REVIEWS

Alienware Area 51
The New Top Gun PC for Flightsimmers
By Cap Mason, Flight Simulation Editor and
Rick Frerichs
Vice President of Technology, FlightSim.Com

For the last year, Rick Frerichs, our Technology Guru, and I  have been searching high and low for the absolute best desktop PC for flightsimming. We looked at more hardware than you'll find in a New Jersey junkyard. One entire group of PCs we rejected early on were those using the new 64-bit AMD processors. We rejected them all for the time being for one simple reason:  there is no 64-bit operating system. Rick has decades of experience in technology and has worked with 64-bit UNIX systems. He knows first-hand that software must be properly optimized for a 64-bit data bus in order to get true performance gains. In fact, when you run 32-bit software on most 64-bit systems, you actually get poorer performance than when running the application on a 32-bit processor. AMD claims to have solved this with their new 64-bit CPU but we just don't believe that. We'll wait until the 64-bit AMD and Intel CPUs are fully supported by a fully optimized 64-bit Windows operating system and running a version of Microsoft Flight Simulator that has been written to run on 64-bit architecture before we dive into the deep end of that pool.

Meanwhile, Rick and I checked out all the best-of-breed high end systems from Dell, Gateway, Systemax, HP, Sony, even some new upstart company that goes by a single letter name called "L" (they're in Los Angeles so I guess silly names are a Hollywood thing). Rick even built several do-it-yourself systems from scratch to see if he could beat the manufacturers performance for less cost. And after all that, we thought we found the ultimate flightsimmer's PCs last year when we reviewed the Dell Dimension XPS and 8300.

With all due respect to our previous review, you ain't seen nothing yet, flightsimmers! Technology over the last year has advanced rapidly and shortened Moore's Law from 18 months to just 9. High-end systems are faster and have more advanced data handling capabilities than ever before.  The result is there's a new sheriff in town when it comes to the very best performance for flightsimmers -- the Area-51 Extreme from Alienware.

Gunfight at the FlightSim Corral

Actually, comparing the Area-51 Extreme to our first generation Dimension XPS is not really a fair fight. It's a bit like going into a gunfight on the dusty streets of Tombstone with a muzzle-loading flintlock pistol against Wyatt Earp's Colt 45 six-shooter. The Area-51 is loaded with advanced technologies that were just over the bleeding edge nine months ago when we reviewed the XPS and 8300 Dimension machines. What's more, Dell tends to build machines that adhere to industry standards while Alienware designs machines that squeeze every drop of entertainment system performance out of the bleeding edge of current technology right down to optimizing all the system drivers.

As the VP of Technology for FlightSim.Com, Rick Frerichs is the Wizard behind the curtain who makes the site keep chugging along. He always gets input on hardware reviews, but this Alienware Area-51 review is special. Everyone around here wanted to get their hands on this beauty, but Rick won the toss because this is going to really get into the guts of what makes an ultra-high performance flightsimmer machine. And, who better to do that than our chief tech guru. So, I twisted his arm a bit and convinced Rick to take a break from his servers and load balancers to set up The Gunfight at the Flightsim Corral between my trusty Dell Dimension XPS and his shiny new Alienware Area-51 Extreme. So let's skip to the grand finale. After the smoke had cleared from our rigorous benchmarking, the Dimension XPS ended up just like the Clantons did at the OK Corral. Riddled with bullets. No more metaphors, on to the nuts-and-bolts issues.

The Area-51 Extreme wins top scores on every criteria,
FlightSim.Com members win with an $80 instant rebate from Alienware

If you're in a hurry and just want to cut to the chase, read the following bullet points and then go right to the bottom of this article, click on the banner you'll find there to go to Alienware and buy one. Alienware as generously provided an $80 instant rebate for FlightSim.Com members. So, you'll save both time and money.

 The Area-51 was put through a battery of tough tests and so was the company that stands behind it. Both passed to receive our Platinum award of excellence for the following criteria:

Now, for the rest of you who are skeptics like Rick, read on for all the gory details.

Sleek, sexy, gorgeous!

The Area-51 Extreme has a very distinctive design that communicates the power, elegance and sophistication of the system inside. It's a joy to look at. While Alienware designers definitely get a little spacey, their design sense is definitely out-of-this-world. Puns most definitely intended! This Area-51 Extreme was no exception. Sexy curves blend beautifully with sleek accents and create feast for the eyes.  This PC looked like it was going Mach 3 before Rick even plugged it in!

