Alienware announces 4K Area-51 gaming PC revamp

The space-age pod is built with 4K gaming in mind

The new Area-51 is a far cry from the hulking black tower we saw from Alienware in 2009, but it's certainly a welcome change...

Alienware has announced the rebirth of its supercharged Area-51 gaming PC, now touting a space-age 'Triad' chassis and a raft of high-power specs.

The new gaming hub is designed to play games at UHD 4K resolutions, a tough feat for even the most well-endowed rigs.

"We're excited to reveal the reimagined Alienware Area-51, a system that is the result of 18 years of innovation fuelded by our love of gaming," says Frank Azor, Alienware's GM.

"We questioned everything and then began working on a system based on how we actually use our full-tower desktops rather than base on what was quick, easy, or comfortable for us to design."

Gaming heft comes courtesy of the latest Intel Haswell-E processors, shipping in six or eight core variants, as well as support for up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM.

Alienware's chips come factory overclocked with liquid-cooling systems so performance should be peak upon arrival.

The beastly pod also supports up to three graphics cards, with the most recent Nvidia and AMD GPU releases offered.

Alienware says its idiosyncratic new casing is engineered for 'superb thermal efficiency', as well as looking pretty awesome.

"The new design ensures high performance components are properly cooled by pulling in fresh cool air at the front and warmed air is exhausted diagonally and away from the chassis out the rear," says the firm.

The casing is also designed for ease of access, meaning it should be a breeze to crack open and tinker with should an upgrade suit your fancy.

The Area-51 also uses Alienware's Command Centre 4.0 software, which gives you command over 512 trillion lighting combinations for the 9 lighting zones on the chassis.

It also gives users the ability to control other aspects of the PC, namely overclocking, although advanced options like voltages and memory timings are also programmable.

Alienware's latest powerhouse gear will ship at the end of the year, although a specific date and price point are still unknown right now.