This PC needs to be sold to a collector, not a consumer. It's wonderful for what it is - an example of vintage PC art. If you look at it as a simple daily driver PC, it's not too great.
@@christopherjames9843 Unfortunately true man. At the dump I found a sweet old Antec Design workstarion case from the late 90s-2001 and its got hot swap drive bays, powder coated black and all steel. Its my daily driver now with modern-ish(X99/ rtx2070) hardware upgrades. Ill never do fancy rgb builds for me again, this old thing is timeless. Id do the same if I found a old independent Alienware case at the dump, but not a mid 2000 plastic one.
this older cases have standard matx trays and better airflow than recent models, so you can put newer aftermarket components vert easy ,personally i would take an alienware case look instead of a boring square case with a window like nzxt or corsair that thousands of people owns@@christopherjames9843
Site states that it comes with a 600 series card when a check of the system configuration through the service tag shows that the the GTX 555 was fitted at the factory. It was probably the cheapest GPU option at the time and the original buyer decided that they wanted all the bling but not all the power.
This is basically the same as an office PC but with a more "gamer agressive" looking case. If you'd take a regular Optiplex from that time,throw in an i7 and good GPU you'd get the same performance as this thing if not even better for a few thousand dollars cheaper
Any PC, if you throw in i7 and a good GPU, will become gaming PC 😁i7-3720MQ did cost over $350 when it was released in 2012, which is like $700 today. GTX 555 did cost around $200, which is like $400 today.
That is a great retro computer. I have been able to flip a few that were similar to that one, I did not really make much money but was happy to get the machines to people that wanted them. It was a dream machine for someone out there at the time of release I am sure.
My very first desktop PC! Basically the same spec with a 680. Looking back, the only thing that was really cool imo was the toolless hdd bays. Inserting a hard drive like you would and SD card was really cool. Otherwise, it ended up being a very uh, educational pc. Mine was extremely unreliable, and dell customer support was awful, so I had to learn to do many troubleshooting things myself. That inevitably led me to just building my own PC with everything I learned. Thanks, Dell! 😅
It is wild sometimes to see these old school Eye candy Pc's in such great condition. Thanks for putting in the effort, I would put it up for sale. It could be a great Piece for somebody's collection.
@@jordanmntungwa3311alienware ceased to exist many years ago, the pcs they make are repurposed cheap desktop pcs or low quality owrkstations del does with some plastic on top of it, all is completely low quality and as uninteresting as any dell optiplex can be, current pcs do not need those tricks and people rocus more in smaller and silent machines and better monitors, the pc case is not that important now, not as it used to be
I had this motherboard with a Xeon 2670E and a GTX480. I could run Doom 4 on medium, which was the thing I wanted to do at that time. It was probably the cheapest Doom 4 machine I could put together and I was blown away by the graphics. Good times. I used it for some time and still sold that board for good money. Idk, people are into Alienware for some reason :)
oh yes, xeons which Brian has always fanboying about! more cores, less cash! But if dell was actually generous to have a wide compatibility with these...
@@AmosDohms Price to performance it was never good. It was however one of the earlier system builders geared towards enthusiasts before the market was saturated so it did offer some value at that point as you didn't have many options.
Ah the Aurora R4 ALX (non ALX don't have the active vents) I have re-built a few of these in the past (the motherboards failed en-mass right outside warranty). Nice heavy duty chassis but airflow needs help. They used to sell really well and the PSU's were great for pretty much any GPU at the time.
I've aquired an Aurora R1 for kinda cheap, around U$S100 where I live, that's a pretty rare system, I've managed to find just another R1 on a case only situation. I was pretty hyped up to fix its motherboard, which is refusing to boot up, but after seeing your amazing video, I'm kinda reevaluating the whole project. For starters, for the very first time I've had to watch tutorials on how to even take the front and right side panel out for cleaning, it was a half a morning ordeal. Removing the motherboard to eventually put a new one or fixing the older one took me about an hour, on that frame time I usually fully swap a new board to a chassis and have the new system up and running. The internal space is absurdly lacking, their air flow is totally disrupted, I'm just evaluating either selling as-is, or to fit a "El Cheapo" CPU with some decent RAM and cut my losses.
🙂 another commenter says its a standard X79 matx board which can simply be moved over to a regular case, he also says u can flash a modded bios, theres several decent cpus that u can use it with
One of these was for sale locally for $100 for a couple of months and I couldn’t get him to budge. I really wanted to check it out but after buying 2 XPS 9100s there was just no space left. I am glad you made this so I could see a recent review.
Loved the look of Alienware cases back then. When I didn't know much about them, I always thought of it as dope as hell. I mean of course today, the truth is out and... The PC case is clunky and is a hot oven. The GPU is unsupported in many areas and is using older standard DVI and mini HDMI. The motherboard is propietary. I think I remember one time on this channel. I think you cut your hand and had to get stitches once on an Alienware case? Or was it another case? Anywho, the case out of the Alienware factory. Yeah at the end, it's nothing special and has bad design flaws. I definitely agree with you on that, Mr. Tech YES Man. But, now that you HAVE the case. And all the parts are working just fine. From where I'm from, I could absolutely make a sale out of it or have fun with it. Something a certain kind of enthusiast would like or something to give away in case your worried about it being returned. Getting RetroBat installed. Getting a bunch of older games on it from that time that could be played offline and without any accounts from Epic Games or GOG. Painting the case. Adding cheap RGB strips. Or completely modding it with good protection(glasses, thick leather gloves, mask) and power tools to add more space or mount your own radiator or heatsink. Plenty of drive cages in it from the front. If there is no chassis intrusion with the side panel off, see what could be done to make it like an old server/retro gaming PC with some other OS on it. So much could be done to have it be pretty fun. I agree Alienware dropped the ball and ran with the money. We all agree on that. That's what your videos are about. Don't waste money on these when they are new and way, way overpriced. However, you channel is also about reflipping and finding value where there is none is all about. I see this Alienware as a great modding project. I say the easiest part is to paint the case like mostly white and somwhat blue. Put in a cheap RGB LED strip on the top. Install Retrobat and no games. If the side panel can be run without it, then showcase it that way with the drive cages being a highlight. Put it as a Retro Gaming/Server PC. Make a slightly higher profit. Or give it away like you once did for those school kids. It inspired me so much to give my mother's school(she's a principal) a old Core2Duo computer with way older GPUs and parts, yet painted with a cheap RGB strip and Batocera OS on it with no internet and cheap controllers. Plus my physical games I've ripped on it so they can play LoZ, Mario, etc. And not like Doom and stuff. They are playing this when parents come to pick them up way later cause we all live in the countryside. So plenty of good use with older hardware. And I really wish Alienware thought the same too. Hope everyone has a good day. Thanks for the vids like always, Mr. Tech YES Man. Keep being cool.
