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Dell's New Alienware Case Goes to Extremes To Prevent Overheating
MojoKid writes Dell's enthusiast Alienware brand has always stood out for its unique, other-worldly looks (sometimes good, sometimes, not so good) and there's such a thing as taking things to the next level, this might be it. However, there's more to this refresh than just shock value. It's actually a futuristic aesthetic with a rather purposeful design behind it. Today Alienware gave a sneak peek at their completely redesigned Alienware Area 51 desktop system. This refreshed system is unlike any previous Alienware rig you've seen. With a trapezoidal shape to its chassis, Dell-Alienware says you can place the Area-51 against a wall and not have to worry about thermals getting out of the control. That's because there's a controlled gap and a sharp angle to the chassis that ensures only a small part of the system actually rests near the wall, leaving extra room for hot air to escape up and away. This design also offers users easy access to rear IO ports. Despite the unique design, there's plenty of room for high end components inside. The retooled chassis can swallow up to three 300W double-wide full-length graphics cards. It also brings to the table Intel's latest and greatest Haswell-E in six-core or eight-core options, liquid cooled and nestled into Intel's X99 chipset. No word from Dell on the price but the new Area-51 is slated to start shipping in October.
So how much advertising did Dell buy ro get this story run?
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
The only way this could have been more blatant of an advertisement is if they had put in a preorder link. Even if it wasn't, their "controlled gap" is just a corner that juts out so you can't push it up against the wall properly. It's just not very impressive in terms of, well, anything.
Besides, I'm pretty sure the slashdot crowd builds their own rigs anyway.
In other words, it's ok to place this directly agains the wall, because the shape ensures it cannot be placed agains the wall. Well done.
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Before clicking the link I was trying to imagine how a trapezoidal shape could help and I could not. Well, that's because it is a hexagon. Sure, not a regular one, as the article says "like a triangle but with twice as many sides", and even more complicated than that (half the sides are hexagonal themselves, the other half rectangular), but I would not call it "trapezoidal" unless I did not know what that meant.
That said, yes, you can push it to the wall, but due to its shape it is actually longer (at its lower part) than a rectangular case would be, so you would be able to leave enough space behind with a rectangular case if you set it so that its front is at the same place where this hexagon reaches when it is all the way back to the wall. If they wanted to actually save space perhaps they could get air from the sides and out from the top on a rectangular shape (along with ports etc)? I don't know, I'm just saying.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Cooling doesn't have to be complicated.
I like the design, it is a lot better than boring old ATX.
Computer Industry should work together to make this a standard form factor.
It could be TTX - Trapezoidal TX?
Does someone know a trapezoid?
In the Ghetto Part I
It was pitch-black in the roach-infested double-wide trailer. All was quiet except for the gurgling sound of an infant, shut away in its own room.
The floor creaked as a mass of flesh made its way to the infant's room. The door slowly opened, creating a growing triangle of light on the floor. The infant coughed and gagged and began to cry as it was overpowered by the horrid stench.
"It's time to suck on daddy's special pacifier, Marticock!"
As the door creaked shut, the whale in the master bedroom wept into her pillow. What kind of life was this for her precious little Marticock?
In the Ghetto Part II
Reza sat at the kitchen table, her cigarette smoke blending with the steam rising from her coffee cup. She took a sip of coffee and adjusted the rollers in her hair. She rubbed her eyes, which were still puffy from crying into her pillow all night.
Vlad shuffled into the room, wearing nothing but his briefs and a stained t-shirt, "hey you fat, pig, how are you this morning," he burped.
"Vlad, we have to talk."
"What now, fat-ass?"
"It's about Marticock. You have to stop molesting him... I think it will make it harder for him to make friends later on..."
Vlad slammed his fist onto the table, causing Reza to jump. She farted.
"You're not supposed to think, bitch! You're supposed to be making me breakfast! Where is it?!"
"Vlad, please..."
"Remember when we saw the Matrix Reloaded last weekend? THAT'S the style of Martial Arts I practice, bitch. You're about to get a FREE LESSON!"
Reza rose from her chair, causing it to fall over and ran - as best she could - into the bedroom to cry again.
"Fucking bitch," Vlad farted.
In the Ghetto Part III
Vlad sat on the living room couch, thecushions torn and vomiting foam from their inner core as he bounced up and down in excitement. He screamed at the television, as he shook his fist at it, sending Budweiser spilling out all over the floor.
"Come on, you goddamn white boy, if I wuz in there, he'd be dead now. Let's see some goddamn wrestling!"
Vlad didn't notice the doorbell ringing and continued screaming obsessively at the television as Reza bounced through the room to open the door.
Reza stood at the doorway in a sheeny, purple, see-through nighty, smiling at the black couple who greeted her, "hi I'm Reza! You must be Pedro and Florence from the personal ad..."
As a commercial flashed onto the television, Vlad turned to see what all the comotion was about. He recognized Pedro in the blue cathode-ray glow, "hey DOOOOOG!"
Vlad hopped from the couch, emitting a spurt of gas as he did so.
Pedro and Florence, who was holding a fat black child with curly hair, entered the dingey apartment. Vlad and Pedro high-fived each other and then Pedro began to rap:
This is Pedro G / Gangsta P / Sippin' on Hi-C / Smokin' PCP / Smooooooth Nigga
Vlad began to break-dance to the off-the-cuff rap. Farting with each bend of the leg and twist of the waist.
Oooooooh. A little Mastah B on the Bonus T
Got it goin' on girl
Droppin' Baby Marticock on your ass, Byatttch
Vlad and Pedro laughed heartily and butted guts.
