1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000 You know I've got a pretty heavy computer at home, it's got a 4090 in it, it's in a fractal torrent, 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:09,120 it's got some hard drives, but when I saw that Alienware was sending us the Area 51 desktop 3 00:00:09,120 --> 00:00:15,120 and that it was 76 and a half pounds, I just knew that I had to unbox it. 4 00:00:15,120 --> 00:00:18,560 For the non-Americans out there, that's about 35 kilos. 5 00:00:22,880 --> 00:00:26,320 All in one giant computer. 6 00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:33,920 Oh boy let's get this thing out of the box. There's not too many markings on the box, but we've got this cool A51 logo on the front 7 00:00:33,920 --> 00:00:39,200 and then we've got four clips. Sorry about that, there's six clips, they've got one on each side 8 00:00:39,200 --> 00:00:47,200 here as well. Oh man, this thing's enormous. Okay, let's see if I can get it out. Well wow, 9 00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:50,400 there's like some extra foam too. Okay, we'll get to that in a sec. Let me see if I can 10 00:00:51,040 --> 00:00:55,280 lift it out of the foam. This is going to be the hard part because it's heavy, heavy because the foam. 11 00:01:00,480 --> 00:01:06,240 There's a 360 mil rad for the AIO that's hooked up to the CPU, so that's some of the weight. 12 00:01:06,240 --> 00:01:12,240 And then it's also got a 1500 watt platinum power supply because you know we've got the 13 00:01:12,240 --> 00:01:16,320 top of the line spec version that cost a pretty penny. We'll talk about the price later 14 00:01:16,960 --> 00:01:20,160 because right now we're actually, I want to finish unboxing it. We've got 15 00:01:21,680 --> 00:01:27,600 this giant accessories box. What's in the Alienware box? It's, you know, it's a minor thing, 16 00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:31,120 but I kind of wish this had the little Alienware logo on the box, just that you 17 00:01:31,120 --> 00:01:35,840 remembered that this is what it was for. Warranty car stickers, you could put one of these stickers 18 00:01:35,840 --> 00:01:41,280 on yourself and then you'd always know that it's your Alienware accessories box. As for cables, 19 00:01:41,280 --> 00:01:48,560 this looks like, oh no, you guys put a nice 1500 watt platinum power supply in and I know 20 00:01:48,560 --> 00:01:54,800 that this cable's fine. I get it, it is perfectly adequate, but there's something about it. When you 21 00:01:54,800 --> 00:02:01,680 put it into this configuration where it's all slim and flimsy, that it just doesn't feel as strong 22 00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:05,680 as like a big thick C13 power cable. What else we got? We got a mouse, 23 00:02:07,360 --> 00:02:12,080 little freebie cheap mouse that'll get you gaming. If you don't have a mouse already, 24 00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:16,960 they're fine. And then it looks like this is our Wi-Fi puck. So we got a little 25 00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:22,000 antenna adapters here. We got the puck there, sticking it back, popping on top, you're good 26 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:27,840 to go. And then, I bet you it's a keyboard. Please, please, please, please, please. It is. 27 00:02:28,800 --> 00:02:34,560 So to pair with your free mouse, you get a free keyboard. It's membrane. It's fine. It was free. 28 00:02:35,600 --> 00:02:40,480 You know, I kind of wish at this price point because this thing is expensive. I wish that it 29 00:02:40,480 --> 00:02:45,120 came with like one of their Alienware accessories, but it's better than nothing. At least we can 30 00:02:45,120 --> 00:02:49,600 turn this on. But let's take a look at the computer. This is one hell of a big computer. They got the 31 00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:56,880 cheese grater on top, kind of looks like the old Mac Pro. And then there's actually an absolute 32 00:02:56,880 --> 00:03:05,040 ton of IO on the front. We've got two USB-A ports, two USB type-C, a dedicated headphone and dedicated 33 00:03:05,040 --> 00:03:12,000 mic jack as well. And that's just on the front or top IO. On the back, it's funny because this is 34 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:17,360 a proprietary Dell motherboard. And we'll talk about that more later. But it's actually really beefy. 