🙂 yes, this PC is meant for someone into Nostalgia, theres a market for them, u have guys picking up 286 and 386 and 486 on other channels, then others are picking up Pentiums. Me personally I picked up an Intel Core 2 Quad because it makes me feel cozy 😌
Yes busted my finger on an alienware system years ago... that was definitely a freak accident. Glad it wasn't any worse. I will put it up market, see if anyone is interested in it :P.
@@techyescity Happy your hand healed after that. Weird I still remembered it though. Been around since I saw you sell this Core2Quad and GTX 1060 and the LGA 771 mod. Been loving the channel. Hope your sales go well. And someone will definitely buy the Alienware. It works, and you clean it up as always. Hope you have a nice day, Mr. Tech YES Man.
Alienware used to offer great tech automated tech like this (auto drop down front panel and automatically adjusting panels depending upon the heat output etc of the case components, a little bit of lighting etc) in some of their old PCs to help ….. “justify” their costs ….. whereas in recent years you pay a lot more for no features and no performance…. Even substandard performance of an i7 or higher with power limited mobos etc.
remember i bought this used prob 7-8 years ago i overclocked it to 4.8ghz all cores on watercooling (280mm) 2x140mm high performace fans hit 80 degree celsius on stress test then
I want that case. I like stupid things like self opening fins, and a button to push that opens a door. Plus my current build will fit in there perfect.
I remember acquiring two of these a couple of years ago for good used bargains. Never took the opportunity to equip one of the machines with an RX580 when those were going on major sales. Wherever that 4930k is, good times.
Originally, my Lenovo Brickstation P520 sold at a base price of $1400 back in 2018 but 5 years later I purchased most of what I needed for only $300. It was built for graphics design and 3D modeling and now it's corporate E-waste available on eBay that can be turned into a gaming PC. Also, I never bought into the whole Alienware idea or the concept of dressing up computers into gaming PCs, I would say that there's a time and place for playing Dress Up because that active ventilation was pretty cool, but I wouldn't go buying a computer just for something like that.
@MrSamadolfo Yes, of course. I run Winders 11 on my P520 and the machine is still powerful enough to game on. I just say corporate waste because they lease machines for a few years and then update to something else selling them off to services who dispose of them.
I bought an R3 version of that in 2011 for my oldest son, IIRC I paid about $1600 for it, those systems were almost all sold as custom configurations, so sometimes you will run into weird hardware combinations. The one I bought my son came with a 2700K, 120mm AIO, 8GB RAM, which was a lot in 2011, and two GTX 650s in SLI )also a big thing in 2011). It also came with an 850W PSU, two 2TB hard drives, and didn't have the powered vents on top. It wasn't exactly a great value then, but it wasn't all that much more than building it myself either. Oddly enough I bought an Alienware X51 in 2014 that came with a GTX 555 in it along with a i5 4550 and 8GB of RAM for about $600 brand new.
04:06 wait, what....the GTX 660 still has it's protective film on it. Did Alienware perform no QA on builds, or is that a later owner addon GPU? (Later, GTX 555 !!!!!)
Noticed that too, lol. Maybe the person he picked it up from immediately swapped the GTX 555 out for something faster, kept the 555, and swapped it back when they sold it? Idk now I’m just going down a theory rabbit hole, still doesn’t explain why Alienware left it on there 🤣🤣🤣
I got it from the guy at the recycling center, he would not bother doing something like a 680, 660 or swapping for a 555 (I actually have never even heard or knew this card existed until this build), it's out of the question (he moves much better gear worth much more money, just not worth his time at all), he would have acquired it like so, and yes I saw that film on there. Was quite surprised. Though when searching online, these models did come fitted with 555s, so it would be like that from the factory I think.
The Zalman H1 case I use has fan vents at the top too. They can be manually opened and closed or set to open when the internal temps reach a certain level (of which I'm not sure as I've rubbed the numbers off during cleaning over the years.)
Need a DVI to HDMI adapter, also, those are full DVI-I ports with the extra 4 pins round the cross, so you have a choice of DVI cable, DVI to HDMI adapter, DVI to VGA adapter
I actually got one as a gift at the time of release and you were able to pick and choose to swap between low/med/high end components including gpu and cpu.. Edit I also still own it and everything works except the AIO pump.. so I recently gutted it for a side project.
To be truthful some of the prices Tech Yes city obtained for its second hand parts are Not available in the second market like Gumtree and Facebook's marketplace where parts are usually sold at competitive market prices.
That is such a cool case. It would be interesting to do a new build in it. I almost got this system back in the day and I always wished I had been patient and got it.
Here in the US the PC case alone are desirable. You can use it or quasi sleeper, and maybe put a Ryzen board in there. Also that power supply is same ones used in Dell's professional Precision desktops which are severely under spec, but are the best PSUs in the industry.
My brother bought one of those 1 year before I bought my new PC. I got a current i7-4770, and his was only a 1st gen, ie, Dell's current line was way behind what was being sold - lol -.
