Unboxing of my ALienware Area 51 (The Space Ship has Landed)

Area-51®


Intel® CoreT 2 Quad Q9650 3.0GHz 12MB Cache 1333MHz FSB


Alienware® P2 Chassis with AlienIceT 3.0 Video Cooling ( Space Black )


Alienware® Standard System Lighting ( Nebula Aqua )


Alienware® High-Performance Liquid Cooling


Alienware® Acoustic Dampening


Alienware® 1200 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply (Got 1200W the 1000W couldn't run the video cards)


Dual 2GB GDDR5 ATI® Radeon® HD 4870 X2 with CrossFireXT and Quad GPU Technology


AlienAdrenaline: Video Performance Optimizer


4GB? Patriot EP+ Low Latency Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 2 x 2048MB


Alienware® Approved NVIDIA® nForce® 790i Ultra SLIT Motherboard


Windows Vista® Ultimate with Service Pack 1


Extreme Performance (RAID 0) ( 500GB (2 x 250GB) Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ 2 x 16MB Cache )


None


Single Drive Configuration ( 4X Dual-Layer Blu-ray Disc Burner (BD-RE, DVD±RW, CD-RW) )


Killer K1 Gaming Network Interface Card - Smoother Online Gaming!


Ageia PhysX PCI-Express Processing Unit w/ 128MB GDDR3 (WARNING: Only 2 additional PCI cards can be added)


High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio


No Monitor


Premium Keyboard - Logitech® Deluxe 250 Keyboard


Razer LachesisT Mouse


1-Year AlienCare Warranty Return To Base + Toll-Free Phone Support


AlienRespawn v2.0 Recovery DVD - Windows Vista Edition Only


None


McAfee® VirusScan Plus - 30-Day Free Trial Factory Installed!


Alienware® Mesh Cap, Alienware® Mousepad, Alienware® Desktop Binder, Owner Identification Card, Internal Wire Management - FREE!



Firstly thanks to AW for giving me a free 1200 Watt Power Supply Unit upgrade ( I paid for 1000W)

Owner's Identification Card (Missing just like m15x - for some reason they don't supply Aussies with Owner's ID Card???)


Everything worked so far

Cant figure out which port is the K1 Killernic Card so that I could connect my network cable to it to test out if the K1 is a hoax or real. (found it)

I love it it's black with Aqua blue.

The first thing i did was to test out the Blue Ray heheh watching "IRON MAN" right now. I'll install some games later. Not quiet bothered with games yet because there no games i actually liked besides Call of Duty 4. The rest are garbage not worth my times especially "Crisis" <--- is not my cup of tea. I still think DirectX 10.1 is a fraud designed to make you buy Microsoft Vista.

Wished CoD would stop using 2nd world war theme it has been overkilled by Activision ( must be the world's most stupidiest company keep bringing out the same old boring 2nd world war theme year after year)

Sorry guys i don't have any good games to play besides Crisis which i dont want to paly, I do have Cod4 and Test Drive Unlimited but I am sure you guys mainstream and are not interested in the games i love.

The rig is absolutely class, nice looking but the plastic is not so fantastic. Would have been nice if the Aluminum Unibody was used instead of plastic espeically the price i paid for but that would decrease Alienware's Huge Profit Margin I guess.

The Rig looked the part but does not feel the part, it felst very flimsy because of the cheap quality plastic which in my honest opnion is far worse than the m15x. It felt like something is about to come loose when i lift it.

Alienware Service is an absolutely class. Tim and Aaron have both been very good with me so i have a lot of praises for them. They have delivered what they promised.

People will say for the price i paid for i could have got this or that. The most important thing is I am actually happy? or am I !!!! hehehe regrets are not part of my persona. You only live once so make the most of what makes you feel good in this world.

Thanks Alienware the experience was scary because of Austin Computers, they put everyone in your industry under the same light. But you proved to me and the rest of the world Austin Computers are just what they are they are not classy like Alienware.

Kudos to Tim + Aaron and the rest of the Alienware crew that reversed our aweful experience with Austin Computers.

The question is was it worth it? YES because I am actually happy.

Oh found the K1 Killernic port.

Got some suggestions for Alienware: Please use Aluminum body casing it will increase visual value which will help with resale. Also please add some sound effects to the rig for turning on the rig such as Alien Sound Effects Plus some cool lighting effects around the rig it will also increase value of the Alien Theme making it more appealing for peopple who are Alienware Die Hard Core Fans.



I'll post more later.



PS: installed crysis 1.2.1 stutters like the rain man @ 1680x1024 with all options maxed out + 8x AA

Cod4 is abosolutely sexy fast graphics and crisp with the Rig i love it.

 

Very nice.

Power it up and lets see the lights!

One big box

 

Ya it's huge

 

Nice setup man!enjoy your beast!

P.S.

