Alienware is celebrating its 20th anniversary at E3 this year with a slew of new gaming machines. The theme this year seems to be virtual reality, as the new Alienwares are all ready for the VR revolution – for the most part anyway.
Firstly is the new Alienware Aurora mid-sized tower desktop. This is the “entry level” Alienware; yet, it is no slouch in the hardware department. This Aurora allows for tool-less access to the GPU and other components to allow for easy upgrades. Those who are too lazy to upgrade can buy it stock with optional liquid cooling and a dual graphics card configuration.
The Alienware Aurora is available with processors up to Intel’s sixth generation Core i7 extreme edition. It also offers up to 32GB RAM, or 16GB of overclocked Kingston Fury X running at 2400MHz. Storage starts with a 1TB 7200rpm HDD with four additional storage bays to fill. Graphics options range from an NVIDIA GTX 950 to the brand new GTX 1080 – with the option for the AMD Radeon equivalents.
For those who want even more power, Alienware also has a brand new Area 51 full-tower desktop. This includes support for Intel’s Broadwell-E processors and up to three graphics cards. Memory options start at 8GB of dual channel 2133MHz RAM and range up to 64GB of quad channel RAM. Storage is similarly impressive as it starts at a 2TB HDD and goes beyond 6TB (at least according to the Dell community site).
On the other end of the spectrum is the Alienware Alpha. It is odd to see Alienware doubling down on Steam Machines, but that seems to be the case here. The Alpha can be equipped with up to a sixth generation Intel Core i7 processor; with graphics coming in the form of an AMD Radeon R9 M470X or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960. Memory is not nearly as impressive as it’s larger counterparts, but is still respectable by being configurable up to 16GB.
The Alienware Alpha is not actually VR ready, as neither of its GPU options is capable of meeting the minimum requirements. However, it is technically VR ready as it is capable of connecting to the Alienware Graphics Amplifier. This external GPU option isn’t cheap, but gives the Alpha access to bigger graphics cards to meet the requirements for VR.
Alienware also teased a VR backpack that it is working on with AMD. There are no details available for the device, but it looks substantially less bulky than other backpacks that have been revealed thus far. It doesn’t look like Alienware is ready to talk about the backpack, but more information should be available in time.
The Alienware Aurora starts from $799 (about RM3280), while the Alienware Area 51 starts from a whopping $1699 (about RM7000). The Steam OS powered Alienware Alpha starts from $599 (about RM2460). Keep in mind that these are for the baseline versions of the Alienware, and the price will increase substantially with improved specifications.
[Source: Dell Community]
