Alienware X51 R3 Upgraded GPU, RAM, SSD, PSU

First, I suggest you do major research before diving into a PC upgrade or even buying a PC. Ask your self what you are wanting to accomplish and how much money you are willing to spend. What you want to upgrade, and upgrade TO, not to mention shop around to get best price for your products, and last know how to upgrade a PC. Their a ton of videos on how to, but also watch the ones with reviews and upgrades that are similar to your PC, even the ones that do not work and go horrible wrong, ignore the language. 8) The best video I seen was one on dissembling my PC, huge help when upgrading my PC. My story: 

I purchased an Alienware X51 R3 with the intel Core i3-6100 processor 3.7 GHz with windows 10 Home 64-bit. It came with 8GB DDR4-2133 RAM, which I upgraded myself with Crucial Ballistic Sport 32GB: 2x16GB DDR4-2400. You can watch plenty of videos on line on how to do this, very simple and one of the easiest ways to improve performance of any PC.

It came with a Toshiba DT01ACA100 1TB 7,200 RPM hard drive, which I decided to temporary keep in the PC for storage, but wanted something a little more faster so I got a refurbished Samsung 950 NVME PCIE M.2 512 GB, I had a two issues installing this drive: One, as many have mentioned, since my X51 R3 did not come with this drive, but has a place for one, it did not have a screw to hold it down on the GPU frame. If you do not have an old PC or notebook laying around you can visit recycling electronic places to find your part. I found mine on an old notebook with busted screen near the hard drive area. You can also take the screw that holds down the wireless card to a hardware store and I bet you can purchase a small bag of them for less than $4. As I said before I wanted to keep my 1 TB for Video, music, and Document storage, so once I was able to clone my drive, removed it and ensured that my new drive was working, I had to delete all the partitions on it, before I could reinstall it back into the PC. If you do not do this, the system will revert back to using the original drive. I am guessing their are different ways to skin this cat, but this was mentioned to me from this forum to do it, and that seemed the easiest way, providing you have a way to hook it back up while using the Samsung 950. I did mine with a Thermaltake Blacx Duet usb docking station. This issue I had after gaining access to the drive I was only able to remove the main partition and the others I had no access to, so I had to DISKPART, erase/clean a drive through the command prompt where you can get these set of instructions online or in a recent forum posting of mine.  

It came with a GTX745 DDR3, and the PSU was 180W. I had posted a question for what I need and options on GPU's. Can see my previous postings. I had two options for PSU: 240W and a 330W, which you can purchase online. I was given a list of approved GPU's, which I would recommend for those that do not want to break warranty policies, but I went with the GTX 1060 6GB. I liked the overclocking specs and had read it runs cooler and uses less wattage in doing so. I had no issues installing this, just watched several videos on installing GPUs for Alienware X51s, even the ones that did not go so well.

Be sure to run several stress test using Dell support tools online, I was able to test, and stress test all my installed upgrades. I obviously  installed the separately and tested them, not to mention waited a few days in between upgrades, especially the serious ones.

I am not sure I got the best deals in purchasing the PC or upgrading it, but I learned a lot in doing this project. I know I am limited to the 330W PSU, but can purchase the Alienware Amp to go further with GPU upgrade and can upgrade the CPU if I want as well. The X51 offered a lot of bang for the price I paid, not to mention seem very user friendly when it comes to upgrading it in my mine. It takes up very little space and is super quiet. To be honest with you, most of my new purchases for anything are usually models that have been in service for a while if not discontinued, most of the bugs are worked out, I think. 

To be honest with you, I was able to play all the games before my upgrades, but got the bug to upgrade it. Again, learn what you can before buying and know what you NEED, not so much as what you want. Do not be to scared of refurbished products, especially if your big on price and not warranties, etc.

I want to thank all those that have assisted me here in this forum, would not have been able to accomplish this without those PEPs, and wish everyone else who is in the process of buying or upgrading a PC a happy purchase/build. I plan to look into upgrading the CPU next! 8)

HolyCow99