I bought two of these in years ago for flipping. One had a 580, and one had a 680. I upgraded both to 6-core i7s and better GPUs (R9 390 and a GTX 1070). Honestly I kinda hate these cases, because there's so many parts that can break on them. Luckily the motherboards work fine in new cases, which is what i did. Still have one of these old cases laying around
70 degree celsius on CPU is from the alienware mobo is throttling the cpu to maintain the temperature below 70 or 71. This can cause you don't get the perfect scores of benchmarking with the original custom build with those specs (I m saying CPU,GPU,RAM, except Alienware motherboard). I saw a video of youtuber "mattscomputerservices" which he demonstates with custom build of alieware hardware and alienware PC.
Ironically the monitor I use for testing these machines is 1 that somebody threw out. It has HDMI DVI and SVGA all on the same monitor I've got 1 of each cables attached on the monitor so I can just switch from 1 to the other if memory serves me there's a gouge in part of the screen but like I said I use it for bench testing. Only ever had an Alienware in the wild wants and I lost it. Long time ago back before I was doing my own work I took it to somebody to get a hard drive replaced and ended up never getting the computer back where the guys stole my machine and machines belonging to several other people. It was a computer I got on the side of the road where it has been owned by a senior at 1 point and actually wasn't very old. I still don't know how a 80 plus year old woman ends up with an Alienware desktop. Machine was like 3 or 4 years old at the time
Brian got lazy on this one. The motherboard is a standard matx. With non proprietary connectors and all power connectors are standard too. The I/O shield is standard and removable. You can case swap or upgrade the matx motherboard, it is a massive case though. The cool thing about this motherboard is using a modded bios to use a NVMe storage via PCI-e to NVMe adapter.The modded bios also let's you overclock Xeon CPUs. Unfortunately you can't use V2 Xeons. I have several of these motherboards as they are so cheap. Better than the cheap Chinese x79 boards.
Interesting, I just saw the extra boards where the power connectors were coming out of and I thought "nah thats more proprietary mess", guess it is a different story. Thanks.
@@techyescity that definitely explain things. those original r4s with the actuated fins on the top are hard to come by now I think dell only did that for a year the immediately redesigned to cut costs down. people who do have them tend to just upgrade them as they are mostly regular pc parts in a unique pc case.
Son has an Ivy Bridge Xeon, E5 2667 v2, and he is happy with it. I honestly think it's the best 2011 v2, for it is 8c/16t and it boosts to 4 GHz. He's probably going to use it until he needs something with AVX2. He has it paired with a RX 6600XT and 56 GB DDR3. His PC is a Dell Precision T3610
I'm surprised your Robocop performance was so low. The game actually runs fairly well on the FX-8350/8370 processors, as in, you can cap it to at least 40fps and expect it to be fairly steady at that during the intense action areas with a mix of medium and high graphics settings. It can actually hit a higher average but 40fps is the safe bet with lower end graphics cards. Due to that I would have figured it would have run just as good, if not better, on the older i7.
That chassis was used from the R2 all the way to the R7, so at least the RnD costs were low, considering they used the same chassis for nearly 8 years!
I don't know what the deal is with OEM gaming computers being huge, they'll have a case that can fit a WTX board and 18 hard drives with a micro ATX Motherboard, a 50 class card and one SSD in it.
Worth a look, ive personally stopped flipping anything older than 4th gen and only do 4th gen if i get it for dirt cheap. For me personally i find 6th gen is becoming the sweet spot now.
Maybe sell it to a collector or to someone who wants a capable Windows XP x64 machine for retro gaming. Didn't SP3 for XP come out in late 2000 or something?
I wouldn't even bother playing newer games on this thing. To really appreciate how well it worked, it's best to play games around the same time this thing was new which was the earlier 2010s. It still should run office and everything else just fine.
I found one of these on the side road. Had a gtx 770 in it. I pulled the motherboard out and some other parts and chucked the case. Way too heavy and way too much stuff inside. Total waste of money at the time. Works well as a second computer. Not bad.
I love the new meta where Bryan is like, "Can we get performance out of this ancient PC?" When all these old viewers are like, "We know damn well we can! Throw it in the turbo washer! Hit it with the brake cleaner! Hit us with that soundtrack! Hey, how's dad man!?"
think you missed an opportunity here. there are lots of people who love that computer for just its case. for 65 bucks its an absolute steal. there are two main reasons to buy an old Alienware if its really old peak retro gaming if its more recent like this its restomodding that machine is probably more valuable as an empty case than a case than comes with some free but old parts.
I searched for an EVGA GeForce GTX 660, i found only 2 slot cards and all of them full sized HDMI ports, Displayport and 2 DVI. I have radeon 5450 single slot with hdmi and dvi and the card is from 2009.