35 00:03:17,360 --> 00:03:26,880 We've got two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-C ports, and then six more USB type-A at various speeds. 36 00:03:26,880 --> 00:03:33,040 We'll put those on screen for you. And then we've got Spediff, good old Spediff, line in and out, 37 00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:39,120 and then LAN. I think it's two and a half gig LAN as well. I really like the cool Area 51 designation 38 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:44,720 along with the model ID. It does look admittedly pretty empty. I think that's just because I'm 39 00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:50,640 not used to seeing like four essentially USB type-C ports. We'd have probably HDMI. Oh, that's 40 00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:59,440 what's missing. Oh, there's no HDMI or DisplayPort. So, I mean, we have an Intel 285K, not the KF, 41 00:03:59,440 --> 00:04:06,400 so it should have integrated graphics. Alienware. Include my HDMI or DisplayPort ports so that I 42 00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:11,120 can get video out of my CPU that has onboard dedicated graphics, please. It's a minor complaint, 43 00:04:11,120 --> 00:04:18,960 but it's a complaint. And then we've got a full-fat 5090 in here. So, we've got three DP 2.1 ports, 44 00:04:18,960 --> 00:04:24,720 should be USB-R20 with DP 2.1B, and then we've got one HDMI 2.1 port. And then I actually missed 45 00:04:24,720 --> 00:04:29,120 our Wi-Fi antennas because they're all the way down here instead of integrated directly into the 46 00:04:29,120 --> 00:04:33,280 motherboard. There's probably some kind of like daughter board down here. We'll take a look later, 47 00:04:33,280 --> 00:04:39,600 but that's where you plug your Wi-Fi in. Very nice. Yo, and then there's some kind of... Okay, 48 00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:43,600 this is really... You probably have to undo the screw first to make this turn, 49 00:04:43,600 --> 00:04:46,800 but it looks like once you undo that screw, you can like... There's also a little lock here, 50 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:50,320 and there's these guys too. I don't know what those are. I just got really excited about them 51 00:04:50,320 --> 00:04:55,200 after seeing the rest of the IO. All right, but next up, let's take the foam out, take the peel 52 00:04:55,200 --> 00:05:00,960 out. We got a GPU thing that we got to take out after shipment. How do we... All right, that just 53 00:05:00,960 --> 00:05:04,800 rips out of here. I want to open this lock. I really want to know what this lock does, so I'm 54 00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:08,960 going to unscrew it. As much as they might try to make it tool-less, and they do a good job, 55 00:05:08,960 --> 00:05:14,400 in some cases, it's clearly not... Okay, that worked fully tool-less because I needed... Oh, 56 00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:18,480 that was cool. That scared the hell out of me. I thought I... For sure, these were just going 57 00:05:18,480 --> 00:05:22,880 to like fall off, but they don't. So when you do that, don't worry about it. They just come out, 58 00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:27,200 and they just pull it off like that. That was great. Thanks, Alienware. That was actually really cool. 59 00:05:27,200 --> 00:05:30,320 No problem. You guys are going to love this or hate this. I don't know. 60 00:05:31,280 --> 00:05:44,080 Yeah. That's my best peel ever. The whole thing is positive pressure. Every single fan is intake, 61 00:05:44,640 --> 00:05:49,040 and I can't remember the exact sizes we've got, but we've got a 360-mil rad with, I think, 62 00:05:49,040 --> 00:05:54,320 3120s at the top, a couple of 180s at the front here, and then I think, yeah, there's a couple 63 00:05:54,320 --> 00:06:00,080 of 140s here for the power supply, feeding a bunch of air into our GPU. Now let's take a look at what 64 00:06:00,080 --> 00:06:05,680 else is on the inside of this bad boy. We got our... Yeah, there's our cooler. Apparently, it can do up 65 00:06:05,680 --> 00:06:11,280 to a 420-millimeter radiator, and I believe it because we've got a bunch of just kind of dead 66 00:06:11,280 --> 00:06:17,840 space over here. And then as for the rest of our system, we've got this crazy overbuilt anti-sag 67 00:06:17,840 --> 00:06:22,880 bracket, but I mean, it makes sense. Dell Alienware is sending this to people who they don't think 68 00:06:22,880 --> 00:06:26,640 we're ever going to take this thing apart as