Rick's out-of-the-box experience was impressive right from the start. Like the Dell XPS, the Area-51 is  not some puny computer. It's one very big box. Rick's first impression was, "The instant I set my eyes on that sleek black case with silver side vents and those intense glowing red AlienIce™ eyes, I was impressed with the care and exquisite detail of the system's exterior design. The front air intakes with their low-slung grille look damned aggressive. A fitting system for one who likes to fly Combat Flight Simulator 3 and blow stuff up. I'm happiest flightsimming when I can see bombs coming out of their racks and rockets coming off the rails with their associated big explosions. Now, I have a PC that looks like something a fighter pilot should sim with."

A cavalcade of cool colors

Dell let's you have any color you want, as long as it's blue. I affectionately refer to my  XPS as, "the Blue Behemoth that's not going to win any beauty contests." The immediate and most noticeable difference between these two top end machines is that Alienware has designed their box from the chassis up to look as good as it runs. Alienware is well known in the industry for creating very cool designs with hot colors using a full tower chassis. Rick ordered his in Space Black. But the Area-51 is available in a cavalcade of cool colors including Plasma Purple, Conspiracy Blue, Saucer Silver, Nova Yellow, Martian Red, Cyborg Green and Venusian Pink. The keyboard and mouse match the case color and throw in a few more choices with Chameleon colors in Red-Gold and Purple-Green.

Inside the box is where the rubber meets the road

Being a tech guy, Rick knows that looks aren't everything. So, before he even set it all up he just had to open the case and take the inside tour. The case is a full size tower. It's very roomy inside and has plenty of space for upgrades such as more drives. The 425 watt standard power supply has all the juice we need. For those of you who are seriously power hungry, Alienware offers a 650 watt power supply as an upgrade option. The full system specs of the Area-51 Extreme used for this review include:

By comparison, the Dell XPS was a bit lower-powered:

The five most important system components for flightsim performance

  1. CPU:  Faster is better, Intel Extreme with Hyper-Threading Technology (HTT) is best.
  2. Memory:  DDR SDRAM is best with at least 1GB for best results with FS2004.
  3. Video card:  Bigger, faster -- better. 256MB with nVidia 5950 is the current state-of-the art until the nVidia 6t800 boards hit the shelves.
  4. Monitor:  Not all CRTs or flat panel LCDs are created equal. You get what you pay for in terms of sharpness, resolution and refresh rate.
  5. Hard drive:  Here's the one instance where two small drives are definitely better than one big drive of equal capacity. When you set up a RAID 0 array with two identical drives, you get 50% greater performance for the same overall capacity.

CPU: A tale of two Pentiums

The Area-51 Extreme is powered by a next generation, Intel® Pentium 4 Extreme Processor 3.2GHZ with HT. By comparison, the Dell XPS we ran against it has the standard Intel Pentium 4 Processor with HT, not the extreme version. The primary difference between them, other than significant performance enhancement and additional cost for the Extreme CPU, is the Level 3, 2MB cache on the Extreme CPU. That L3 cache makes all the difference in the world when it comes to high-end simulations such as FS2004.

Here's how the two CPUs compare:

Processor Core Speed Front Side Bus Speed L2 Cache L3 Cache Chipset Memory Type
Pentium® 4 Processor with HT Technology† Extreme Edition 3.20 GHz 800 MHz 512 KB 2 MB 875P Dual-Channel DDR 400/333/266 SDRAM
Pentium® 4 Processor with HT Technology† 3.06 GHz 800 MHz 512 KB N/A 875P Dual-Channel DDR 400/333/266 SDRAM

† Hyper-Threading Technology requires a computer system with an Intel® Pentium® 4 processor supporting HT Technology and a Hyper-Threading Technology enabled chipset, BIOS and operating system. Performance will vary depending on the specific hardware and software you use.

Based on Intel® NetBurst™ micro-architecture and built with Intel's 0.13-micron technology, the Pentium® 4 Extreme processor is designed from the silicon up specifically for power-hungry high-end users. And we flightsimmers fit right into that category. The Area-51 Extreme runs 3.20 GHz, has an advanced 800 MHz system bus, a whopping 2MB of L3 cache, built-in Hyper-Threading Technology (HT Technology)† and also has built-in RAID array support. This baby is just fast as hell! There's no other way to describe it. And, while FS2004 does not use threaded software design, the HT feature gives you an immediate payoff. It enabled us to simultaneously run two software applications in parallel without sacrificing performance. So, when we used Voice Buddy voice control while flying FS2004, we saw absolutely no performance lagging.

In a nutshell, Intel NetBurst Microarchitecture comprises a package of subsystems on a single chip that include:

  • 800 MHz system bus
  • Hyper-pipelined technology
  • Rapid execution engine
  • Execution trace cache
  • Advanced transfer cache
  • Advanced dynamic execution
  • Enhanced floating point/multimedia
  • Streaming SIMD 2

What is Hyper-Threading Technology and why do flightsimmers need it?