Painfully long comment incoming. I have one of these passed down from my late uncle a couple years ago... I have very mixed feelings about the system itself - it looks cool, and absolutely amazed my 9 year old self when my uncle got it back in 2012... but man, with how much I know about servicing computers now, the early Dellienware Aurora series kinda blows. Keep in mind when I say Dellienware, I'm referring to Alienware since Dell's acquisition of the brand was completed in 2009. I'll start with some subjective positives - if you're into RGB, this had programmable lighting several years before what feels like everything had it. Most of the time you had single-color LED fans, and maybe if you were willing to add it, you could add RGB strips that would likely plug in from a USB 2.0 header or a SATA, molex, floppy connector, whatever source of power was common for RGB strips in the old days. If you had your Aurora R4 specced with the motorized flaps like mine and the one shown in the video do, that's also pretty neat. Just putting that out there, it's just neat. Although upon watching the video, I can see how the aesthetics aren't all a positive - since the money that went into designing the case could have been used towards making it more functional, actually practical for servicing, and giving it better airflow. the R4 in particular is the most interesting of the first four Dellienware Aurora systems since it uses the X79 platform, whereas the original (retroactively called R1), R2, and R3 used 1366/X58, 1156/P55, and 1155/P67 platforms respectively. From what I understand, X79 was far less common than X58 on OEM prebuilt systems. And despite only having four RAM slots, quad channel memory is still possible. I'll get back to this system being on the X79/LGA2011 platform later, because it's not all a positive. Most (I say most for a reason) of the main components are standard form factor unlike modern Dellienwares, especially those after the R12. Does that mean the components are any good though? I will let you be the judge of that. *Now for why this system would have disappointed me ever since I started really getting into PC hardware...* - The case is extremely overbuilt and way too big and heavy for only being able to house up to a MicroATX motherboard. the liquid cooling system died many many years ago, so I had to replace that with one of few low profile LGA2011 air coolers since anything bigger would be blocked by the VRM heatsink and fan above the CPU. an LGA2011 socket and appropriate chipset is a lot to pack into a MicroATX motherboard - so a compromise had to be made by putting the VRM heatsinks above the CPU socket and not to the left side. Liquid cooler failures were extremely common on the Aurora R4 within only two years of owning the system due to Dell cheaping out on the coolant used. I would not be surprised if my unit ran with a broken liquid cooling system for 6 years, because this system wasn't maintained a whole lot. Oh yeah, airflow is shit - no surprise there. - I also had to replace the power supply when I got my R4 due to being left on a lot with SLI GTX 580's (one of which was factory equipped) in its previous life, and since the cables are routed in a very specific way to go into the hard drive sliding area, it seems like a real pain in the ass to un-route every cable. thankfully, the Precision T5500/Aurora R4 power supply has one big cable containing all the connections that can be removed, making the power supply replacement much easier provided you're replacing it with the same model 875W unit. For literally any other power supply, good fucking luck. - The GPU door is pretty annoying, because it prevented larger GPU's like my old MSI Armor mk2 RX570 from fitting unless the door was somehow removed, due to the GPU having a metal corner that was blocking the door hinge from shutting. Not sure how that's to be removed without breaking it, but you could always make modifications should you want to actually build in one of these cases and use a GPU that has a big chunk of metal or plastic in the upper left corner. - Oh yeah, the power button is fucked on my unit. the plastic that depressed down to the power switch has gone loose and the switch itself takes a lot more pressure than it should to trigger. and a replacement power switch board is basically nonexistent, yay! And since the power switch is in a very tight space, it's effectively a proprietary part. Not that I know of many other Aurora R4's with this problem, but it is noteworthy nonetheless. My verdict on this system? I like it as an art piece, and also because I personally have sentimental value for my particular unit. But one could have gotten a much better experience if they built their own system (or maybe had one built by an SI) using similar off-the-shelf components but stepping down to LGA1155 and i7-2600K, provided you didn't order your Aurora R4 with the 6-core i7-3930K (or 4930K on later production units). Due to the motherboard being MicroATX, you likely couldn't use all the PCIe lanes of X79 anyway - so nothing that actually mattered at the time was lost, especially for purely a gaming system. Unless you're a collector, these early Dellienwares - or even later ones - aren't worth the hassle. Fuck, I spent over an hour and a half writing and revising this comment. I hope someone finds the information I provided valuable :')
X79 might have been a bit better for SLI due to having enough lanes to run both cards at x16. Sandy Bridge-E(P) also has PCIe 3.0 unlike mainstream Sandy Bridge, though some earlier revision CPUs might have some problems at 3.0 speeds. But yeah, for a single card system with only a 4c/8t CPU X79 doesn't make much sense. I think X58 was more common in OEM systems because for close to a year it was the only platform with i7's, with the mainstream being stuck on LGA775 until September 2009. With X79 it's pretty much the opposite, mainstream Sandy was released in January 2011 and X79 didn't come out until November 2011 Btw I recognize you from Pixel Talk
I read it bro, was a good read! Though yeah it's a matter of Dell being Dell in the end isn't it, Like there are some really cool things they did here, but then as you mentioned so much overengineering to the point where it just made it a pain for longevity purposes. My power button is a bit mushy, but hopefully it has some life left in it. Did yours go mushy first? if so how long did it last for after that.
@@techyescityHi, I appreciate you reading my comment! My power button is still working, but as you said - it’s pretty mushy and requires way more force than it should to get it to work. I can’t say much for this system’s life from 2012 to 2020 though, only from when I inherited it in mid-2021 and the time I’ve kept and tried to preserve it since.
@@Pasi123 for SLI, X79 would be more sensible. But most of these Aurora R4’s were configured with a single GPU and SLI may overload the power supply along with having not that great of airflow, this is a system where you would have been best off sticking to a single GPU anyway. As for X58 being the most common HEDT platform in OEM systems, most of them seem to have been made in 2009 when Core 2 was still the latest mainstream platform and 1156 didn’t have an iGPU yet - so it made sense for the higher end. also good to see ya from the pixelpipes server :P
i remember when x79 was all crazy hyped up like x58 for the budget gamer like 5 years ago, i even ran it with am x79 extreme4 asrock board, e5 2670v1, 16gb ram and a 980ti
My secondary PC has been on X79/C602 since 2021 with a Xeon E5-2690 8c/16t and 64GB DDR3. My main PC was on X58 in 2013-2023 (first with a 4c/8t, and since 2016 a 6c/12t X5670 @ 4.4GHz) but some months ago I upgraded to X299.
It would interest me to see someone mod the hell out of it and put something decent in there under the hood. For you and your channel that's probably not a thing but I'd be curious as to what someone could come up with.
Hey I just found you this evening. Thanks for your tip on under-volting an AMD 7950. I have a questions related to Old PC/Cases. I've got a Corsair Obsidian 600D with an i7 3770K setup. I'm updating to AMD but do you know of a company who retrofits USB ports on old cases? Keep up the fun videos.
Did Dell own them at this point? Because that would explain the GPU. Alienware that I remember was all custom built and used NZXT cases for the most part. Edit: Commented before a quick google search. Yes, Dell did own them and that is why IMO the brand took a nosedive.
