexing and bowing as long as your graphics card is built rigid enough with the cooler tied into the bracket so it doesn't sag that way. QR code system built in there is awesome because I think a lot of Alienware's customers are probably firsttime PC buyers or first-time gamers. They are just like, I've heard of Alienware. They've been around since 1998. Like I said at the start of this video, my first SI system I ever owned was actually an Alienware, and that predates the Dell acquisition. That's how far back it goes. Uh, it's it's nice to see this feels much more like Alienware's roots than kind of
• 31:30 - 32:00 where they were going for a while there with the crazy hex systems. And they looked cool and stuff, but they were not userfriendly in the sense of being able to have future upgrade paths available to them cuz everything was proprietary to the chassis. Well, this is a more standard chassis and it's kind of weird that we've reached a point where that becomes a positive talking point, but it exists because that was the critique and feedback that Alienware was hearing and they went with it and this is what they've come up with. They do have a smaller chassis as well, but we obviously only look took a look at the uh Area 51 80 L today. Now, let's go and
• 32:00 - 32:30 talk about value because that is a very subjective discussion. In fact, there's still rub peel I have to peel this off when I get done. It's bugging me. There's still peel around the edges, but anyway, value is very subjective. Um, obviously it is a uh like a a premium tier product. They know that, you know, their customers know that. Uh, when the Alienware Area 51 first came out in 1998, it was $3,499 in 1998, making it more than
• 32:30 - 33:00 $6,400 in today money. If you are either going to be a customer or not at this price point, Alienware knows they're a boutique brand. You know they are a boutique brand. Uh, so whether or not it's valuable for you or there's value to you, that's up to you to answer. But I can tell you this, this one is pretty much outfitted as high as you possibly could with the exception of the graphics card. 5090s are still very difficult to get. So obviously this is a 5080 variant. Uh, only comes with Intel CPUs. So there is that if you're looking at like trying to run an AMD CPU. This
• 33:00 - 33:30 model does not come with AMD CPUs uh as an option, but you can scale the GPU and the CPU around, including the storage size and RAM size to try and configure the price to maybe more fit your budget. But because everything is standardized, you could do upgrades in the future if you wanted to. And in fact, that's something that I did with my Area 51 back in the day because it was standard back then. So, I did actually use the chassis for quite a while uh until I ended up getting a whole new case and moving on years and years later. But anyway, I want to give a huge thanks to Alienware to allowing me to take a look
• 33:30 - 34:00 at this. I've actually been talking with them for months about this whole design. Uh, I am happy to see that they're moving into the more userfriendly, easy to work on it yourself type of uh, approach here because a lot of brands don't want you touching with it or messing with it. And by them switching from proprietary to more standardized layout and componentry makes me feel like they're moving towards being that more uh let's let the user get hands-on experience it upgrade and make it easier for them. And having the QR codes in
• 34:00 - 34:30 there is is actually a really nice touch. And like I said, Stephen Gamers Nexus actually featured that feature on one of his hardware weekly hardware videos. And uh most of you thought that that was a neat thing and I think more people should start incorporating that sort of thing. Anyway, time to get on out of here, guys. Sound off in the comments below how you feel about this. Be honest. I mean, you're not going to hurt Alienware's feelings. They know who their customer base is, and you know who the companies are you're interested in, but I can tell you they're listening to the feedback, and that's what's important. We need brands to be more
• 34:30 - 35:00 willing to listen to feedback, and that's why this particular products product exists. But once again, a huge thanks to Alienware for sending the Area 51 PC for us to take a look at today. I'm going to go ahead and get on out of here because the game is still running and it is still blowing warmth at me and it's getting kind of warm here. So guys, thanks for watching. Sound off down below and as always, I'll see you in the next one.