Help me with Alienware purchase :)

Thanks for the insight :) Good to know it can be upgraded in the future.

hey , i bought an alienware aurora with an i7-2600k and all that good stuff and now im just waiting for it to arrive , but during all this time waiting i was asking myself the same thing you just posted , and i researched it so much that it turns out you can upgrade the alienware aurora's motherboard  with no problems , same goes with the power supply , what fits can be used , i was reading some other guys post and he put a asus rampage in it and the lights still worked and everything worked. The alx i dident research , but your better off with the aurora , because its cheaper and you dont need an extreme processor right now trust me , 4 cores is beyond enough man

The Area 51 ALX is limited and the power supply is not upgradable unless Dell/Alienware decide they want to make and offer a higher watt power supply in the future. No luck with a mainboard that works with the mio board..Same goes for the Mainboard knowone has been able to get a non Dell mainboard to work with the Mio board and the lights and all to work.

It is a shame to cripple a system that would be perfect if it were not for the limitations Alienware/Dell put on it with it's upgrade ability and future proof! Many are purchaseing elsewhere or building a machine for the preium price they charge it should be fully upgradable!

jeffcmfrt66

What about the normal Area 51? Is that in the same boat?

This really confuses me especially when it's advertised as being so upgradable...

Well yes it is a shame that Dell/Alienware resorts to that game.... you are not alone as many think the same thing the way they advertize their flagship system. Many shelled out such a premium prices thinking they have a compleatly upgradable system in reality they were pushed into beleiveing in was compleatly upgradable well a majority anyway some knew.The non ALX version being it still has the lights/ Command Center it will have the propriatory MIO board which does not get along with most non Dell Mainboards so it is the same really except you dont have the Vents/ flares on the top and the optical drive door thats opens and closes by pressing the alienware head the is the only difference from what I see!

jeffcmfrt66

Hmm, I'm a little concerned now. Any limitations besides the PSU and the MIO that I should be aware of?

Cool, thanks for the info, guys. One thing though, what are the restrictions attached to changing the motherboard in Aurora?

Id wait a little while. The sandy bridge design was not meant to replace the X-58 design. (Aurora R-1) I would wait for sandy bridge E to come out (late 2011). It is the true replacement to X-58 which is still the enthusiasts motherboard at the moment. Sandy bridge lacks some features youd want to have in a gaming rig and sandy bridge E will have it ALL (PCI-E 3.0, quad channel, etc.).

In my opinion the Area 51 ALX if it were not for the PSU limitation and not being able to choose Mainboards in the future to be able to upgrade to the latest and greatest Hardware rather then purchase a whole new system. When my warranty expires I am thinking of makeing modifications to the Case to accept a replaceable PSU doing away with the Command center get a quality Fan Controler and hardwire lights as I can live with just the blue not flashing or changeing colors and hard wire a controler for the top louvers and automatic optical bay door. If Dell does not offer upgrades. It will be a lot of work and I will have to cash in on a few favors from more qualified persons to do some of the wireing  but this case is remarkable the design with the hard drives on one side seperate side the cooling options. I just configuired a Area 51 ALX the other day and it came up to $6000.00 to $7000.00 which people would pay but not to be limited as a custom build can be made for a lot less and compleatly upgradeable for the future as any premium Gaming machine should be.

Just my 2 cents worth but will never buy another premium gaming machine without compleate upgradeability as in a year or I would like to change out hardware as needed to bring it back up to cutting edge performance rather then buy a whole system it is a waste of money to me.

jeffcmfrt66

Well they had the Power Supply designed and it has a special propriatory plug that makes it easy to swap out but the replacement PSU has to be the same exaxt size then you can only get it from Dell/Alienware if they ever decide to make a upgrade because of their propriatory plug on it.Altho if you can find a larger watt power supply that will fit it can be wired in by someone expeirenced but will not look that great with the splices. With the power hungry gaming systems you are already seeing Higher watt PSU units for gaming machines.

Yes it was crazy to do that installing a PSU is no big deal but they wanted to make it swapable useing no tools but what good is that if they don't offer the higher watt PSU's to upgrade to!

jeffcmfrt66

I'm guessing all Alienware desktops are in the same situation Crownby, because they all use the command centre and LightFX etc, which is controlled by a Mio Board that can only be attached to the motherboard supplied with the system...which is ridiculous really, if they want to put all these bells and whistles on their systems they should at least be powered/controlled by industry standard parts instead of making it so the system is effectively crippled unless Dell continue to support it.

Really disappointing, I think I will hold out until the next generation of systems if they will have sandy bridge E boards.

Upgradeability is one of the main things enthusiasts or people who simply like high-end stuff look for (and expect) in a $4000+ system. It's quite ridiculous that they should intentionally limit upgradeability.

I fell for the big sticker on the Aurora page that said "Most Upgradeable Desktop Ever" or something along those lines. Since the chassis itself is pretty solid, when I'm looking to upgrade I'll probably plug in a different PSU and scrap the Command Center altogether. I don't require an entire wheel of FX lighting, just one colour, mainly for keyboard backlighting. If that proves to be a waste of time, I'll simply sell this off and purchase a newer system. Considering my current PC specs more than meets my current needs, I'll probably just add a load of RAM until some very impressive hardware appear on the market.