I was in the last years of school when these came out. I was looking round for my first gaming pc around then and all ways wanted one of these, but the price was astronomical and I wanted to build my own pc. Ended up getting a gaming laptop that could run a modded Oblivion and so I could take it into school. and once I left school for uni finally built my own pc. Alienware brand was already starting to diminish after just a few years.
Walked past an Alienware store yesterday in Shanghai. Their stores always seem to be empty. Feel like the are like the "Bose" of PCs. Looking for a niche of customers with lack of understanding of the product and cash to burn.
I bought one of those motherboards, or a very similar one once second hand on ebay. I was going to use it to overclock, but although that feature should have been supported it seemed the feature had been removed or locked at some point from a bios update. Some real BS from dell.
I have an in-law with one of these sitting in a closet. I wonder if I should buy from him for cheap and see what can be done? I presume I can’t gut it and put modern stuff in the case and still make those vents work? It should do stuff like Minecraft as is, right?
Why I build my own shit! Since Socket 7 in '97.... PS What's a GTX 555? Got a 550 Ti* from a deal once *Could be good(better than my good OL' GTX 260 C216) for a W2K/XP Socket 939 Opteron 180 (RE)build! What say ye, TYC followers?
That's a pretty weird Alienware, normally these kinds of builds are now meant to be picked up by afficionados or someone into nostalgia, they feel empathy towards it because maybe they saw it when they were a little kid. For video cards if ur stuck with only 16gb of system ram then I recommend sticking with an RTX 3050 8GB which I believe is pretty much the best all around card worlwide for old computers and old monitors and old tvs, anything from an i7 870 from 2010 and up. The 1660 Super is kinda weak even for First Generation Intel i7 depending on the game of course so yeah if u have to pick only one card rite now I would say 3050 8GB. If ur not into nostalgia then that motherboard badly needs to be moved over to a modern case. Of course you have to be proficient with cutting wheels and grinding stones because ur going to have to modify a modern case to make this fit. Be careful if u go down that path cause it very easy to cut urself. Thanks for the video. Now go back out there and see what else u can find for the History Channel. 😇
what i never got, is those old cases that weigh 50 pounds, and are completly bullet proof, i always tried to buy the most airflow, even back in the day 40 years ago, computer get hot, and only getting hotter..lol we need airflow, it doesnt need to protect you if someone fires a tank at you, and i am an old US Marine Tanker....haha
Did the folks that bought it originally waste their money? Totally! Did you? No way. You talking about case swapping that. But honestly the case is the main attraction for those things and you got it for a good deal so definitely don't case swap. Somebody that's all about aesthetics and that kind of stuff will love that rig
Alienware PCs depreciate faster than fiat currency in 2024
Ah man thanks for the lol.
What'd he say? 12 yrs? 2767 *.78 (per year) =$102.7
So yeah... 22% depreciation a year
This PC needs to be sold to a collector, not a consumer. It's wonderful for what it is - an example of vintage PC art. If you look at it as a simple daily driver PC, it's not too great.
people do pay silly money for these, so collectors enough out there
"A collector" ? Dell Alienware machines are plastic, thermal throttling, proprietary garbage.
@@christopherjames9843 Unfortunately true man. At the dump I found a sweet old Antec Design workstarion case from the late 90s-2001 and its got hot swap drive bays, powder coated black and all steel. Its my daily driver now with modern-ish(X99/ rtx2070) hardware upgrades. Ill never do fancy rgb builds for me again, this old thing is timeless. Id do the same if I found a old independent Alienware case at the dump, but not a mid 2000 plastic one.
this older cases have standard matx trays and better airflow than recent models, so you can put newer aftermarket components vert easy ,personally i would take an alienware case look instead of a boring square case with a window like nzxt or corsair that thousands of people owns@@christopherjames9843
@@christopherjames9843 All true, however, some people like kitsch.
Tech YES City videos USED to cost $0. They still do in 2024.
Incredible value while talking about incredible value.
The do have a small cost ….. time to put a 👍 …..😅😂🤣😂🤣
Site states that it comes with a 600 series card when a check of the system configuration through the service tag shows that the the GTX 555 was fitted at the factory.
It was probably the cheapest GPU option at the time and the original buyer decided that they wanted all the bling but not all the power.
If you're spending that kind of money, you might as well get the best of the best that's available.
🙂 All show No go, sounds about rite for a Pre Built
This is basically the same as an office PC but with a more "gamer agressive" looking case. If you'd take a regular Optiplex from that time,throw in an i7 and good GPU you'd get the same performance as this thing if not even better for a few thousand dollars cheaper
yes and no . the quad channel ram at 1866 or 2133 will make this sing unlike the office pcs . this also allows overclocking
Any PC, if you throw in i7 and a good GPU, will become gaming PC 😁i7-3720MQ did cost over $350 when it was released in 2012, which is like $700 today. GTX 555 did cost around $200, which is like $400 today.
the GTX 555 will be really suitable as a LOL card, really.
That is a great retro computer. I have been able to flip a few that were similar to that one, I did not really make much money but was happy to get the machines to people that wanted them. It was a dream machine for someone out there at the time of release I am sure.
My very first desktop PC! Basically the same spec with a 680.
Looking back, the only thing that was really cool imo was the toolless hdd bays. Inserting a hard drive like you would and SD card was really cool. Otherwise, it ended up being a very uh, educational pc. Mine was extremely unreliable, and dell customer support was awful, so I had to learn to do many troubleshooting things myself. That inevitably led me to just building my own PC with everything I learned.
Thanks, Dell! 😅
It is wild sometimes to see these old school Eye candy Pc's in such great condition. Thanks for putting in the effort, I would put it up for sale. It could be a great Piece for somebody's collection.
I like the case. I'd change everything in it down to the motherboard. I really like the logo that lights up and the motorized ventilation.
the motorized vents are extremely relevannt today. this case needs a refresh from Alienware
the motors and buttons iirc need the motherboard but i could be wrong, still is too big and waste all the desk to be noisy i bet
@@jordanmntungwa3311alienware ceased to exist many years ago, the pcs they make are repurposed cheap desktop pcs or low quality owrkstations del does with some plastic on top of it, all is completely low quality and as uninteresting as any dell optiplex can be, current pcs do not need those tricks and people rocus more in smaller and silent machines and better monitors, the pc case is not that important now, not as it used to be
I had this motherboard with a Xeon 2670E and a GTX480. I could run Doom 4 on medium, which was the thing I wanted to do at that time.
