The Grey Box Shifter Dell has finally decided which AMD chip it wants in its flashy Area-51 desktop.
It previously listed Area-51 specs with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, then walked it back, saying it was an error and meant “Ryzen 7 9850X3D”.
That excuse never really held up, because multiple reports had already pointed to a Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 configuration turning up once the processor went official.
Now the Alienware X account has confirmed an Area-51 build using AMD’s 16-core, 32-thread Zen 5 flagship Ryzen 9 9950X3D2.
It is being pitched as the first desktop chip with a dual-X3D chiplet design, featuring 192MB of L3 cache and a total of 208MB of cache for gaming and productivity.
Most of the basics look close to the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, but the extra 64MB of L3 cache and a 200W TDP is where the bigger shove comes from.
Dell says the Area-51 desktop with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 lands in retail on 22 April, calling it its most powerful pre-built yet.
Full specs are still missing, but the expectation is the usual top-shelf menu, with up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, up to 64GB of DDR5 and up to 4TB of storage.
The existing configuration with the “Ryzen 7 9850X3D” already offers that sort of hardware, so the supposed flagship build would look daft if it turned up trimmed down.
The chassis is staying as-is, at least judging by the pictures posted by Alienware, so the main changes are happening under the bonnet.
No price has been announced, which usually means it will be eye-watering, and a stacked build with a Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 and RTX 5090 is being pegged at more than $5,000.