You may have heard about what an important breakthrough Intel has achieved with the 3 GHz Pentium 4 processor and Hyper-Threading Technology (HTT). You may be wondering what HTT is and why a flightsimmer might want it on your PC.

HTT from Intel enables the processor to execute two threads (a part of a program) in parallel. So your software can run more efficiently and you can multitask more effectively than ever before.

Hyper-Threading Technology also improves processor performance and responsiveness, giving you the power to do more tasks on your PC at once such as playing a game while encoding digital music or editing digital video while encoding digital music. Best of all for flightsimmers, HTT and Windows XP enable you to flawlessly record full-motion, high resolution, video of your flights and save it to a compressed AVI video file on your hard drive without the need to go out to a video camera or digital recording deck.

By utilizing the multitasking features of Microsoft Windows XP, a Pentium 4 processor with an HTT-based PC can enhance content creation. When editing digital pictures or home movies, it can simultaneously manage more filters, transitions, special effects, and media types, making the experience easier and more enjoyable while you create spectacular movie results.

You can also turn your PC into a recording studio by simultaneously, recording, mixing and copying original instrumental analog input, which can be saved in CD, DVD or MP3 audio formats faster than ever before. The visual difference between HTT and non-HTT systems is best illustrated when viewing compressed video streams. Without HTT, the video stream looks like a choppy slide show. With HTT, the compressed video stream looks like a smoothly running, full-motion movie.  

HTT and Microsoft Flight Simulator

We have it on good authority that Microsoft did not use threading in the design of FS2004 or CFS3. But, you'll still enjoy a performance boost with HTT today and you'll be ready for HTT compliant solo applications as they come your way in the near future. HTT will definitely give you better performance even when you are only running a single application that does not  use threading. The reason is that Windows XP runs multiple services and other processes in the background while your main application is running. HTT speeds that multitasking. 

Memory:  What is  DDR SDRAM memory and how does it affect flightsim performance?

FS2004 is an amazingly powerful simulation program. It moves huge amounts of data and consumes significant system resources. System memory is responsible for storing, arranging, and delivering vast amounts of critical data with extreme speed and accuracy. So, that makes memory a critical component in flightsimming. Quality counts here. The slightest flaw can lead to data loss or corruption and even system failures.

Most lower performance system only use SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM). It is the standard memory offering in the PC industry. SDRAM is designed for mainstream home and business applications, email, and basic audio and video streaming. It provides single-channel memory. This is the least costly type of memory. You can run FS2004 on systems with SDRAM but you'll have to throttle back on the display, AI, weather and scenery settings to get smooth, jitter-free performance

High performance systems use DDR SDRAM (double data rate synchronous dynamic RAM). DDR SDRAM takes all the features of ordinary SDRAM and increases the frequency bandwidth to improve system performance and speed. This memory type costs more than regular SDRAM, but it is significantly faster. It also features sensational performance with the current, state-of-the-art 400 MHz bandwidth. So, it is the best overall value for price-performance and the flightsimmer’s choice. Best to get your PC equipped with at least 1GB of DDR SDRAM for outstanding flightsim performance.

The Area-51 Extreme we used had 1GB of DDR SDRAM. Alienware qualifies top brand memories. We saw no problems with memory performance.

Video card

This thing rocks! We are seriously impressed with the performance of the nVidia 5950GeForce 256MB card in the Area-51 Extreme.

Built by BFG, this video card has some very impressive specs including:

  • Custom heatpipe GPU cooler with dual lighted fans

  • AGP 8X (compatible with 4X and 2X AGP 2.0 compliant slots)

  • Up to 8 pixels per clock rendering engine

  • Up to 16 textures per pass

  • NVIDIA® CineFX™ 2.0 engine, NVIDIA® nView™ multi- display technology and NVIDIA® Forceware™ unified software environment (USE)

  • NVIDIA® UltraShadow™ technology enhances performance of bleeding-edge games that use complex shadows

Plus blazing refresh rates:

Resolution


640 x 480

8-bit color

240Hz

16-bit color

240Hz

32-bit color

240Hz

800 x 600

240Hz

240Hz

240Hz

848 x 480

240Hz

240Hz

240Hz

1024 x 768

240Hz

240Hz

200Hz

1152 x 864

200Hz

200Hz

170Hz

1280 x 960

170Hz

170Hz

150Hz

1280 x 1024

170Hz

170Hz

150Hz

1360 x 768

170Hz

170Hz

150Hz

1600 x 1024

120Hz

120Hz

100Hz

1600 x 1200

120Hz

120Hz

100Hz

1920 x 1080

100Hz

100Hz

100Hz

1920 x 1200

100Hz

100Hz

100Hz

1920 x 1440

85Hz

85Hz

85Hz

2048 x 1536

85Hz

85Hz

85Hz

*Not all monitors will support all resolutions and refresh rates. Please check your monitor's documentation. Refresh rates and resolutions may vary by operating system and application.

