These two behemoths were destined for the landfill before I snatched them up. No idea what I’m gonna do with them, but I just couldn’t let it happen.
Looks like an Alienware Area 51 (circa 2015) and a Dell XPS 700 (circa 2006). Both are massive and weigh at least 50lbs (the XPS clocks in at 57lbs according to CNET).
I wasn’t really into PC gaming when these were new, so if anyone has the feels for either of them, I’d be interested in hearing your stories.
Also got a pile of Macs… which might not be right for this sub, but I thought I’d throw some pics in anyway. FWIW, I’ve been a Mac guy for almost 30 years now (geez, I’m old), and that Titanium Powerbook G4 (left) was the first Mac I bought with my own money. Instant nostalgia bomb.
27 Comments
Nice pc very cool
Nice save
Man got a great deal on an Area 51 R2 back in 2015 that had triple SLI 970’s in it with a 5960x intel. Such a silly build but it was only $2200 and it ended up being an amazing purchase. Sold the 3 GPUs and bumped up to a 1080ti when that came out and had some moneys left over to replace it’s jet like fans as well as change the cruddy 120mm radiator to a push pull config which helped thermals and lowered noise significantly. Used that till a couple years ago, def a champ of a machine!
Woah that Red Dell case is stunning
+1 for banana scale
Give them a could clean ,test them , sell or give away
The Dell look so nice on the outside but what is going on in the inside
I think I’ve still got that Dell XPS somewhere at my parents house. Last prebuilt I ever bought. That thing was honestly one of the worst PCs I’d ever had. Case was pretty cool though.
Holy shit, I used to have that XPS one. Thing bricked up on me. Wish I had kept the case though lol.
You didnt show the banana specs
I‘ll have the Titanium please, thank you.
i also have an old dell xps case- its the best case i ever had and they were also very expensive back then. notice its btx!
What was the point behind BTX? A couple of Dell models employed it and I could never work out why, other than making everything accessible from the other side of the case to ATX…
I used to work at EA as a tech, all our highest end desktops for testers were those dell xps 700 (
we nicknamed them cylons). I remember these specifically being used on cnc3 and crysis.
Lock them in a Time Capsule
That vga is my first gaming vga.
The Alienware Area51 looks like the AIO leaked…
I love that Alienware case! I had the same one back in the day 🙂
I once saved a XPS like that from the office, then realised it’s built for BTX boards and threw it away…
Have you figured it out how to repurpose for ATX-style boards??
They look like ac units
The Alienware case is cool, probably a pain to fit modern hardware in it, because they use proprietary bullshit in their builds.
Not impossible tho.
Why would they throw away a perfectly good banana?
XPS is very difficult to work with as it’s using a very strange BTX motherboard standard so I’d just keep as an original retro PC. You could also sell it for a pretty good price since it’s quite rare, retro high end and enthusiasts are willing to pay well for it.
Alienware Area 51 (this one being R2) on the other hand is more than usable. It’s got an old intel X99 board in it and everything in that case is standard, including motherboard connectors. If you like the case, you can “easily” daily drive it – only thing you’ll be needing are some cable extensions for things like USB 3.0 and front I/O but that’s it. There’s also some software-related trickery but it’s only responsible for the case lighting.
Man I’d love to build a nice rig in that XPS case, if only it was ATX…
That Dell case would make a perfect candidate for a cyberpunk/sci-fi themed modded build..
Good save, bananas are hard to come by!
Pretty sure those Alienware systems used standard mounting still, so you could probably put a killer sleeper in it.