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Review Alienware Aurora R15 Review: Playing it Cooler

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So they moved to a 240 AIO when the 13900K/F actually need a 360 at the minimum to perform at full bore and they're asking over $4K for that oversight? This is hardly progress. Instead of getting the best of everything at the higher price point, you lose instead. That's flat out stupid.

Do they keep the 240 AIO with the i5 and i7 at least? Seems like the 240 AIO will perform better with those instead.

Also, are there AMD version of this with the 240 AIO? I'd be really curious to compare them.

Regards.
 
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JeffreyP55 said:
5k for a LAN party rig. Do LAN parties still exist? I have no use for such a propitiatory machine. If I was I'd would be an Apple fan boy in love with Thunderbolt.
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What do you mean by "LAN party rig"? Don't you use Ethernet to connect your PC to the internet?
 
First paragraph, you have R14 instead of R15.

Welp, I've had such success with my paltry 120mm-cooled R11 that I think I might just buy another prebuilt.

Also, you guys can crap on the price all you want, but if this gets people who don't know HOW to build a PC into PC gaming that's a good thing.

Also, Dell is extremely successful with the Alienware line and that's a good thing.

Finally, I've built literally hundreds of computers as I used to work at a PC manufacturer in my early years and this level of construction is amazing compared to where we were just 10 years ago!
 
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brandonjclark said:
First paragraph, you have R14 instead of R15.

Welp, I've had such success with my paltry 120mm-cooled R11 that I think I might just buy another prebuilt.

Also, you guys can crap on the price all you want, but if this gets people who don't know HOW to build a PC into PC gaming that's a good thing.

Also, Dell is extremely successful with the Alienware line and that's a good thing.

Finally, I've built literally hundreds of computers as I used to work at a PC manufacturer in my early years and this level of construction is amazing compared to where we were just 10 years ago!
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Bold and underline mine.

That is exactly the point of complaining: for that price Dell shouldn't do their clients dirty with this thing. That. Is. The. Point. This PC should be slightly better and Dell shouldn't cut stupid corners and over spending on others (how much plastic is necessary for this thing??).

Regards.
 
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Udyr said:
Four stars rating for such a crappy product with proprietary parts, when you can build one with better components for a lot cheaper.
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Why is it crappy? It performs as well as other machines with the same CPU/GPU combo (which are not proprietary, BTW!).

Whilst you can certainly buy the same parts, or 'some' better parts, asides from that, the CPU/GPU are top notch, and you can't currently get better!

If you're mad about the price, I'm with you! 100%

If you're mad because some of the parts may not be the best either, again, I'm with you.

To suggest it's a crappy product, is at best subjective here. This is a powerful gaming machine. But crappy product, no, I'm not with you.
 
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Roland Of Gilead said:
Why is it crappy? It performs as well as other machines with the same CPU/GPU combo (which are not proprietary, BTW!).

Whilst you can certainly buy the same parts, or 'some' better parts, asides from that, the CPU/GPU are top notch, and you can't currently get better!

If you're mad about the price, I'm with you! 100%

If you're mad because some of the parts may not be the best either, again, I'm with you.

To suggest it's a crappy product, is at best subjective here. This is a powerful gaming machine. But crappy product, no, I'm not with you.
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Crappy because the overall build adds little value and becomes landfill waste when it starts to age. Just a few parts can be reused on another build or upgraded. If the only plus this thing has of value is the performance, then you can do better.
 
Udyr said:
Crappy because the overall build adds little value and becomes landfill waste when it starts to age. Just a few parts can be reused on another build or upgraded. If the only plus this thing has of value is the performance, then you can do better.
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I hear ya! 100% In terms of value, this is rotten. 5k for that! No, wouldn't be me. But for others, a quick way to jump in at the higher end, and with a bonus check to spend, might appreciate this plug/play system with great performance.
 
To be honest, for the form factor, the price is alright.

The problem is that anyone that could build their own, provided they can source the parts, would get a better deal.

Those things being said, Dell/Alienware do support their firmware updates for 5-7 years, which is more than most mainboard manufacturers do, so that's a plus to be honest, if you care about that.
 
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Are you kidding me with that hard drive? What the hell is even the point of a 1TB HDD at all, in 2023? You can get a 1TB SSD for nearly the same price (PCPP shows the cheapest 1TB HDD as $29, and cheapest 1TB SSD at $44.) Unless you are on an extremely tight budget where you need to save that $15, I would never recommend an HDD under 2TB.
The proprietary-ness makes my stomach hurt...

Yeah, pre-builts are great, whether you don't know how or just don't want to build your own. If you have $5,000 to spend, there are better options though.
The first that came to mind was MainGear, so I just customized a PC with the same specs and same price. Except it has a 360mm AIO, a 21st-century case, and all standard non-proprietary parts. And enough money to add an extra 2TB SSD (or 8TB HDD) instead of a 1TB HDD.
I'd pick that. (edit: well, personally, I'd build my own. 😛 But if I were recommending something to a friend? The choice is obvious.)
 