Monitor: Back to basics with an analog CRT

While I have come to like flat panel displays, Rick, along with many other flightsimmers, still prefers his images on an analog CRT. He ordered a NEC 19" flat screen display with his Area-51. Rick likes to change his resolution settings to suit the flightsim situation. Some virtual cockpits look much better at very high resolution of 1600x1200, others look better at lower resolution of 1280x1024 or even 1024x768. With a high-quality analog CRT such as the NEC, he can adjust the resolution up or down at will and still have a tack-sharp, distortion-free image. That's not the case with flat panel LCD displays. With my 18" Dell UltraSharp LCD, I get good results only at one setting:  1280x1024. I cannot go any higher. When I go lower, the image looks terrible and is so fuzzy that I cannot stand to look at it. This actually prevents me from uploading images to our screen shot forum, for example because at 1280x1024, the image file is too big and exceed the forum file size limits. It also means I have lots of extra work on every review to compress the screen shots so they look good but don't take forever to load on the review page.

No flickering!

Right out of the box, the video card needs a little TLC to adjust it so that you see beautiful FS2004 graphics and live weather with no flickering or the dreaded barber pole moire patter on buildings. Alienware includes the latest optimized drivers. So setting up was easy. Rick had to adjust both the nVidia control console and the display settings inside FS2004. Once he did, the graphics and flightsimming were smooth as a baby's bum. Here are the setting Rick used with this card on the Area-51 Extreme systems . If you try this on any other system, your results will vary.

We set the anti-aliasing controls from the nVidia control panel as shown below:

We adjusted the Display Settings in FS2004 as shown below:

The key to getting great results is to max out all the settings except for MIP mapping quality and Hardware-rendered lights. By throttling these two back a bit and achieving the right balance, you get perfect results. These settings were used for both stock scenery and MegaScenery test flights.

Hard drive: What 's Serial ATA and why should a flightsimmer care about it?

Serial ATA (SATA) is the future of hard drive performance, that can deliver blazing performance right now. Spinning at 10,000 RPM, Serial ATA drives give you ultra high-speed storage transfers with up to a fifty percent increase in data throughput over the old Ultra/ATA 133 technology. In RAID 0 configurations, Serial ATA-150 hard disk drive performance is further enhanced to a theoretical maximum throughput of up to three-hundred Megabytes per second, up to three times the throughput of previous generation disk drives in non-RAID configurations. Based on serial signaling technology, SATA replaces those ancient wide-flat IDE ribbon cables with compact serial cables that are far less sensitive to interference.  Serial ATA cables are much thinner and infinitely more flexible.  Since Serial ATA only requires seven wires per device, the cables are only be 8mm wide and the connectors are more compact as well.  This saves space on the motherboard and the hard drives themselves.  It also allows for much more efficient cooling inside the box. You'll notice that the interior of the Area-51 is a very wide open space with no ribbon cables to block the air flow.
 

Form follows function

The case is designed to resemble an alien's head with glowing "eyes", disguises the Alienware AlienIce exclusive video cooling system. The eyes come in Astral Blue, Terra Green or Fusion Red.  AlienIce is a unique design that combines style with a very important function. Heat is the nemesis of high performance systems. A Pentium 4 processor running at 3.2GHZ is cooking along at 125-degrees F just sitting still. When it really starts cranking, it can easily spike to 150-degreees. Plus, a high performance video card's graphics processor also generates bou coups BTUs. It's a very heavy thermal load that must be dissipated quickly or it will degrade performance and literally bake components to a non-functional crisp. That's where good internal thermal dynamics and excellent cooling fans really pay off. Those channels on the side are actually high performance air intakes. Located on the front and side, they're designed just like the cowl air intakes on a aircraft rotary engine. They capture outside air and channel it directly into the video cooling system  This design maximizes the efficiency of the internal thermal management system.  The extra jet of fresh air keeps everything running cool and at peak performance, even on heat wave days.

Staying cool takes careful design and quality construction

Overall, Alienware did a very nice assembly job. Each Area-51 is custom built by hand in the USA. You can get a wide range of customized configuration to suit both your performance needs and your budget. "I could see that a lot of care was taken to do it right.," Rick noted.

As you can see from the interior photo, the cabling is routed so as to not interfere with the interior thermal dynamics. You can see those big twin fans on the upper left, the large CPU fan in the middle, and the exclusive Alienware AlienIce video cooling system on the lower right. Fan noise is a bit louder than most PCs. But, Rick usually flies with Voice Buddy and a headset so the fan noise never bothers him. Also, when you have an audio system with Creative Audigy Z. 8 speakers with 7.1 surround sound and 700 Watts of audio power, you don't really hear fan noise when you're rocking to the Stones or watching DVD movies in surround sound splendor.  The rattling of the office windows is louder than the fans.

