Report: Dell Locks Alienware Area 51’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D to Its Motherboard

Wccftech reports that an owner of an Alienware Area 51 pre-built gaming desktop found that the system’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D could not be moved to a custom PC. The report says Dell locked the processor to work only with the Area 51 motherboard.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D has 16 cores and AMD 3D V-Cache technology. Wccftech says the processor could have added multi-core and gaming performance to the owner’s custom PC, but that would depend on whether it could work with other motherboards.

The owner had spent money on parts that could not be swapped into the custom PC, according to the report. Wccftech also says Dell has previously been criticized for locking down PC parts, describing the practice as anti-consumer.

The report does not identify the owner or provide Dell’s response.