1)due to new rules,it is notb allowed to post desktop staff on NBR,there is a desktopreview for that
2)placing iMac on sub-woofer=bad idea,it can kill it

 

o come on, let him put the thread here.

 

I second this. The desktopreview Alienware forum is really dead. :\

 

^thats why mods are not allowing desktop staff here-to make DTR more active

 

That's a very nice monitor, what model is it?

Me likey shiny lights.

 

hey thanks for that mate i didn't know the subwoofer could kill my iMac

 

It's a PG221 Asus

 

Wow that's amazing.

I said to myself "I gotta see this" and opened this thread hehe.

 

Haha, same here.

 

found the K1 Killernic Port its not bad it has App and Game mode.

 

Just installed Crysis and downloading 1.2 patch right now 360 megs

 

3dmark06! 3dmark06! 3dmark06!

Please!

I love that monitor, how much was it?

 

disappointing cant even play crysis it stutters like hell at 1680x1024 with everything turn on to FULL + 8x AA.

Typical of Ati cards.

 

Welcome to Driver Hell, population: ATI GPUs.

 

well that's pretty lame of Ati if you buy their card with all the boasting they have used for adveritising you would end up with a useless card which they cant even back it up and to blame it on their own driver is the lamest excuse of a company that should be shut down for misleading advertising and fraud.

i am disppointed with Ati.

Should have stuck with nVidia they are the best .......

 

Don't worry, you can always sell the cards and get some triple 280 goodness.

 

Gonna send this rig back to AW and replace those crappy card with nVidia.

This is not good enough why should i buy ATi if Ati doesn't even support their own cards?

 

In the meantime, you can always try out other games to see if it runs well.

Relax, you've barely received your new desktop. Play around with it for at least a day or so.

 

how do i know if i am running in xfire mode?

I dont have time to play i got only a few hours left i am flying out tomorrow got to pack my stuff because the wife is not here to do it for me.

Cant even find drivers for Radeon HD 4870 X2 at Ati.com that's pretty lame ATI.

 

ALright then gonna try outo Cod4

 

benchmark score not too exciting at all.

 

if I am not mistaken,that is logitech z2300?still,they have powerful magnets in them,which is bad for general electronics,2x bad for computers(3x for their HDD and screens),also,sub shakes,which is also bad for HDD!

8xaa in Crysis?hell,it is not bad!try making it 4x and see the difference!also,use benchmarking tool and tell us your FPS in it

 

you are running 1 card!try enabling crossfire!

 

I dont know what i did but i turned everything form Very High to High rebooted, turned off a lot of useless software from loading up nowi got extremely sexy screen no lag no stutters.

The game crysis is amazing with this nice rig and card. Funny my video cards cant do very high options though.

 

there is a huge improvement from 8x AA to 4x so smooth less lag. but where do i get that benchmarking too and how do i see my fps?

 

how do u know i am running 1 card?

Catalyst says i have enabled xfire already though.

The funny thing is in catalyst it only shows 1 card.

I am not very good with catalyst thing its so different to nvidia.

 

^from your score!you should score ~25000! and check this out!

 

try fraps for benchmarking!

 

ok thnx mate but how come 3dmark2006 and catalyst only listed 1 video card if it's xfire?

but in my hardware profile it shows 4 cards.

this is strange.

 

Why does 3D06 show 2.3GB RAM?

 

i dont know its weird

 

I would suggest you call up Alienware straight away, but its like 11PM now.

 

download GPU-Z and tell us what it says

 

GPU-Z nfo

 

Windows report i have 4 gig of RAM though

 

3 of my ati 4870x2 shows up as crossfire but one of them says disabled.

How do i select that one that is disabled in ATI then enable it? i see in ATi catalyst anywhere that allows me to choose 4 different cards? Catalyst only shows one card.

 

ATI Control Centre only sees 1 GPU out of 4.



Anyone know why this is the case?




GPU shows that 1 of my cards has crossfire disabled



how do i find or select the 2nd one to enable crossfire on it when Catalyst only list 1 card ?

 

OK it's a GPU-Z bug i found out today.


BTW these video cards are very nice indeed with some games.

 

too bad u cant play crysis :/

 

This system my friend....is a beast...congrats

 

It's not that he can't play it, it's that he isn't able to play it on very high with 8x AA without it stuttering every once in awhile. It should be running more smoothly with 4x AA or with AA disabled altogether.

 

@1680x1250 4x AA all settings to HIGH i get 24 - 31 FPS.

Maybe i have not got the right drivers

In anycase i cant find a fix for it


I fly out in 2 hours

 

I'll look into it while you're gone. Have a good flight.

 

thanks bro

bye everyone back in 3 weeks

 

Might want to shorten your signature, youll get an infraction, Tyronne.
4 lines max of size 2 words, 8 for size 1

 

Yepp I've been yelled at for that and mine was just a little too long

 

congrats! You won, mine is still on the way though