No More Alienware Area 51

Hi every one,

Before I start my story, I would like to thank (CarbonBasedLifeform) for his great support, at least with me. Thank you bro and thank you all for your help and comment.

I want to mention my story, so other owners or the new buyers of Alienware Area 51, learn from it and to know if this computer will be the best option for your or not. Also, to keep in your mind that the Area 51 case and its motherboard, is not for everyone. Finally, to make you sure that if you are planning to buy this computer and planning in the same time to upgrade, then this computer is not for you.

Here is what happened to me since last June until now:

The main using for the computer is (Gaming and VR)

My Alienware main specs:
From: UAE Market
Original Price: 8100 US dollars
Price after discount: 4000 dollars (Buying price)
* i7 6900k (AIO Cooler)
* X99 MSI Mother Board   
* 64 DDR4 2144 Mhz
* X2 Sli Gtx 1080 FE
* 512 Liteon ssd
* 4TB X3 WD HDD

My Story in lines:

- I bought Alienware Area 51 R2 2016, last June, I was happy with it for the first week, after that and after installing the main apps, games and software’s, all my happens start to disappear, beginning from the slowness in responding, lake of overclocking and the lake of the Motherboard support.

- I decide first, to change the Liteon ssd, with Samsung Evo 850 1TB, then I also purchased another Samsung ssd, but this time was 850 PRO 512MB. I was not 100% happy with this purchase, especially when I noticed that there is a chance upgrading to M.2.

- I decide again to upgrade to M.2 as OS, and from here and with (CarbonBasedLifeform) help, I managed to add Samsung 950 PRO 512MB M.2 using one of the free PCIE Slot x16 GEN 03. It was a huge jump in terms of everything, but I was also not fully happy because, the writhing/reading speed result was not stable. Which let me reinstall windows and all the drivers, many times. I spent hours and hours trying to figure why sometimes I am getting high-result and sometimes-low results, but unfortunately, there was no hope.

- After that, I started reading and searching about changing my Alineware Area 51 Motherboard. I found many helpful threads here and there, but most of them was saying that it would be a nightmare, headache and long way to succeed, especially with the Area 51 case.

- Meanwhile I bought HTC VIVE, hoked it up and start the setup tutorial. Every things work as perfect as it should be, but second nightmare just appear, especially when I start the VR gaming. High temps on the GPU, computer act un normal, windows not responding and many weird things…

- After trying this process some more times in a few days and after giving up finding the answer, for why the M.2 performance is not stable, I decide to pull the trigger and shoot the Alienware Motherboard.

- I decide to upgrade the current motherboard, to Asus Rampage V 10th edition, since I have read that this is the best high-end motherboard supporting x99 chipset. Yes, I bought this motherboard and I know it will be a long trip to fit it in my tight case.

- When I received the new motherboard, I notice from the first time that this shinny looking MB, need a show case with tempered glass, to show its beauty, not to hide it inside the darkness, which Alineware Area 51 has. Therefore, I decide to pull the trigger again and shoot the case this time.

- My choice ended up picking the Tower 900 from Thermaltake (White). After receiving it, I decide to change the whole setup and do another big jump. I ended up now going to full water cooling setup with 2 different loop (CPU + SLI GPU).

- My story was not end here, my last changing was the PSU and I picked up Corsair AX1200i, for my new setup. Not to mentioned that I go with x2 NZXT Hue+, NZXT Aer RGB fans, cabeMod WideBeam UV+RGP… And some more different stuff.

Now I am in a process of building my new setup. Also I want to let you know that I only kept (CPU, RAM, HDD’S and GPU’S) from the Alienware Area 51. Other thing you will see its new.

I will post some pictures parallel with my working process and your comments, advises will be much appreciate. Also I will keep this thread life until I finished the whole setup, even if there is no one interest or no comments, it will be a great way to document my building process

 
Sorry for make it too long,
Thank you in advance...
Best,

Here is a look of my Alienware setup before changing:

 

 

Very busy inside

Clean but Hot

The process start from this point: 

Here is my new case "The Tower 900", with a fan controller in the front panel, the case will be modified and will have some color change: