[SOLVED] Alienware Aurora R12 Advice

[afatpigeon]

Aurora R12 Upgradability

Hi all!

Please correct me if I’m wrong, or apologies is this thread is in the wrong place.

I’ve just purchased an Aurora R12 (3090) PC. I have a few questions, if anyone is kind enough to answer.

- The 3090 is a custom sized GPU built for Alienware. How will this impact me, in say 3-4 years wanting to upgrade the GPU? Or am I expected to buy a complete new PC?

- In general, how easy is it to upgrade components in the PC itself?

- Does having a smaller GPU (custom built 3090 for the R12) impact on GPU performance, to a say… ‘full size one’?

- Any overall tips/tricks to longer the lifespan of the PC?

Many thanks!

 

[Phaaze88]

- The 3090 is a custom sized GPU built for Alienware. How will this impact me, in say 3-4 years wanting to upgrade the GPU? Or am I expected to buy a complete new PC?

These companies expect you to buy a brand new one.
One of the tradeoffs of not having to service the PC yourself should problems arise - excluding cleaning it, of course.

- In general, how easy is it to upgrade components in the PC itself?

Taking out cpus and gpus from a motherboard is easy, but some prebuilts have custom designed parts - usually on the motherboard, the mobo itself is custom, or the chassis is custom - that are anti-consumer; they prevent or hinder you from doing any upgrades yourself.

- Does having a smaller GPU (custom built 3090 for the R12) impact on GPU performance, to a say… ‘full size one’?

If it's designed well, no.
Gamers' Nexus did review this card recently:

Spoiler

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8k5PCmFm7c

Conclusion: it does ok.

- Any overall tips/tricks to longer the lifespan of the PC?

Clean it at least once a year.
If you have any other problems with the PC, that's the OEM's job; you paid them for that after all.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

As a recent Alienware Aurora R10 owner, I have the need to pass along this info. The Alienware desktops are one giant ripoff. Dell is using a "Nano-Chassis" from the last 5-6 yrs maybe longer. The PC is crammed with parts just to fit inside the small chassis. That means a proprietary GPU which needs to be smaller than a retail GPU. So thinking you can later upgrade the GPU, that might not work because even if the GPU is small enough to fit inside the case, the Alienware desktop is "finicky" about what parts you can use.

Airflow is crap and heat buildup is definitely a problem even if you are using a liquid cooled solution.

Upgrading memory is also a problem because the Alienware desktops use DDR4 that have been optimized for 1.2v when the industry standard is 1.35v. My R10 came with 8GB of RAM because it was part of a flash sale and I could not change the config. So I ordered DDR4 32GB HyperX Fury @3200Mhz directly from Amazon. The memory sticks supported 1.2v abd 1.35v. Guess what? When I O/C the memory sticks to 3200Mhz I get booting problems including a BIOS Recovery screen. When I run them at 2933Mhz no issues.

Basically when you buy Alienware desktops it's like buying a hamburger from McDonald's and pretending you bought it from Ruth Chris Steakhouse. It's all brand and name. They are poorly designed, use cheap parts and are not upgradeable with the exception of fans and cooler and adding drives.

Dell makes a killing even when they are on a flash sale. So why did I buy an Aurora R10, no GPU's available so I went the prebuilt route and I got my prebuilt for $1250 which included an 3800X, 512GB Nvme, RTX 2070 Super, Wifi 6. My invoice says that the cost of my system was around $800 so that's a $450 profit for Dell.

My suggestion is to look at the HP Omen 30L, Falcon NW prebuilts or Corsair prebuilts. Dell makes junk. I have never owned any of their laptops but they seem to put more design efforts into their laptops than they do their desktops.

 

[Joseph_138]

Steve, at Gamers Nexus, did a review and found that the thermals are really, really bad on Alienware's that use that case. He reviewed the Ryzen version, but heat is heat, whether it comes from an AMD chip, or an Intel. The chassis is actually the same size as the chassis that Dell uses on most of their mini towers, with some differences to fit a real power supply inside. It's only the plastics that they attach to it that make it look bigger. A 3090 is going to dump tons of heat inside that case, that is actually smaller than it appears, and all that plastic is only going to insulate it, making it even harder to keep cool.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ulhFi5N2hc

 

[Karadjgne]

The Dell 3090 is actually very decent, got really decent review from gamersnexus, and Steve is Picky! when it comes to Dell products. That said, the Aurora series has long been a serious flop, basically ever since Dell acquired it.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Steve, at Gamers Nexus, did a review and found that the thermals are really, really bad on Alienware's that use that case. He reviewed the Ryzen version, but heat is heat, whether it comes from an AMD chip, or an Intel. The chassis is actually the same size as the chassis that Dell uses on most of their mini towers, with some differences to fit a real power supply inside. It's only the plastics that they attach to it that make it look bigger. A 3090 is going to dump tons of heat inside that case, that is actually smaller than it appears, and all that plastic is only going to insulate it, making it even harder to keep cool.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ulhFi5N2hc

I watched that video and he makes very valid points !

