Alienware breaks open the gates of Area-51 during CES 2025 with its brand new machines

It’s been a few years since Dell pulled the Area-51 brand from its library, but it turns out it was never gone; it was just waiting. Now, during CES 2025, Dell will open the gates once more and produce Alienware gaming devices that use the Area-51 name. But will it be a rise to past glories, or would Area-51 be better off locked up in Nevada?

Alienware announces the Area-51 Desktop

Alienware is wasting no time in getting the Area-51 name back in front of gamers. The aptly named Area-51 Desktop comes with enough room to fit a 600W graphics card (which

may come in handy very, very soon
) and 280W of processing power.

Alienware is taking a big stance on allowing you to upgrade or repair the components within your Area-51 Desktop. The company has added QR codes inside the chassis which tells you how to take bits apart, add new components, and keep the internals clean. Plus, Alienware only uses industry-standard components so you’re not blocked out by bespoke hardware.

Alienware is also trying a unique way of keeping the components cool. While there are plenty of fans directing cool air in from the outside, the Area-51 Desktop has no exhaust fans to expel the hot air. It feels like blasphemy, but Alienware uses a good portion of its press release to make its case:

Here’s how it works… Dual 140mm fans direct cool ambient air upward toward the GPU fans ensuring maximum graphics performance. Larger dual 180mm fans push air laterally toward the GPU, CPU and memory from the front of the chassis. Lastly, dual or triple 120mm fans are included for liquid cooling configurations to pull in additional air from the top. This creates a greater internal air pressure compared to the outside and forces heated air to expel through the rear of the chassis.

By combining these larger fan sizes and advanced liquid cooling configurations, the positive pressure design moves 25% more air through the chassis, helping Area-51 run up to 13% cooler and 45% quieter during graphics intensive tasks.

The specs are no slackers, either; we’re seeing up to 64GB of RAM, up to 8TB of storage with two 4TB drives, up to a 1500W Platinum power supply, and—because no gaming hardware company would dare be caught without it—customizable RBG lighting zones.

The Area-51 Desktop will launch in Q1 for $4,499, with Alienware teasing that it will contain a suspiciously non-descript “high-end, next-gen, NVIDIA GPU.” Yeah, we’re definitely seeing the RTX 5000 series during CES 2025.

Alienware also reveals its new Area-51 laptops

Alienware is also working on a laptop range if you like gaming on the go. Alienware claims these laptops have “the highest total power ceiling in a gaming laptop,” with up to 175W of power for

graphics and 105W for processors. Alienware also claims another first by stating that these are its first laptops to support Gen5 solid-state drives.

There aren’t many specs to be had here, with Alienware promising “280W of power on next-gen NVIDIA graphics and a next-gen Intel Ultra CPU,” but they did confirm that they wanted these laptops to look and feel like they came out of Area 51 itself. Sure enough, it has a nice, glowing ambient effect and a hingeless design that gives it a sleek, futuristic appearance. And to keep all of that cool, the Alienware engineers have worked hard to optimize the cooling so that the new Area-51 laptops push “37% more air through the system while being 15% quieter.”

If you’re interested in grabbing your own, you don’t need to wait long. Alienware is aiming to release the Area-51 laptops for $3,199 during Q1.