Alienware a51 Desktop

Under the guidance of @Cass-Ole , @Anonymous and @Bmwpower603 will become great Area 51 builders/ modders. Looking forward to the flood of triad design pictures in the coming weeks.

@Bmwpower603 , yes, PCIE and NVME are used interchangeably. Unless in a really strange way, they stuck a PCIE card to one of the slots there that houses to some SATA M.2. @r72019 , thoughts?

I ordered the A51 R5. Should be here by Friday. First thing I’m going to do is open it to see what exactly they put in for an SSD. Hopefully it has a liquid cooled processor. And hoping for a 1000w PSU. But I can’t ask for much at $1450 official Dell refurbished.

@Anonymous 

Here’s the specs: Dell Alienware Area 51 R5 Gaming Computer (Refurbished) Intel Core i7 7800X 3.5GHz Processor; NVIDIA GTX 1080 TI 11GB GDDR5X; 16 DDR4-2666 RAM; 2TB HDD + 256GB SSD

Does anyone know a good place to sell the video card/ processor? If they are even worth anything.

I’m going to replace it with an i9 9980XE. And I’ll wait for the KingPin AIO RTX 3090. Really looking to deck this thing out. Since the space/ capacity is second to none on these machines.

@Anonymous 

I plan to purchase an extended warranty through Dell. 

Is the warranty voided if I upgrade the CPU/ GPU/PSU?

I assume if I purchase these items directly from Dell, it won’t be voided?

@Anonymous 

@GTS81 

@Cass-Ole 

@r72019 

I want to thank everyone for helping me choose the correct PC this time! The rig is large, and in charge. It has exceeded my expectations. This has to be the biggest bang for the buck as far as gaming PCs go. This thing came in the original Alienware box, and everything appears to be new. 

I have uploaded some pictures of it. They are probably in que waiting to be accepted. 

I don’t know even know where to start modding. I am now in need of a bigger desk. Because this A51 takes up a lot of space. 

I went ahead and purchased a 4 year warranty/ 24-7 tech support. $570. Probably worth it just for tech support to be honest. 

My only issue is the SSD is only 250 gig. I was thinking about removing this one, and installing a 2TB, and maybe getting a PCI -E housing adapter for the 250. I’m not really sure the best way to do it. But I will need a lot of SSD space as I play MMOs and need fast loading. 

@Cass-Ole 

@Bmwpower603 : Great! That rig looks pristine and with a little tweaks on maybe the fans, you'll get a cool and quiet gaming experience. Or maybe it already is perfect now and you can enjoy playing games without tinkering with it more.

Yeah, more SSD space definitely needed. Maybe up the RAM too.

@Anonymous 

So the PSU is an 850 Gold. 

Should hold up to the 2080ti AIO. Not sure about the 3090 though

@GTS81 

I made my first upgrade today, to the Eco 970 plus m.2 1TB. Loading already feels a bit smoother, and faster. 

Do you guys recommend a heat sink for these? I took the thermal gel pad off the old one, and put it on the new one. 

I do not want to void the 5 year warranty on this chip. And I think if I added thermal pad to the top, the sticker with serial numbers needs to be removed. And if I leave it on, I think the sticker won’t show that information well if the thermal pad is ever taken off. 

I also ordered another Dell fan for the mid section. 

Future endeavors :

i9 9980XE CPU

x2 8gb 2666

rtx 3090 AIO or 2080ti AIO. Might have to upgrade to 1000w PSU?

PCI - E M.2 Adapter 

3440 x 1440 monitors

@Bmwpower603 :

If the m.2 SSD is exposed to air, it's just fine. You don't need to do anything to it.

Best to check RAM compatibility before you buy more to fill up them slots.

Yes there is actually air through the case. The case has static pressure, unlike the r9-r11! 

I think I’m going to bite the bullet on the 10980XE. Instead of the 9980xe. Ram speed goes to 2933. 

But does your board support the 10980XE?

@Anonymous 

I can’t really complain I guess. The i9 9980XE should do the job for now. I’m not really sure why the i9 9900k that I had in my r9 shows better benchmarks than the 9980XE. 
 
I wonder how well the XE does, using Alienware Command Center OC. My 7800X doesn’t even show a difference when overclocked. 

Hopefully I can score an i9 9980XE on Black Friday, or cyber Monday!! Maybe some ram sticks as well. Does anyone know what the 9980XE supports for Ram speeds ? 

@Anonymous 

:c

@Bmwpower603 :

Your 9900K will beat the 9980XE in certain workloads like single core performance. The HEDT platform (Core X-series) are geared more towards multi-core performance and used by content creators rather than gaming. Games usually have a dominant core/ thread and the K-series processors are optimized for that.

Your Area 51 is more than adequate in kicking S. You can try to install an Optane 950p 3dXP card in there but I think it's just overkill.