The Dell 3090 is actually very decent, got really decent review from gamersnexus, and Steve is Picky! when it comes to Dell products. That said, the Aurora series has long been a serious flop, basically ever since Dell acquired it.

And that's because Dell mails it in. The Aurora line is a substandard design that's sold as a premium prebuilt gaming rig. It is not and that becomes obvious when you tear it down. When Dell is allowing their prebuilts to be sold with 8GB of single channel RAM or a half assed air cooler on the CPU, gamers who are willing to spend decent money will look elsewhere. I am saying this as a recent Aurora customer.

Their laptops however look like they put a TON of effort into their designs. Their desktops, not so much.

 

[Joseph_138]

To make it even worse, because the power supply literally sits a mere 17mm above the CPU, you can't even upgrade to a tower cooler like the one that Dell puts on the K CPU's in the G5 5000 and XPS 8940. It won't fit. You would need a waterblock that fits in the space, but since Dell cases are proprietary, that might make locating the components challenging. I wouldn't touch an Alienware with a barge pole.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

To make it even worse, because the power supply literally sits a mere 17mm above the CPU, you can't even upgrade to a tower cooler like the one that Dell puts on the K CPU's in the G5 5000 and XPS 8940. It won't fit. You would need a waterblock that fits in the space, but since Dell cases are proprietary, that might make locating the components challenging. I wouldn't touch an Alienware with a barge pole.

Correct but you can use a Cooler Master AIO, others have successfully done it and there's an Ebay'er who's selling the OEM Alienware AIO. The Aurora chassis is plain substandard and should NOT be used plain and simple. They are that bad. I only went that route because I could not get my hands on a GPU and got desperate.

To backup what the guy in the video said. I had bought Dying Light on Steam and started playing it for about 60 minutes. When I ran HWMon my 3800X CPU temps had peaked at 86c and my RTX 2070 Super temps had peaked to 91c and my VRAM was a toasty 99c.

Since then I had to use Afterburner to run the blower fan at 70% and lower the GPU clocks. But these are supposed to be premium gaming rigs. Why should I have to lower the performance? Because Dell went cheap and are using a substandard design and it's the same chassis design they have been using for at least the same 7 yrs.

 

[Karadjgne]

Yes. Same frame, same layout with the swivel panel mounted psu, different plastic covering. You can cover dog poo with anything from sugar to gold plate, but at the end of the day, it's still a pile of dog poo.
Dell makes a very decent office pc, but that's as far as they go, anything requiring performance is anethema to them.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Yes. Same frame, same layout with the swivel panel mounted psu, different plastic covering. You can cover dog poo with anything from sugar to gold plate, but at the end of the day, it's still a pile of dog poo.
Dell makes a very decent office pc, but that's as far as they go, anything requiring performance is anethema to them.

They appear to make cutting edge gaming laptops. Their Alienware laptops look to be pretty badass with cutting edge parts and design but you're going to have to fork up some serious money if you want one. Their X-Series laptops look pretty slick.

Their gaming desktops are a joke and I own one. Now that said if you can't find a GPU and need one and you can get a killer deal between $1000-1300 they're not bad. Not great but not terrible either. At the time I bought mine Dell was selling a similar config with an RTX 3070 for around $1200 without liquid cooling.

I thought I got robbed when I paid $1250 for an R10 with a Ryzen 3800X, LQ AIO, 512GB NVME, 8GB of 2933Mhz, RTX 2070 (which was upgraded by Dell with a RTX 2070 Super). I'm looking at their deals page and people are now paying more and getting less.

 

[Joseph_138]

Yes. Same frame, same layout with the swivel panel mounted psu, different plastic covering. You can cover dog poo with anything from sugar to gold plate, but at the end of the day, it's still a pile of dog poo.
Dell makes a very decent office pc, but that's as far as they go, anything requiring performance is anethema to them.

The XPS used to be really good. I have several generations of them here. Even the 8930 was better than the 8940, because at least it came with a real power supply, though it uses the same swing arm setup to hold it that the Alienware does, with the same issue of limiting what coolers you can mount on the CPU.

 

[Kona45primo]

In a perfect world you wouldn't have to get a prebuilt... But gpu's made it a smart choice.

A friend bought an Omen Obelisk 25L because he assumed it could be upgraded. It's more easily upgradeable than your R12 but the small form factor meant we had to do a case swap to fit his 3070 Strix & CPU cooler..... He used a Lian Li Mesh performance. Dropped his temp by 10-15C, looks better and everything swapped over, even the wifi antenna wires. Although the bios is locked in terms of ram timing, but it's a non K 9700, so whatever.

This might be an option for you, at least to upgrade the CPU cooler, or fit a larger gpu in the future.... Or when it's time, sell it, with or without the same GPU and build your own. I wouldn't get another prebuilt, build your own the way you want it from the start. Prebuilts are just a lot of bad compromises.