evidenced in our latest Secret Shopper, and so I 69 00:06:26,640 --> 00:06:31,360 can understand why they don't want you to touch the graphics card. They want this thing to arrive in 70 00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:36,080 one piece with zero issues, so they don't have to fix anything after the fact. Other than that, 71 00:06:36,080 --> 00:06:42,880 we've only got two slots in our motherboard for our DDR5 memory. It is running at like 6400 72 00:06:42,880 --> 00:06:50,560 megatransfer, which is good, but the cast latency is like 44 or 46, which is bad. But we'll talk more 73 00:06:50,560 --> 00:06:56,560 about that later. Underneath here, we've got our Intel Core Ultra 285K. I know AMD's kind of king 74 00:06:56,560 --> 00:07:02,800 of the scene right now, but the reality is at 4K with a 5090, a 285K will do you well enough. It's 75 00:07:02,800 --> 00:07:07,920 not CPU-bound, so it should be fine. And then as for the rest of the case, I kind of wish they routed 76 00:07:07,920 --> 00:07:14,880 this power a little differently, maybe go down and under. I don't know, maybe go over through here, 77 00:07:14,880 --> 00:07:19,520 so it's with the rest of the cables instead of down through the brace. It's not the end of the world, 78 00:07:19,520 --> 00:07:24,640 but like now the brace is connected and I don't like that. Other than that, we've got a very 79 00:07:24,640 --> 00:07:29,920 clearly, actually really like how labeled this is. We've got this SSD M.2 solid state drive 80 00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:36,880 label and slot. Our SSD is under there. It's a two terabyte Gen4 drive. We've got our little 81 00:07:36,880 --> 00:07:42,400 Wi-Fi card here that goes down to our antenna here that I found, so not, I mean it's kind of a 82 00:07:42,400 --> 00:07:47,360 daughterboard, I guess. It depends on how you think about it, but what else have we got? What 83 00:07:47,360 --> 00:07:51,920 secrets are you hiding? There's a lot of stuff plugged in. Like all of our, pretty much all of 84 00:07:51,920 --> 00:07:57,520 our headers here are full. End up here too, so there's a lot plugged in right now. So Alienware 85 00:07:57,520 --> 00:08:04,800 is going a lot more non-proprietary and just off-the-shelf parts. Like most of this looks very 86 00:08:04,800 --> 00:08:10,640 standard. The problem is they're still using 12 VO for their motherboards and so you don't get this, 87 00:08:10,640 --> 00:08:17,440 where's the ATX 24 pin? It's gone. And so the one problem, it is a standard, there's like 88 00:08:17,440 --> 00:08:23,200 two motherboards that use 12 VO, but if you want to ever replace, keep the graphic card, 89 00:08:23,200 --> 00:08:27,120 maybe the memory and some other stuff, but you want to replace the board and maybe the chip, 90 00:08:27,120 --> 00:08:32,640 you're going to either have to replace your power supply as well. And it's a 1500 watt platinum 91 00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:37,600 power supply, so I really don't want to do that. Or you have to specifically buy a board that uses 92 00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:44,720 12 VO instead of the ATX 24 pin. There are out there. There's not many of them, but technically 93 00:08:44,720 --> 00:08:47,360 you can find one. Let's take a look at the cable management in the back. 94 00:08:51,920 --> 00:08:55,440 Now the next thing I want to do is take a look at this power supply because it's huge and it's 95 00:08:55,440 --> 00:09:00,240 also got this giant bracket, like holding it in place. So we're going to remove this guy and 96 00:09:00,240 --> 00:09:05,040 take a look at the label just to make sure we're getting what we paid for. Hell yeah, look at 80 97 00:09:05,040 --> 00:09:10,720 plus platinum, maybe. And then looking at the back, yeah, looks pretty normal. Like I said, 98 00:09:10,720 --> 00:09:17,120 you're not going to find an ATX 24 pin power connector off of this guy. So I'm going to upgrade, 99 00:09:17,120 --> 00:09:20,320 you're going to have to upgrade that too, but at least it's easy enough to remove. You just take 100 00:09:20,320 --> 00:09:24,720 this bracket off and then you can take it out through the back. No problem. One neat feature 101 00:09:24,720 --> 00:09:31,280 I didn't really talk about is this kind of open air part because yeah, the front is solid, but then 102 00:09:31,280 --> 00:09:38,160 you get in here and you've just got these two big fans with a very easily removable filter. I might 103 00:09:38,160 --> 00:09:43,680 add. That's actually