It was probably the cheapest Doom 4 machine I could put together and I was blown away by the graphics. Good times.
I used it for some time and still sold that board for good money. Idk, people are into Alienware for some reason :)
oh yes, xeons which Brian has always fanboying about! more cores, less cash! But if dell was actually generous to have a wide compatibility with these...
@@baoquoc3710 Who do you think pushed me over the edge on these Xeons? 😏
Alienware has and always will be overpriced junk - overpriced marketing at its finest
Aliens waste
Wasn't it really good once upon a time?
@@AmosDohms Kinda, when it wasn't owned by Dell.. which is when it got popular with the kids
@@AmosDohms Price to performance it was never good. It was however one of the earlier system builders geared towards enthusiasts before the market was saturated so it did offer some value at that point as you didn't have many options.
but they got slick looking cases, imo better than the boxes with a window that most use today
3:35 loved looking at the vents back then when looking for a gaming pc
Ah the Aurora R4 ALX (non ALX don't have the active vents) I have re-built a few of these in the past (the motherboards failed en-mass right outside warranty). Nice heavy duty chassis but airflow needs help. They used to sell really well and the PSU's were great for pretty much any GPU at the time.
I find deals all the time as good of this. I live in Los Angeles so tons of used parts.
I've aquired an Aurora R1 for kinda cheap, around U$S100 where I live, that's a pretty rare system, I've managed to find just another R1 on a case only situation. I was pretty hyped up to fix its motherboard, which is refusing to boot up, but after seeing your amazing video, I'm kinda reevaluating the whole project. For starters, for the very first time I've had to watch tutorials on how to even take the front and right side panel out for cleaning, it was a half a morning ordeal. Removing the motherboard to eventually put a new one or fixing the older one took me about an hour, on that frame time I usually fully swap a new board to a chassis and have the new system up and running. The internal space is absurdly lacking, their air flow is totally disrupted, I'm just evaluating either selling as-is, or to fit a "El Cheapo" CPU with some decent RAM and cut my losses.
🙂 another commenter says its a standard X79 matx board which can simply be moved over to a regular case, he also says u can flash a modded bios, theres several decent cpus that u can use it with
One of these was for sale
locally for $100 for a couple of months and I couldn’t get him to budge. I really wanted to check it out but after buying 2 XPS 9100s there was just no space left.
I am glad you made this so I could see a recent review.
I'd love to repurpose the case like that. They dont make anything fancy like that anymore. Alienware aesthetically has always been pleasing.
That's exactly how I feel about the case itself lol
Loved the look of Alienware cases back then. When I didn't know much about them, I always thought of it as dope as hell. I mean of course today, the truth is out and... The PC case is clunky and is a hot oven. The GPU is unsupported in many areas and is using older standard DVI and mini HDMI. The motherboard is propietary. I think I remember one time on this channel. I think you cut your hand and had to get stitches once on an Alienware case? Or was it another case?
Anywho, the case out of the Alienware factory. Yeah at the end, it's nothing special and has bad design flaws. I definitely agree with you on that, Mr. Tech YES Man.
But, now that you HAVE the case. And all the parts are working just fine.
From where I'm from, I could absolutely make a sale out of it or have fun with it. Something a certain kind of enthusiast would like or something to give away in case your worried about it being returned.
Getting RetroBat installed. Getting a bunch of older games on it from that time that could be played offline and without any accounts from Epic Games or GOG. Painting the case. Adding cheap RGB strips. Or completely modding it with good protection(glasses, thick leather gloves, mask) and power tools to add more space or mount your own radiator or heatsink. Plenty of drive cages in it from the front. If there is no chassis intrusion with the side panel off, see what could be done to make it like an old server/retro gaming PC with some other OS on it.
So much could be done to have it be pretty fun. I agree Alienware dropped the ball and ran with the money. We all agree on that. That's what your videos are about. Don't waste money on these when they are new and way, way overpriced.
However, you channel is also about reflipping and finding value where there is none is all about. I see this Alienware as a great modding project. I say the easiest part is to paint the case like mostly white and somwhat blue. Put in a cheap RGB LED strip on the top. Install Retrobat and no games. If the side panel can be run without it, then showcase it that way with the drive cages being a highlight. Put it as a Retro Gaming/Server PC. Make a slightly higher profit. Or give it away like you once did for those school kids. It inspired me so much to give my mother's school(she's a principal) a old Core2Duo computer with way older GPUs and parts, yet painted with a cheap RGB strip and Batocera OS on it with no internet and cheap controllers. Plus my physical games I've ripped on it so they can play LoZ, Mario, etc. And not like Doom and stuff. They are playing this when parents come to pick them up way later cause we all live in the countryside.
So plenty of good use with older hardware. And I really wish Alienware thought the same too. Hope everyone has a good day. Thanks for the vids like always, Mr. Tech YES Man. Keep being cool.
🙂 yes, this PC is meant for someone into Nostalgia, theres a market for them, u have guys picking up 286 and 386 and 486 on other channels, then others are picking up Pentiums. Me personally I picked up an Intel Core 2 Quad because it makes me feel cozy 😌
Yes busted my finger on an alienware system years ago... that was definitely a freak accident. Glad it wasn't any worse. I will put it up market, see if anyone is interested in it :P.
@@techyescity Happy your hand healed after that. Weird I still remembered it though. Been around since I saw you sell this Core2Quad and GTX 1060 and the LGA 771 mod. Been loving the channel. Hope your sales go well. And someone will definitely buy the Alienware. It works, and you clean it up as always. Hope you have a nice day, Mr. Tech YES Man.