Convenience and extra security

The Alienware Full Tower Chassis has four front-accessible USB 2.0 ports plus another four in back. This is a real convenience if you want to have easy access to your USB ports for installing and switching various USB flight controllers and other gear such as GoFlight instrument modules, while you plug your essential peripherals such as mouse, printer, scanner, etc. in back. It's also very handy if you happen to use a USB key micro drive. Rick uses them frequently when he has to "sneaker-net" large files from system-to-system.

The Area-51 also came with a feature that's a throwback to the prehistoric days of IBM-XT computing -- a lock. Not an electronic pass code but a real, honest to goodness lock with a key. Unlike the old IBM-XT locks, this lock does much more than just turn the system on and off. With a single key, it guards access to independent entry points and multiple security levels. Rick protects access to system drives, plus secures power and reset switches to avoid inadvertent shutdowns. The lock also keeps Nosy Nellies out of the guts of the box by guarding against unauthorized access to internal system components.

A Few Words about USB Ports and Peripherals

If you're serious about flightsimming, you probably use high end flight controllers such as those made by CH Products. See our latest review for their HOTAS system by Max Merlin and their USB yoke and rudder pedals by Rory Gillies. These top performers, along with other high performance USB peripherals such as GoFlight Cockpit Controls, digital still and video cameras, scanners and multifunction printers/copier/scanner; need the high speed USB 2.0 interface to work best. Most PCs only have a limited number of USB 2.0 ports. Usually two, 2.0 and two 1.0 ports is all you'll get on any other system. That means you need to add either internal or external USB hubs to handle all your peripherals. This is an expense and hassle that you really shouldn't have to endure since it's relatively inexpensive for PC manufacturers to add lots of USB 2.0 ports. The designers at Alienware give you eight of them, four in front and another four in back, all USB 2.0.

Alienware uses the more expensive, and far more reliable, Intel USB 2.0 chipset. So does the Dell XPS. Many other PC manufacturers, use the cheaper VIA USB chipsets. Frankly, the VIA chipsets have proven to be a bit wonky when mated to CH Products and GoFlight controllers and instrument modules. VIA ports work OK, but they tend to lose their programming and must be frequently re-calibrated. If you have four flight gear controllers, plus another four GoFlight modules, that's eight devices you would need to recalibrate on every FS2004 start-up. It's a bit of a pain in the neck to do that. The Area-51's Intel USB controllers are rock solid. Install the device, calibrate it once and fuggeddaboudit. Works every time.

OK, so what the heck is USB, anyway, and why is it important? The Universal Serial Bus (USB) controls the data transfer between your computer and peripheral devices attached to the computer through the USB connector. Examples of devices that attach via the USB port include printers, scanners, digital cameras, keyboards, mouse, and MP3 players. The simple reason why flightsimmers need USB 2.0 is that this port protocol  transfers data approximately 40 times faster than USB 1.1. USB 2.0 technology operates at speeds up to 480 Mpbs. Older USB 1.1 architecture operates at speeds of only 12 Mpbs. Mo' fasta', mo' betta'.

USB 2.0 makes it very easy to swap controllers and other devices among USB ports because your USB devices are "hot-swappable". This means that you don't have to turn your computer on and off every time a new device such as a flight yoke, rudder pedals, printer or scanner is reconnected to your computer.

Protecting your assets is another benefit. Most of today's new peripherals use the USB 2.0 architecture. So, having lots of USB 2.0 ports is the smart way to go. Best of all, USB 2.0 technology is backwards compatible with older USB 1.1 devices. If you have an older USB device, it will work with the USB 2.0 card albeit at the slower USB 1.1 transfer rates. 

Firewire is essential for video and digital photography

Alienware designers thought of everything. They include two, IEEE 1394 high-speed data ports; one on the motherboard and a second one on the sound card. Also known as Firewire, the IEEE 1394 standard interface, originally was developed by Apple Computer as a high speed serial bus. Think of it as your serial data port on mega-steroids. Digital video is the primary reason to need an IEEE 1394 port. Digital video images are represented by a huge amount of data and to move that information from camera to computer requires a blazing fast interface that handles a flood of data.  

A single 1394 port can be used to connect up 63 external devices. In addition to its high speed, IEEE 1394 also supports isochronous data -- delivering data at a guaranteed rate. This makes it ideal for devices that need to transfer high levels of data in real-time, such as video cameras

Although extremely fast and flexible, IEEE 1394 is also expensive. Like USB, IEEE 1394 supports both Plug-and-Play, is hot swappable and also provides power to peripheral devices. Bottom line is, if you're a flightsimmer who is also into digital video, the pair of IEEE 1394 ports in the Area-51 is a welcome bonus.

Awesome sound with surround theater performance

Rick and I are both audiophiles and movie buffs. So, we appreciate a great sound system in an entertainment PC. I thought the XPS was pretty decent. But Rick showed me what a awesome sound system is really like. He ordered his Area-51 Extreme with the Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS 7.1 card and the Creative GigaWorks S750-7.1 700 Watt speaker system. Those eight speakers and card really rocked the house. Rick's a window-rattler from way back.  It's hard to describe a multi-spatial sound system in a few words. It's just something you have to hear live to appreciate. But when he cranked up the 8-speaker surround system with his  favorite DVD (The Blues Brothers movie) -- the joint was definitely jumpin'! This is an area where Alienware and Dell radically depart from each other. Dell tends to put decent but low end sound systems on their PCs. Alienware designs in the very best because their engineers appreciate what it means to merge home theater with home entertainment computers. I could clearly hear the difference and it was worth the additional cost for the vastly better sound system.

For you audiophiles out there, just feast your eyes on these specs for the Sound Blaster® Audigy® 2 ZS 7.1:

  • Superior Fidelity 24-bit ADVANCED HD™ Audio
    Superior quality 24-bit/192kHz audio, ultra-realistic EAX® ADVANCED HD™ GAME effects, and studio quality EAX® ADVANCED HD™ MUSIC settings
  • THX® Certified Sound Card for Cinematic Audio
    The only certified sound card with exclusive Creative THX® Setup Console that provides accurate audio calibration for a precise speaker listening environment
  • Advanced Resolution™ 24-bit DVD-Audio Playback
    The only certified PC platform for Advanced Resolution™ 24-bit/96kHz 5.1 surround and 24-bit/192kHz stereo DVD-Audio playback
  • Ultra-realistic EAX® 4.0 ADVANCED HD Effects
    Multi-Environment™ audio with up to four simultaneous environments processed in real-time and up to 7.1 surround with over 400 existing DirectSound3D® enabled games
  • EAX Music Console with Acoustic Enhancements
    Dramatically enhance your music experience with new EAX® ADVANCED HD™ MUSIC features including Bass Boost, Multi-band Graphic Equalizer on all 8 channels, Audio Clean-up, and Karaoke
  • Patented Creative CMSS® 3D Audio Technology
    Allows all stereo recordings including MP3/WMA, CDs, VCD, and movies to be played back in captivating 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 surround
  • Integrated High Speed 1394 FireWire® Port
    Enables PC-to-PC networking and low latency gaming plus high speed data transfers with IEEE® compliant devices including MP3 players, storage devices and DV Camcorders.

What's a good sound card without amazing speakers?

While you can choose to down-rate the sound system on an Area-51, Rick went the other direction and nearly maxxed it out. He was convinced that the best price performance was to save a few bucks on the card with the Audigy 2 ZS as opposed to going top line with the Platinum Pro versions, and max out the speakers. Alienware was happy to oblige with the Creative GigaWorks™ S750. It is certainly a top-of-class performer. Specifically designed for DVD and gaming -- this is the first THX® certified 7.1 multimedia speaker system that features Titanium Supertweeters which extend high frequency suitable for DVD-audio playback. That's why the Blues Brothers never sounded better than on this system. In addition, Rick received a large ported subwoofer that produced unprecedented acoustical output with clean, chest-thumping, subsonic bass.

The reason this system was so impressive is that Creative's proprietary CMSS‚ upmix technology simulates realistic 7.1 surround sound even with 5.1 and 6.1 sound cards. So, we got great results without having to pop for the top-of-line audio card cost.

The speakers also have plenty of connectors including line-in, M-PORT™ and headphone jack for connection to stereo devices and MP3 players. It also has its own wireless remote control that lets you adjust mute, power on/off, individual output levels and treble/bass settings.

Gigabit Ethernet technology 

The Area-51 Extreme comes standard with high-speed gigabit Ethernet. It's the new standard in high performance networking. that's up to ten times faster than 10/100Mbps Ethernet. The upside is that it gives you the highest possible network performance. You can stream digital audio and video over your wired home network, diminish response times in multiplayer games, and transfer vast amounts of data between computers faster than ever before. But, the downside is that if you simply add this dynamo to a network that runs at 100Mbps, you won't see much of a difference.


Flight test results, seeing is believing

OK, without further delay, we get to what counts in this review:  the flightsimming. And the numbers don't lie. As you can see from the screen shots, Rick was able to get some excellent frame rates.

  • Area-51: 30-80 fps
  • Dell XPS: 16-70 fps

Top end, Rick saw frame rates around 75-80 on the Area-51 Extreme. Bottom end, they seldom dropped below 30. This was consistent across all types of scenery. He flew with stock FS2004 as well as MegaScenery New York and both stock and add-on aircraft. Plus, as you can tell from the settings shown above, we did not skimp of FS2004 features. We fire-walled the throttle on everything.

The torture test for any flightsim machine is Manhattan. Even using FS2004's stock dynamic vector graphics scenery, Manhattan is a frame rate eater. Not satisfied with stock, we took things quite a bit further. Rick loaded MegaScenery New York and turned on the extended terrain textures and went full-throttle with the autogen scenery. The Alienware Area-51 took it all in stride. The images below show Manhattan frames rates on the high 30s, 40s, 50s fps. Out over other terrain, the frame rates zoomed to the high 70s.

Click on the thumbnails to enlarge the image to its full 1280 x 1024 size and you can see the frame rate readouts for yourself.

MegaScenery speed test

While MegaScenery is a sensational product, loading it with extended terrain textures can take quite awhile. So we used that as one of our processing performance benchmarks and were shocked by what we saw:

Loading MegaScenery New York with extended terrain textures turned on the Area-51 Extreme took just 70 seconds! On the Dell XPS it took 5 minutes 33 seconds. I literally had time to microwave a cup of tea while it loaded.

A few words about frame rates

Now, you all know by now that I usually avoid quoting frame rates. After all, your eye cannot see much difference beyond 30 fps in an event. However, high frame rates are a benchmark of system performance. If the system screams along at 70-80 fps, you can be certain that you will have wonderful results even when all variables combine to cut it to 30 fps.  In a low-end system, those same variables conspire to reduce frame rate to the teens and provide very poor flightsimming results. So, while frame rate are subject to a wide range of variables, they certainly do matter. There are at least 12 variables that can affect frame rate and no two systems are alike. So, please don't assume that you will get these rates if your system comes close to an Area-51 Extreme or XPS, but is different. Small configuration changes can make huge differences in system performance and subsequent frame rates. The dozen variables that affect frame rate include:

  1. CPU and whether or not it has HT Technology

  2. Memory

  3. Video card

  4. Sound card

  5. Operating system

  6. DirectX version

  7. FS2004 display settings

  8. Video card hardware settings

  9. Monitor

  10. Network Internet connection, for multiplayer online activities

  11. Hard drive

  12. Drive controller

Benchmarks

Alienware provides a 7-page benchmarks report with every system. Rick took one look at it and then ran his own tests. He used SiSoftware SANDRA, the same application that Alienware uses so the tests are comparable. He didn't overclock it. Rick just made minor optimizations that turned off unnecessary Windows XP processes and desktop eye-candy.

Benchmark Term Glossary

Dhrystone:  Widely used to measure CPU performance in industry under various versions/variants. The benchmark is designed to contain a representative sample of types of operations, mostly numerical, used by applications. Unfortunately this does not always represent a true real-life performance, but is useful to compare the speed of various CPUs. The Dhrystone benchmark used here is a multi-threaded, 32/64-bit variant of the original one which runs under UNIX. Up to 64 CPUs in SMP systems are supported. The result is determined by measuring the time it takes to perform some sequences of instructions. Due to various changes, the result is not directly comparable with other Dhrystone benchmarks. However the MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second) should be the same for the same system (+5-10% variation) between benchmarks. While the original benchmark does not compute anything, this version does check the results with the expected ones just in case there are problems with the CPU/memory.
Whetstone:  Widely used in the computer industry as a measure of FPU or Co-Processor performance. Floating-point arithmetic is most significant in programs that require a Co-Processor. These are mostly scientific, engineering, statistical and computer-aided design programs. The Whetstone benchmark used here is a multi-threaded, 32/64-bit variant of the original one which runs under UNIX. Up to 64 CPUs in SMP systems are supported. The result is determined by measuring the time it takes to perform some sequences of floating-point instructions. Due to various changes, the result is not directly comparable with other Whetstone benchmarks. However the MFLOPS (Million FLoating OPerations per Second) should be the same for the same system (+5-10% variation) between benchmarks.

As you can see from the bar graph above, there's a much greater performance difference than you would think if you merely judged the difference between a 3 and 3.2GHz Pentium 4 Processor.  These benchmarks show the influence of the Intel Extreme Level 3 2MB cache since the front side bus, Level 2 cache and memory bandwidth are identical between the two processors.