"You ready to do some swappin' V-Dog," Pedro drooled. Reza grew wet with the suggestion.
"You bet I is, bro," Vlad replied eagerly. He trampled off into the other room, much to Reza's confusion.
In no time at all, Vlad returned holding Marticock, gurgling and farting. Pedro took his child from Florence and exchanged him for Marticock.
Reza frowned and shook her head, "no, no, no!"
Vlad and Pedro laughed as Reza and Florence ran into the bedroom to weep.
Vlad grinned as he removed the black child's diaper, "this is gonna be good! I never cornholed me a nigra before!"
In the Ghetto Part IV
Reza gazed into the bathroom mirror. The sense of despair overwhelmed her. Vlad's nightly visits to Marticock the Gurgling Penis Socket had been torturing her for weeks. She h
The airflow doesn't even make sense.
The Alienware "Trapezoidal" Area 51 Case.
Jesus... That thing is ugly.
I! Tego Arcana Dei.
It's a hexagonal prism, albeit not regular. So it may be called a plesiohedron?
I bought one of these, and between it and the Corsair H110, i don't even have any case fans on... the case has good ventilation at the top, and front... the case will be a fair bit cheaper than the premium alienware would be charging too
I don't know why there's so much hatred about this being a slashvertisement. I actually like articles about new hardware - it's one of the reasons I still visit sites like this.
I dig the new machine, and totally support people looking into alternative and hopefully improved/innovative designs. This thing looks cool.
You guys will figure that out when you calm down a bit.
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
There were reasons which I cannot seem to remember right now. Fan noise maybe? But why dont cases blow air up?
That's what I'd call it.
I remember having a case that prevented placing it too close to a wall too, it simply had a flared base (also for stability). This was in the beige box era circa 1997, not really a new concept.
How do you like it? I was pretty intrigued when I saw one of these at a Fry's, but I went with the Carbide 300R (which is the best case I've had the pleasure of using). The 540, aside from being gigantic, seemed like overkill at the time.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
The RAM on this thing is limited to 32GB. Pretty soon there will probably be laptops at Best Buy that support more than that.
Q: How much RAM do you really need?
A: It doesn't matter. GIVE ME MORE RAM!
lucm, indeed.
It's become a recent trend for advertisers to construct ads that look and read just like news articles and stealthily insert them into Big Media outlets. However, there's no escaping this when it comes to things like desktops, laptops, tablets, etc...It's just the nature of the beast.
Why do people that read a legitimate news story always try to assume something is advertising.
Because there is a large number of the tinfoil hat crowd here. Unfortunately they aren't always wrong. There are sometimes stories that really are just PR in disguise. I've certainly seen a few of them slip through here on slashdot. I agree that this particular instance probably isn't PR but I can see that it might be hard to be sure.
If everyone blocked ads, many quality web sites would likely cease to exist, including Slashdot. Just because you can block, doesn't mean you should.
It also doesn't mean that I have some obligation to watch the ads, particularly given the privacy baggage that tends to come with them. I come to slashdot to read the content, not to watch ads or let companies track my every move. Your bad business model is not my problem. If I value what you have then I will pay for it. I pay for several magazines as well as subscriptions to several online media services I find valuable to me. Frankly most online ad services are invasive to the point of being creepy as hell. Why on earth would I support that in any way? Advertising companies are generally invasive and seem to have no clue about when they've crossed the line. If they had any ethical compass I might be more lenient but I regularly see interviews with people involved in the online ad industry and they regard website viewers like a rancher views a side of beef. No respect whatsoever.
The internet is no different than any other media, where ads pay the bills to keep the lights on and people employed to serve up news, reviews and other content you enjoy every day, essentially for free.
Media funds through ads because it is easy but it is hardly the only means available. If you want to take advantage of the easy money don't be shocked when you get pushback. Newspapers are shriveling up because they built a business model based on a distribution monopoly and easy advertising dollars. Now that the distribution monopoly is broken by the internet their business model no longer allows monopoly profits. Your business is no different and if your business model is based on people being dumb enough to not block advertising that has a blatant disregard for privacy then I have no sympathy for you.
And good sites (like Slashdot and HotHardware) know how to separate church and state, where advertising does not affect editorial opinion.
The problem is that it sometimes is hard to tell the difference. Given that fact I would be a fool not to take control of my own privacy given that I have the means.
but when I am, I buy Alienware.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why not trapezoid?
I'm not hearing a no....
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Up to triple and 900w", "Supports up to Five", "included 9". What is this shit on their ad? Are the marketroids even dumber than the people who buy this overpriced crap?
Does the thing still weigh 200 fucking pounds? That's always been my beef with Alienware computers. You need a fucking forklift just to move them around.
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
Fuck hothardware and fuck slashdot and fuck dice this site is so 2000 and late
It looks like a really nice case, but too far outside my "minimalist" envelope. I do need to shake things up though; I haven't built a machine in too long. I need to bring a new one to life.
We don't track you. We don't do nasty things. Really!
Yeah, right. Know what? You lost my trust, and you'll have to work very hard to re-gain it, if ever.
so if i run the fans backwards does it become a room cooling unit?
Seeing the GPU is placed in the front, i wonder how the video cables aught to be running..
its like placing a PC backwards on my desk. Against the wall of course, for good measure.
I can only imagine how many people have spilled a drink either from their desk downwards to their case or by directly putting a drink ontop of their case... Stupid to do, but with how many people drink coffee, soda, beer, etc while gaming/working, I think this case is going to be getting fried quite a bit with liquid leaking down into the case :(