super easy. It also looks, I'm not sure if it's on the other side too. No, 104 00:09:43,680 --> 00:09:48,000 on this side though, it looks like there's a strip of diffused lighting. I'm not 100% sure, 105 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:52,640 but we'll find out once we turn it on after a word from our sponsor, Saley. First thing 106 00:09:52,640 --> 00:09:57,280 I'd like to point out is I was right. This is some nice beautiful diffused lighting and yes, 107 00:09:57,280 --> 00:10:04,400 I absolutely did plug in our peripherals into the top USB ports because I'm crazy like that. 108 00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:10,640 Let's take a quick look and see if we're actually getting what we've paid for. CPU, 109 00:10:10,640 --> 00:10:15,920 there's our Core Ultra 285K. As for memory yet, we've got our memory running at 6400 110 00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:21,600 megatransferors per second. XMP was enabled by default. However, there were a couple of issues. 111 00:10:21,600 --> 00:10:28,240 One, rebar or a resizable bar was not enabled by default. If you reset your computer like a full 112 00:10:29,200 --> 00:10:35,680 wipe on the motherboard, you're going to also not have it enabled because it's not on by default. 113 00:10:35,680 --> 00:10:40,560 We're going to enable it because it's not going to care about it in too many games, but the ones 114 00:10:40,560 --> 00:10:45,440 that it does care about, you're going to look at like a 10 to maybe even 15 or 20% performance decrease. 115 00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:52,640 So definitely make sure to turn that on. And then, okay, what else do we want to add or 116 00:10:52,640 --> 00:10:56,480 remove programs? They've got, you know, they're pretty typical like Alienware command center. 117 00:10:56,480 --> 00:11:00,960 You know, I'm not going to fault them for that. That's fine. And while we've already uninstalled 118 00:11:00,960 --> 00:11:06,160 it, it did come with McAfee. So, you know, there's not a lot that I will highly recommend that you 119 00:11:06,160 --> 00:11:12,400 just uninstall and rip out of your computer as soon as it shows up, but McAfee is probably like the top 120 00:11:12,400 --> 00:11:17,920 like number one program to just absolutely get rid of. I'm part of the Adams family. 121 00:11:17,920 --> 00:11:24,480 I've got a $40.90 at home. It's a great card. I don't want to spend this much money on a $50.90. 122 00:11:24,480 --> 00:11:31,040 It's very expensive. This computer costs a lot, but a giant chunk of that price is at least at 123 00:11:31,040 --> 00:11:34,560 this price point, there's different configurations, but a giant chunk of that price is just going to 124 00:11:34,560 --> 00:11:40,240 this guy right here. So, you know, let's play some games on it and see, I mean, I got a 4k monitor 125 00:11:40,240 --> 00:11:47,120 right here. Let's hurt me a little bit and make me cry because I want a $50.90 level of performance. 126 00:11:47,120 --> 00:11:55,040 I just don't want to spend $2,000 US dollars on a graphics card. That's your whole computer should 127 00:11:55,040 --> 00:12:00,400 cost like two grand like hell. Yeah. What are our settings? What did it start me at? Custom. 128 00:12:00,400 --> 00:12:05,920 I don't know what custom is. Let's go to ray tracing overdrive. Sure. DLSS transformer model. I don't 129 00:12:05,920 --> 00:12:11,360 want to go to auto. I want to go to quality. That's good enough for me. Ray reconstruction. Ray 130 00:12:11,360 --> 00:12:18,560 reconstruction is on. Framegen off. I don't like it. I don't like Framegen, but all the RT stuff, 131 00:12:18,560 --> 00:12:23,600 except I'm not going to turn on actually, no, $50.90. Let's turn on path tracing. Why not? 132 00:12:23,600 --> 00:12:31,120 We've only got 80 field of view motion blur, always off. Oh, baby. The sub 60 frames a second, 133 00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:38,960 it's barely, it's like 53, 55. This is why they try to tell you to use Framegen and I'm not going 134 00:12:38,960 --> 00:12:42,960 to do that. But you know, the nice thing is our 1% lows are actually pretty solid. They're only a 135 00:12:42,960 --> 00:12:48,320 little bit behind our averages at like 50, high 40s. So as much as I'm poo pooing this, it's very 136 00:12:48,320 --> 00:12:52,880 playable and it looks incredible. So I'm just going to tweak settings a little bit to get us 137 00:12:52,880 --> 00:12:59,760 somewhere closer to 60 plus because I actually am a little