4:00 - 5:08, great background track Bryan, F.O.O.L & A.L.I.S.O.N - Vibrance, they have some bangers right now... 🕺🕺🕺🕺🔥🔥👍👍
Alienware used to offer great tech automated tech like this (auto drop down front panel and automatically adjusting panels depending upon the heat output etc of the case components, a little bit of lighting etc) in some of their old PCs to help ….. “justify” their costs ….. whereas in recent years you pay a lot more for no features and no performance…. Even substandard performance of an i7 or higher with power limited mobos etc.
remember i bought this used prob 7-8 years ago i overclocked it to 4.8ghz all cores on watercooling (280mm) 2x140mm high performace fans hit 80 degree celsius on stress test then
I want that case. I like stupid things like self opening fins, and a button to push that opens a door. Plus my current build will fit in there perfect.
I remember acquiring two of these a couple of years ago for good used bargains. Never took the opportunity to equip one of the machines with an RX580 when those were going on major sales. Wherever that 4930k is, good times.
Originally, my Lenovo Brickstation P520 sold at a base price of $1400 back in 2018 but 5 years later I purchased most of what I needed for only $300. It was built for graphics design and 3D modeling and now it's corporate E-waste available on eBay that can be turned into a gaming PC.
Also, I never bought into the whole Alienware idea or the concept of dressing up computers into gaming PCs, I would say that there's a time and place for playing Dress Up because that active ventilation was pretty cool, but I wouldn't go buying a computer just for something like that.
🙂 its not ewaste, the cpus on that platform officially support windows 11 👍
@MrSamadolfo Yes, of course. I run Winders 11 on my P520 and the machine is still powerful enough to game on. I just say corporate waste because they lease machines for a few years and then update to something else selling them off to services who dispose of them.
This used to be my dream pc when I was a kid, then I learned how to build PC. Never looked back to any pre built ever since.
Still fascinating to see old builds, and wonder what they used to play on that Commodore Vic 20,
4:08 Geeez! They left the protective film on the gpu?
Premium stuff right there. 😂
I bought an R3 version of that in 2011 for my oldest son, IIRC I paid about $1600 for it, those systems were almost all sold as custom configurations, so sometimes you will run into weird hardware combinations. The one I bought my son came with a 2700K, 120mm AIO, 8GB RAM, which was a lot in 2011, and two GTX 650s in SLI )also a big thing in 2011). It also came with an 850W PSU, two 2TB hard drives, and didn't have the powered vents on top. It wasn't exactly a great value then, but it wasn't all that much more than building it myself either. Oddly enough I bought an Alienware X51 in 2014 that came with a GTX 555 in it along with a i5 4550 and 8GB of RAM for about $600 brand new.
04:06 wait, what....the GTX 660 still has it's protective film on it. Did Alienware perform no QA on builds, or is that a later owner addon GPU? (Later, GTX 555 !!!!!)
Noticed that too, lol. Maybe the person he picked it up from immediately swapped the GTX 555 out for something faster, kept the 555, and swapped it back when they sold it? Idk now I’m just going down a theory rabbit hole, still doesn’t explain why Alienware left it on there 🤣🤣🤣
or techyes city fakes videos (another possivility, i hope not)
@@N3mdraz Never, I would rather just stop making youtube videos bro.
I got it from the guy at the recycling center, he would not bother doing something like a 680, 660 or swapping for a 555 (I actually have never even heard or knew this card existed until this build), it's out of the question (he moves much better gear worth much more money, just not worth his time at all), he would have acquired it like so, and yes I saw that film on there. Was quite surprised. Though when searching online, these models did come fitted with 555s, so it would be like that from the factory I think.
The Zalman H1 case I use has fan vents at the top too. They can be manually opened and closed or set to open when the internal temps reach a certain level (of which I'm not sure as I've rubbed the numbers off during cleaning over the years.)
I have one of these from 2013 , after a few upgrades and fixes , it runs great running most games well still.
Need a DVI to HDMI adapter, also, those are full DVI-I ports with the extra 4 pins round the cross, so you have a choice of DVI cable, DVI to HDMI adapter, DVI to VGA adapter
I actually got one as a gift at the time of release and you were able to pick and choose to swap between low/med/high end components including gpu and cpu..
Edit I also still own it and everything works except the AIO pump.. so I recently gutted it for a side project.
To be truthful some of the prices Tech Yes city obtained for its second hand parts are Not available in the second market like Gumtree and Facebook's marketplace where parts are usually sold at competitive market prices.
🙂 alot of flip content creators get these crazy deals but yes normally this isnt available to most normal people
That is such a cool case. It would be interesting to do a new build in it. I almost got this system back in the day and I always wished I had been patient and got it.
i would love to see someone make an sleeper pc with that case @__@
Here in the US the PC case alone are desirable. You can use it or quasi sleeper, and maybe put a Ryzen board in there. Also that power supply is same ones used in Dell's professional Precision desktops which are severely under spec, but are the best PSUs in the industry.
My brother bought one of those 1 year before I bought my new PC. I got a current i7-4770, and his was only a 1st gen, ie, Dell's current line was way behind what was being sold - lol -.
I bought two of these in years ago for flipping. One had a 580, and one had a 680. I upgraded both to 6-core i7s and better GPUs (R9 390 and a GTX 1070). Honestly I kinda hate these cases, because there's so many parts that can break on them. Luckily the motherboards work fine in new cases, which is what i did. Still have one of these old cases laying around
I feel like Asus ROG Strix took the mantle of what Alienware used to be. High priced cool looking machines
I love the moving vent thing
70 degree celsius on CPU is from the alienware mobo is throttling the cpu to maintain the temperature below 70 or 71.
This can cause you don't get the perfect scores of benchmarking with the original custom build with those specs (I m saying CPU,GPU,RAM, except Alienware motherboard).
I saw a video of youtuber "mattscomputerservices" which he demonstates with custom build of alieware hardware and alienware PC.
