My Experience with the New Alienware Area 51 R2 (Late 2014): Compatibilities, Damages, and Other Issues

Good Luck Zero.

I hope your gear is in good order.

Keep us posted- Donovan is right - unless we post Alienware won't correct the poor packaging.

Jonas200

I never really understand your posts????

You always indicate that Dell and ALienware are never at fault for the long delays, and cancelled orders, and that they have customer expectations first and foremost. But then you always state that Alienware is overcharging for components???

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In the case of packaging- Alienware approved the package- nowhere on the box is it stated :

1.THIS SIDE UP,,  

2.HANDLE WITH CARE..

3.FRAGILE EQUIPMENT

So I put alot of the blame on Alienware... not the shipper... Do you think Fed Ex or UPS knows what Alienware is? I doubt it. Most people beside gamers- have no Idea what Alienware is.

Also- the package itself is FLIMSY and is not sturdy and barely holds the Computer in place... There is not enough internal foam support for such a heavy piece of equipment- which is why these boxes are being damaged. Granted the carrier should take care of shipment- But Since your logic states that all shippers are less than careful-- ALL THE MORE REASON FOR ALIENWARE TO PROVIDE BETTER PACKAGING.

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One last thing- I think everyone gets your point that AW Owners pay a premium to buy Alienware Gear. You state that in every post- that Alienware users are overpaying for the components,

I would like to point out- I for one dont have the time nor patience to Build my own High End PC- Nor do I have the experience, I will gladly pay more money to have a quality machine with warranty and a company that will support me on an investment of 5,000.00 plus.

So I think you are missing the point in most Alienware Users. In my opinion.

I equate Alienware Users alot like Apple Users.. Loyal followers,,,

I always order through a rep in Toronto. No way I'm talking to someone from India.

The problem is the discounts online do not always work ordering through the business side so expect to pay a little higher.

I would like to point out- I for one dont have the time nor patience to Build my own High End PC- Nor do I have the experience, I will gladly pay more money to have a quality machine with warranty and a company that will support me on an investment of 5,000.00 plus.   So I think you are missing the point in most Alienware Users. In my opinion.

I don't think that's the situation for most Alienware customers...the company targets a whole spectrum of price points. I think most customers see some great value in buying a base system and doing radical makeovers and 3rd party upgrades to get the most out of the machine throughout the WHOLE product life cycle, the Alienware forums and multitude of YouTube clips is a testament to this happening on a wide scale.

For minority of gamers, they are a victims of a fallacy that a specc'ed out system at point of purchase is terrific value from price performance perspective, this is especially the current situation with some of the options for the R2 such as early adopter premium for DDR4 RAM and triple GTX 980 or 4-way SLI

With the DDR4 RAM, there is much more incentive to upgrade later next year to much cheaper and lower latency memory than pay a huge premium for last-gen performance. Even Apple customers can appreciate this with the exorbitant prices in the Apple Store.

With the SLI video card options, very often you are paying a lot of real money for the 3rd or 4th GPU for very little improvement or none at all due to lack of driver support and optimisation beyond 2-way SLI. I think I read a post about a customer configured a system with $3000 alone on the dual Geforce Titan Z. Also customers with triple GTX 980 are in a precarious position, as the next-gen manufacturing technology is arriving in a few short months (around Feb 2015), and people who are willing to upgrade their own systems later can likely buy the similar performance in a top end single GPU card for one third of AW's asking price for triple SLI.

I equate Alienware Users alot like Apple Users.. Loyal followers,,,

I can sort of agree with this except many Apple users are hopelessly bound to the OSX platform for some inexplicable reason and have very little option to do after market upgrades beyond the RAM.

The Dell P/N for the 3way SLI bridge is correct - GYN70. Dell sent me one at no cost (overnight too)!

In my experience, you will also need the i7 5930k CPU with 40PCIx lanes in order for 3 way SLI to be enabled.

I ordered the 5820k and in 3way SLI - only 2 of the cards will link up. 5820k CPU only has 28lanes available.
I removed / disabled as many devices as i could - no luck. I know the M.2 card can use 4 lanes by itself so I thought that was the issue - no luck.

So I did some research online and only a handful of motherboard manufacturers (through bios) will allow 3way SLI with the 5820k CPU (8 lanes x 3).
Most will require the 5930k cpu for 3 way SLI.

I am sure as the new tech/hardware matures, so will the bios.

Both my Area 51's came. No damage on either of the boxes.

Hockey, to get around the lane issue with the 5820K, just buy a motherboard with 2 PLX chips and you'll get 16x 16x 16x 16x Quad SLI with the 5820K. The ASUS X99 WS-E has it and so does a few of the ASRock boards.