The bottom line: Price-performance

As I mentioned in the beginning of this review, Rick and I believe that you get what you pay for. This is certainly the case here. We configured and priced a Dell XPS system that would approximate the Alienware Area-51 Extreme. The price difference was nominal but the quality and performance differences were sizeable as you can see from the table below:

Dell Dimension XPS

 

Alienware AREA-51

 

Pentium 4 Processor at 3.2GHz Extreme Edition

 

Intel Pentium 4 Processor with HT Technology Extreme Edition 3.20 GHz

 

Intel 875P Chipset

 

ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe - Intel 875PBZ Pentium 4 Motherboard

 

1GB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400 MHz

 

1GB DDR SDRAM PC-3200 - 2x512MB Module

 

NEW 148GB RAID 0 (2 x 74GB SATA HDDs)

 

73.4GB (2x36.7GB) Western Digital Raptor Serial ATA 10,000RPM

 

3.5 Floppy Drive

 

3.5 Floppy Drive

 

Primary Optical Drive - 48x CD-RW Drive

 

Primary Optical Drive - Lite-On 52x32x52x CD-RW - Black

 

Secondary Optical Drive - 8x DVD+RW Drive

 

Secondary Optical Drive - Plextor PX-708A 8x DVD+-R/W Drive - Black

 

256MB ATI Radeon 9800XT

 

Alienware Extreme Edition GeForce FX 5950 Ultra 256MB

 

Sound Blaster Audigy™2 with DVD Audio

 

Sound Blaster® Audigy 2 ZS - 7.1

 

Integrated Intel Pro 1000 Ethernet

 

Integrated Intel Pro/1000 CT Gigabit Ethernet Adapter w/CSA

 

Modem - None

 

Modem - None

 

Monitor - 19 in (18.0 viewable) M992 Monitor

 

Monitor - NEC 19" MultiSync FE991SB Flat CRT

 

Speakers - Logitech Z-680 5.1 THX

 

Speakers - Creative GigaWorks S750 7.1 700-Watt Speakers

 

Dell Enhanced Multimedia Keyboard

 

Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard

 

Dell Optical USB Mouse

 

Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0

 

Operating System - Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition

 

Operating System - Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition

 

Warranty:

 

Warranty:

 

1 Year Limited Warranty plus 1 Year At-Home Service

 

1-Year AlienCare Toll Free 24-7 Phone Support with Onsite Service

 

 

 

Additional Features not offered by Dell:

 

 

 

AlienIce Video Cooling System

 

 

 

GameSpot Complete - Free 90 Day Trial

 

Price at above specs:

$3,870

Price at above specs:

$4,280

$0 Instant Rebate

$0

Tax:

$0.00

Price after Instant Rebate:

$3,870

Shipping (Includes a much heavier monitor and speaker system):

$186

Tax:

$234

Total Cost:

$4,466.00

Free 2 Day Shipping Promo ($193.95 - $120 = E79.95):

$79.95

 

 

Total Cost:

$4,184

 

 

Compatibility Adjustments 

 

 

 

Dell XPS (Price at above specs):

$3,870

Alienware Area-51 (Price at above specs):

$4,280

Raptor Drives (-$300)

$3,570

Optical Drives (-$10)

$4,270

Speakers (+$160)

$3,730

Sound Card (-$30)

$4,240

Price after Revisions:

$3,730

AlienIce Video Cooling (-$70):

$4,170

Tax:

$226

Price after Revisions:

$4,170

Free Shipping Promo ($193.95 - $120 = E79.95):

$79.95

Tax:

$0

Total Cost:

$4,036

Shipping:

$189.00

 

 

Total Cost:

$4,359

 

 

FlightSim Promotion - $80 Instant Rebate:

$80

Bottom Line Price Difference

 $243

Total Cost after Instant Rebate:

$4,279

* These prices are valid as of April 30, 2004.

 

 

 

**Yellow cells mean specifications are the same for each category.

 

 

***Different colored cells (green) indicate similar specifications for the category

 

 

The bottom line difference was rather small at just $243 more for the Alienware system that at the bitter end is still a much better PC. 

Spec it your way, get it in a week.

You can build your own PC at Alienware and configure it up or down to suit your needs. You'll still get it customized, hand-built, tested, benchmarked and out the door in a week. That's faster than any other customer configured high-end PC we could find.

Parting shots

This review must be some sort of record for FlightSim.Com. But, there is just so much about this machine that I had to ruthlessly cut certain details. Save a few pleasant surprises for when you check it out for yourself at Alienware. Suffice to say that both Rick and I were very impressed with the Alienware Area-51 Extreme. My Blue Behemoth didn't look like such hot stuff after seeing what Rick was doing with his sleek black beauty. I must admit that if I had it to do all over again, I think today I would spend a few extra bucks and go for the Area-51 over a Dell XPS. After all, this flightsimmer's humble opinion, the pain of parting with a couple hundred extra bucks is fleeting. The agony of struggling with an  underpowered PC, or a buggy video card (remember the agony of ATI!) lasts what seems like an eternity.

Cap Mason
 CapMason@FlightSim.Com


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