I Spent $250 on This STRANGE Gaming PC

This $250 gaming PC from nearly a decade ago may seem on the surface like an oddly-shaped pile of junk... but it can actually pack a heck of a punch with the right tweaks! Let's check out the old Dell Alienware Area 51 R2.

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Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction
1:57 - Front/Rear I/O
2:30 - Specifications
3:25 - Odd Shape
4:14 - Boot Issues
6:00 - Performance
6:27 - Upgrade Time!
7:50 - Updated Performance
10:21 - Thermals
10:54 - Value vs. A New Build
12:19 - Conclusion

[MarcoGPUtuber]

I spent $0 on this Greg Salazar video.

10/10 would recommend.

[jrose-xptf]

I worked on one of these a few years back, my knuckles are STILL recovering.

[XENONEOMORPH]

naughty naughty screw the gpu first before putting cables to the gpu, Greg, you owe every subscriber a coffee lol.

[DaFoxQc]

Also... fill all those RAM slots...!! That CPU and board is QUAD CHANNEL! It makes hell of a difference!!!

[Keaton.]

Putting the PCIe cable before putting the screws... oh my god dude... lol

[TheGameBench]

I loved Alienware... right up until they were acquired by Dell. The quality decline didn't take long, because I had a friend that bought one of the early ones that were made by dell, and it was having issues. Dell wasn't much help, and I ended up finding standoffs where they shouldn't be. He was lucky nothing ended up being damaged as a result.

[ricardorevuelta]

Go for it Greg! I wanna see how you can pimp it out and what performance and thermals you get out. That would be a super interesting video.

[ben_bennie_nie]

Every time you say ''Are you ready?'' I think of Spongebob with ''Are you ready kids!?''

[brhyno]

I’m still rocking a GTX 970 with my current rig. It’s paired with a Ryzen 5 2600X so it does fine with everything I need it to do. Just some light gaming.

[brando]

Raymond was just trying to get the best shot, and you interrupted his skillful positioning! Way to go, Greg! 🤣

[pcbuilderlover]

I think it looks cool. Look forward to the upgrade in it. That eBay seller was awesome to make that offer.

[absentmindedjwc]

I just bought a new Alienware with a 14900kf and a 4090—kind of a unique situation, though.

Originally, I was planning on building my own PC until I remembered my sister works for Dell.

I hit her up about her employee discount and noticed that there was a $500 off sale on their site.

After throwing the discount code into the mix at checkout, I discovered the discounts stacked—and even better, they applied to the original price, not the sale price. So, I ended up getting the Alienware with a 4090 and 14900kf for less than the cost of just those parts on Newegg.

Figured I'd just go for it. Worst case, I could pull the NVME, GPU, and CPU, and maybe build that custom setup I was originally planning - while pocketing some savings from the heavy discount.

Been using it for a month now, and honestly, it’s a pretty solid machine.

[karstenswiridjuk]

Why not put a full RAM kit in that? 16gb in single channel on quad channel board...epic lol...

[mr.pumpkin]

i actually like the shape of the case. maybe its bcs today its all boxy and square. no one goes crazy w their case designs anymore id like to see another one like this again w modern parts

[toufusoup]

Props to the seller and to you, for offering very good services and for linking them. By the way, would you consider using an AMD card for these older chips to accommodate driver overhead?

[rudikroch]

Great video! Loved the throwback SS Youtube shirt.

[johngangemi]

Gamer's Nexus has several entertaining videos about Alienware prebuilt PCs.

I was laughing so hard 😂.

Great video Greg.

[ResidentWeevil]

I remember when Gamers Nexus reviewed the R13 Aurora and Steve didn't mince his words when he criticized Dell for continuing to use an ancient case design that essentially cooks the proprietary components Dell is EXTREMELY fond of using. Some of the internal support brackets are just over engineered, and the case design is the epitome of "can one turn a PC into a furnace?" Alienware before Dell was actually well respected, but after Dell purchased them the quality went to heck in a hand basket.

[krtman]

I love how you showcased the 2080super, I think thats the BEST budget card you can buy right now. You could easily build yourself a 1440p capable pc with this and say a 5600x for around 500 usd TOTAL

[mybrotherjames]

Your hair’s getting big greg! I dig it! 😂