I always order through a rep in Toronto.

I added you as friend because I have a question that I like to send you in private message.

SocalPK   This is what I think- its not confirmed by anything.   I ordered the Area 51 - 2 separate times online.   Each time the order got cancelled- for some odd reason...   My delivery dates were like yours 1 to 2 months lead time...   **********************   Then the 3rd time I ordered my Area 51 -  I called and spoke with Alienware Sales Staff.  On November 24 I ordered the Area 51 and was given a Delivery Date of 8 December. The Area 51 actually arrived on 4 December. So that was less than 2 weeks. I ordered every single upgrade Cost 7,525.00.   So my take on this- is that Alienware (Dell) has a much faster delivery schedule for equipment ordered through Direct Sales Rep-  My guess is this is done to support the sales team- as well as the sales support team can push orders to front of line, Which you can not do ordering online. I also suppose that when ordered through Sales Support- there is probably overall- no Illegal configurations of the computer.   *****   Not sure this helped.

Ah, more clues! Except I did order thorough a rep. in fact initially I worked with a chat rep who found all sorts of nice things for me including discounts and a free tablet but my CC company didn't allow the purchase and the order was cancelled so I could contact the CC and confirm that it was me making the purchase and got the all clear. Not sure why they cancel the order immediately rather than give it 24hrs to get an approval but whatever. Called them the next day and dealt with someone who was pretty hard to understand and we reworked the order, when the est. delivery date came up I even asked why such a long time and I got the runaround answer of it has to be custom built and tested. I just assumed it was the GTX 980 because the website configurator changed the shipped dates based on their selection. But as people began getting their orders with tri GTX 980's I had to wonder...but now I am perplexed. I am wondering if my order lost the free tablet too but I just hate getting on the phone and having a hard time understanding what is being said! 

5960X   Triple 980   16GB DDR4   Blu-Ray   256GB SSD + 4TB HDD 5.9K RPM   Windows 8.1      Ordered on November 20th (ETA was January 14 2015)   In Production November 26th   Shipped December 5th   ETA (up to date) December 9th

Thanks for the info. I just don't know what to make of it. Clearly my order is getting the backseat based on the dates and it's not the GTX 980 availability as I initially believed, Perhaps it's because it's a much less expensive purchase, and Dell is prioritizing based on invoice income. Glad to hear your order arrived in good condition today!

Yea, I am or rather was tempted to just dump the MicroStar motherboard of Dell's.

I was a little bit worried about losing the lights/fan control through ACC.
In the past I have been successful with replacing the Aurora and Area 51 R1 motherboards and still getting everything to work.

In the end, I cant overcome the fact that I just spent $1800 on a brand new machine and now swapping motherboards. I already upgraded the Ram and moved my old video cards over. 

I just picked up a brand new Core i7 5930k cpu for $450 on ebay. Not sure what that guy was thinking. He had 4 brand new in box and they all sold within 5 minutes lol. My wife is gonna be pissed....!
I am hoping to get the 3way SLI functional with this CPU. We will see...

Anyways, for those interested, the stock Dell motherboard will take faster RAM.
Here is my machine running a Crucial 16GB DDR4 - 2400Mhz kit (photo below).
I did have a mini-heart attack though.  Installed, boot up - no BIOS or POST.
Shut it back down, repowered and then i get the error "memory changed".

Bios reports correct speed/latency..etc. Crucial P/N BLS4K4G4D240FSA.

Both my Area 51's came. No damage on either of the boxes.

There is foam on the top, the screenshots in the first post has the Area 51 at the WRONG ANGLE. Whoever packed his PC is an idiot.

On both my Area 51 R2 boxes, there are the 4 plastic retainer clips. 8 total. 0 missing. Lucky me I guess :s.

1. There is foam on the top,   2. the screenshots in the first post has the Area 51 at the WRONG ANGLE. Whoever packed his PC is an idiot.   3. On both my Area 51 R2 boxes, there are the 4 plastic retainer clips. 8 total. 0 missing. Lucky me I guess :s.

Thanks for taking the time to post this pic.

1. Good. But since it doesn't expand the whole width of the box top, do you feel that the card-board corners can support the weight of the tower-top if tipped on it's side or upside-down?

2. I think maybe the box fell apart (likely at the bottom) and the shipper tried to re-box with little care to contents. Just went down-hill from there.

3. Good. Yes, that is key to keeping the bottom in and machine "boxed-up". I pretty sure that equipment boxed like this is not meant to be carried from the sides (only held under the bottom). They try to make it "all easy" to just lift the top off ... but I think a conventional box (with a real bottom) would be better in this case.