It’s not the most common occurrence to go to E3 and find that one shiny gem when it comes to PC gaming. Well, this year we did and it was not a game but it actual hardware. Dell/Alienware showed off a lot of tech this year ranging from gaming laptops to monitors, keyboards mice and other accessories. All were really impressive, especially the Alienware Pro Gaming Keyboard and the Alienware Elite Gaming Mice, each of which I want to own and use while playing Overwatch. Maybe my skills can improve? Nah, they probably won’t help someone like me, because I am that bad.
Regardless, I will touch base on all the Alienware products throughout the week because I think each one brought something special to the table.
Up first: the Area-51 Threadripper Edition
The real highlight of the E3 show floor this year from a hardware perspective is the Area-51 Threadripper Edition Gaming PC. This thing is a real BEAST! Why? ‘Cause it is being powered by the AMD Ryzen Threadripper, a 16-core/32-thread processor, the first on any of Alienware’s hardware. The system was also running on AMD Vega, one of AMD’s latest lines of graphic cards. Dell will be the exclusive OEM partner for the AMD Ryzen Threadripper pre-built system.
Watching the Area-51 in action was simply incredible as it was multitasking some heavy work: streaming video, 3D-rendering an image and having a video game running in ultra high def. Just thinking about having all of those programs open on my current system would make it (and me) cry and probably BSOD. Just knowing that I can probably render work and play a game at the same time means that my day isn’t wasted when I hit the “finalize video” button. I’d no longer have to walk away or go to another PC!
Plus, just have a look at that design. The giant monolithic diamond, with multicolor LED lights and removable panels, stand out like something to worship — which is probably comparable to the hardware underneath it and makes me want this device even more.
The Area-51 Threadripper edition will be available to order on July 27. No announcement on how much it would cost but I would bet it would be a pretty penny that would definitely be worth the price.
And don’t worry, Intel fans — the Area-51 featuring the Intel Core-X Series will arrive on August 22.
We liked the hardware so much, we awarded it a Best of E3 2017 Award!
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