disappointed that I do have DLSS on 138 00:13:00,400 --> 00:13:05,280 and I'm still sub 60. Honestly, I'm not going to touch anything else. I'm literally just turning 139 00:13:05,280 --> 00:13:12,240 the path tracing off and let's see how it does now. Let it settle down. Oh yeah, 85, 80 with 1% 140 00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:20,400 of like 80 to high 70s. So this is great. Path tracing looks incredible. Ray tracing in the right 141 00:13:20,400 --> 00:13:27,520 circumstances can also look really good. But the problem is this is on a 50.90. So I can guarantee 142 00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:33,120 to you that my 40.90 isn't going to be running Cyberpunk 4k Ultra. Now to be fair, while expectations 143 00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:38,160 from gamers have risen over the past few years when it comes to like playing at certain resolutions 144 00:13:38,160 --> 00:13:48,560 and certain frame rates, this computer costs $5,150. And so in my opinion, if you're paying over $5,000 145 00:13:48,560 --> 00:13:55,760 for your computer with about 2,000 of that, at least going to your graphics card, I think those 146 00:13:55,760 --> 00:13:59,520 expectations are a little fair. And then on top of all of that, because you're also getting like 147 00:13:59,520 --> 00:14:05,680 two terabytes of storage and some decent amount of RAM, you've got a pretty cool case. Like it's 148 00:14:05,680 --> 00:14:12,080 enormous. You're putting this down and you're not moving it like ever. It weighs like 80 pounds full. 149 00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:17,840 But it's pretty sick. I really like the tempered glass side panel. I like how easy it was to take 150 00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:23,600 the panels off. I really love this diffuse lighting. Is it on the other side? It's not on the other 151 00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:27,280 side. That's my only complaint. Alienware. Come on. I know people will probably never see it, 152 00:14:27,280 --> 00:14:33,040 but put it on the other side. I love that the Alienware logo is not only the power button, 153 00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:37,680 but it's lit up nicely in their classic like Alienware blue. And while I'm over here, one thing 154 00:14:37,680 --> 00:14:42,880 I completely forgot to mention is while most people probably aren't going to tinker with these, if you 155 00:14:42,880 --> 00:14:51,040 do want to, there's handy QR codes in pretty much every little spot where you might have to do something. 156 00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:56,160 And if you follow those, it'll give you detailed instructions on how to like undo that part or 157 00:14:56,160 --> 00:15:01,680 reinstall it or whatever, which is actually really cool in terms of customer support. 158 00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:05,840 And while you're paying a lot for this Alienware computer, and it might look sick and it might 159 00:15:05,840 --> 00:15:11,760 be what you want, take a look at these results from the lab. Overall, pretty solid. It cools 160 00:15:11,760 --> 00:15:17,360 decently fine with the 360 mil AIO. And in terms of gaming performance, we only tested three games, 161 00:15:17,360 --> 00:15:24,080 but the only one that wasn't like basically neck and neck with our 285k system was F one, 162 00:15:24,080 --> 00:15:29,200 which did not have rebar on. So like I said before, if you're buying one of these systems, 163 00:15:29,920 --> 00:15:34,320 perfectly valid decision, I'm happy for you that you have so much money to spend. 164 00:15:35,840 --> 00:15:41,200 But definitely, oh my God, enable rebar, please in the BIOS, make sure you do that. 165 00:15:42,160 --> 00:15:49,120 Please make sure you do that. I'm Ploof. This is ShortCircuit. This is Alienware's Area 51 166 00:15:49,840 --> 00:15:57,040 gaming desktop. And it is very cool. If you like it, there are many other configurations. 167 00:15:57,040 --> 00:16:01,200 It goes, it starts way lower than the price we looked at today. This is a top end spec. 168 00:16:01,760 --> 00:16:06,560 Go check it out and check out another ShortCircuit. Maybe what was the last one? You know, 169 00:16:06,560 --> 00:16:11,920 the Yggdrasil. That one was sick. That had like a tempered glass side panel. That had like this 170 00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:16,480 cool vinyl wrap on it that looked all stained glassy. It was really cool.