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What would you rather have, that or this;

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K 3 GHz 24-Core Processor ($599.98 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 420 A-RGB 68.9 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($164.00 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z790 EDGE WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($369.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory ($219.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($119.99 @ Dell Technologies)
Storage: Crucial P3 Plus 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($279.99 @ Best Buy)
Video Card: Zotac GAMING AMP Extreme AIRO GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB Video Card ($2099.98 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Torrent RGB ATX Mid Tower Case ($229.99 @ B&H)
Power Supply: Asus ROG THOR P2 Gaming 1000 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($278.67 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Home OEM - DVD 64-bit ($119.98 @ Amazon)
Monitor: Gigabyte M32U 31.5" 3840 x 2160 144 Hz Monitor ($599.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $5082.55
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-12-21 01:31 EST-0500
 
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Its amazing to see that in the days of trying to reduce e-waste and carbon footprint there are still companies around the globe tryting to sell poropietary parts for such a low volume sell and common thing like a gaming PC.

Don't get me wrong, I can understand DELL, HP and Lenovo doing it for business desktop PCs, which for the sell volumes probably make sense.

Its a real pitty for the asking price to buy this stuff knowing that once it gets older you won't be able to change the mobo to use a new CPU, or even add more RAM later down the road if you are a content creator trying to get more work done faster.

I guess most gamers buying this don't care for any of that, and just want a PC where they can press a button and have the system running out the box, and a phone number to call if they can find the web browser, or if they don't know how to change windows background image, or where to plug the printer. 😛
 
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RodroX said:
Its amazing to see that in the days of trying to reduce e-waste and carbon footprint there are still companies around the globe tryting to sell poropietary parts for such a low volume sell and common thing like a gaming PC.

Don't get me wrong, I can understand DELL, HP and Lenovo doing it for business desktop PCs, which for the sell volumes probably make sense.

Its a real pitty for the asking price to buy this stuff knowing that once it gets older you won't be able to change the mobo to use a new CPU, or even add more RAM later down the road if you are a content creator trying to get more work done faster.

I guess most gamers buying this don't care for any of that, and just want a PC where they can press a button and have the system running out the box, and a phone number to call if they can find the web browser, or if they don't know how to change windows background image, or where to plug the printer. 😛
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That's a good point to raise (bold and underline), to which I can add this: it wouldn't be such an idiotic problem if Dell, HP and other big OEMs could feed back into open standards in order to make these parts standard. I do see a couple things in Dell's design that could actually benefit regular ATX PSUs and motherboards and they could improve from there, but they're doing it for exclusivity and locking down their products trying to tie users into their garbage.

On a related tangent: that's what project Luna is all about. It's not about reusing and making things compatible, but locking people down and profiting from reusable parts. Sad to see them burning good intentions.

Regards.
 
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What have happened with Tomshardware? Paid by Dell? Is this the best you can do ?

The review start with words as.... Alienware finally moved to 240mm AIO cooling.

This Aurora R15 is "cooler than previous versions" of the desktop I reviewed, even when put through our stress tests. I'm not going to tell you that it's pin drop quiet, but it's an improvement.

And yet, not a single word about how the cooling performance is with this new refreshed/re-hashed gaming desktop from Dell Alienware. Neither do you talk about the temps with Dell's RTX4090 in this tiny glossy black and pastel white box. This isn't a review... Looks more like a promotion/AD for Dell. Tomshardware can and should do better than this. Sorry, but this is my honest opinion for this review.
 
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Alienware garbage would be difficult to do a review on it because there isn't much nice to say about an overpriced trashbox built with weak and inferior proprietary parts.
 
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Papusan said:
What have happened with Tomshardware? Paid by Dell? Is this the best you can do ?

The review start with words as.... Alienware finally moved to 240mm AIO cooling.

This Aurora R15 is "cooler than previous versions" of the desktop I reviewed, even when put through our stress tests. I'm not going to tell you that it's pin drop quiet, but it's an improvement.

And yet, not a single word about how the cooling performance is with this new refreshed/re-hashed gaming desktop from Dell Alienware. Neither do you talk about the temps with Dell's RTX4090 in this tiny glossy black and pastel white box. This isn't a review... Looks more like a promotion/AD for Dell. Tomshardware can and should do better than this. Sorry, but this is my honest opinion for this review.
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Don't forget the R13 got a glorious 4 stars rating as well. So the so called "improvement" on this one is worth 0.01 stars?
 
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Nolonar said:
What do you mean by "LAN party rig"? Don't you use Ethernet to connect your PC to the internet?
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I use Ethernet for all devices that have a J45 jack including my pre Cirnavia copy protection Blu-ray player and 4K player. I don't trust smartphones and and only use my S20 when I'm out and about.
 
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JeffreyP55 said:
I use Ethernet for all devices that have a J45 jack including my pre Cirnavia copy protection Blu-ray player and 4K player. I don't trust smartphones and and only use my S20 when I'm out and about.
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Ok, but what does that have to do with the Aurora R15 being a "LAN party rig"? What specifically makes it a "LAN party rig"? Why would being a "LAN Party rig" mean that it should be cheaper than $5K? People have gone to LAN parties with $5K gaming laptops before. And how are smartphones even remotely related to any of that?
 
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