Ironically the monitor I use for testing these machines is 1 that somebody threw out. It has HDMI DVI and SVGA all on the same monitor I've got 1 of each cables attached on the monitor so I can just switch from 1 to the other if memory serves me there's a gouge in part of the screen but like I said I use it for bench testing. Only ever had an Alienware in the wild wants and I lost it. Long time ago back before I was doing my own work I took it to somebody to get a hard drive replaced and ended up never getting the computer back where the guys stole my machine and machines belonging to several other people. It was a computer I got on the side of the road where it has been owned by a senior at 1 point and actually wasn't very old. I still don't know how a 80 plus year old woman ends up with an Alienware desktop. Machine was like 3 or 4 years old at the time
Brian got lazy on this one. The motherboard is a standard matx. With non proprietary connectors and all power connectors are standard too. The I/O shield is standard and removable. You can case swap or upgrade the matx motherboard, it is a massive case though. The cool thing about this motherboard is using a modded bios to use a NVMe storage via PCI-e to NVMe adapter.The modded bios also let's you overclock Xeon CPUs. Unfortunately you can't use V2 Xeons. I have several of these motherboards as they are so cheap. Better than the cheap Chinese x79 boards.
Interesting, I just saw the extra boards where the power connectors were coming out of and I thought "nah thats more proprietary mess", guess it is a different story. Thanks.
🙂 neat, ive never seen a video on that dell board
@@techyescity Thank you for all the great content and contributions.
@@techyescity that definitely explain things. those original r4s with the actuated fins on the top are hard to come by now I think dell only did that for a year the immediately redesigned to cut costs down. people who do have them tend to just upgrade them as they are mostly regular pc parts in a unique pc case.
2:49 That isn't Dell's fault. Nvidia put mini HDMI on all the cards of that class at the time. My 560 was the same.
AMD HD 6000 series has mini DP, AMD is no different.
@@AlfaPro1337 What is your point? This isn't a jab at Nvidia and wasn't to say AMD was better.
@@MarcoGPUtuberYou sound like AMD did nothing wrong.
@@AlfaPro1337 I didn't mention AMD at all. You did. It's just a fact, at the time, Nvidia cards all had mini HDMI.
@@MarcoGPUtuber Except, you are putting like Nvidia is evil for putting mini-stuff, like AMD did nothing.
Son has an Ivy Bridge Xeon, E5 2667 v2, and he is happy with it. I honestly think it's the best 2011 v2, for it is 8c/16t and it boosts to 4 GHz. He's probably going to use it until he needs something with AVX2. He has it paired with a RX 6600XT and 56 GB DDR3. His PC is a Dell Precision T3610
I'm surprised your Robocop performance was so low. The game actually runs fairly well on the FX-8350/8370 processors, as in, you can cap it to at least 40fps and expect it to be fairly steady at that during the intense action areas with a mix of medium and high graphics settings. It can actually hit a higher average but 40fps is the safe bet with lower end graphics cards. Due to that I would have figured it would have run just as good, if not better, on the older i7.
The weird plastic and little light up bits are a bigger part of the deal now they aren't depreciating they are gaining antique value
That chassis was used from the R2 all the way to the R7, so at least the RnD costs were low, considering they used the same chassis for nearly 8 years!
I don't know what the deal is with OEM gaming computers being huge, they'll have a case that can fit a WTX board and 18 hard drives with a micro ATX Motherboard, a 50 class card and one SSD in it.
Worth a look, ive personally stopped flipping anything older than 4th gen and only do 4th gen if i get it for dirt cheap. For me personally i find 6th gen is becoming the sweet spot now.
If you're GTX 555 then I'm RTX 666
What's it like to be a nvidia heretic?
NVidia Heretic. Sounds like a good counterpart to the PowerColor Red Devil series.
@@shadowspark220I agree!!!
Maybe sell it to a collector or to someone who wants a capable Windows XP x64 machine for retro gaming. Didn't SP3 for XP come out in late 2000 or something?
I wouldn't even bother playing newer games on this thing. To really appreciate how well it worked, it's best to play games around the same time this thing was new which was the earlier 2010s. It still should run office and everything else just fine.
I would take the moving air fins off and put it on a new build, its.pretty cool little touch
you cant lock in xmp on a base modewl . once you get a cheap unlocked ivy bridge e chip the settings unlocks
I found one of these on the side road. Had a gtx 770 in it. I pulled the motherboard out and some other parts and chucked the case. Way too heavy and way too much stuff inside. Total waste of money at the time. Works well as a second computer. Not bad.
honestly if that case could fit regular motherboard and psu i'd be interested lol. maybe then you can build a not-so-subtle sleeper pc there.
Love those old cases buddy!
I love the new meta where Bryan is like, "Can we get performance out of this ancient PC?" When all these old viewers are like, "We know damn well we can! Throw it in the turbo washer! Hit it with the brake cleaner! Hit us with that soundtrack! Hey, how's dad man!?"
think you missed an opportunity here. there are lots of people who love that computer for just its case. for 65 bucks its an absolute steal. there are two main reasons to buy an old Alienware if its really old peak retro gaming if its more recent like this its restomodding that machine is probably more valuable as an empty case than a case than comes with some free but old parts.
I got the case psu and bluray for 20 usd. I was going to part it out and flip it but the case is so dumb I love it.
There wasn't enough room for 2xDVI and full size HDMI on a single slot, I had an EVGA GTX 660 that was the same.
I searched for an EVGA GeForce GTX 660, i found only 2 slot cards and all of them full sized HDMI ports, Displayport and 2 DVI.
I have radeon 5450 single slot with hdmi and dvi and the card is from 2009.
@@ibobeko4309 Sorry it was a GTX 650, been a few years.
love your videos and the facts you share keep it up
i love your videos! always excited to see a notification from you
still remember drooling over this back then , probably worth picking up now if can find one for a decent price here ...
I personally wouldnt resale it, the case with the electronic vents seem to be more rare. Ive only see the ones with the perforated top panels.
Painfully long comment incoming.
I have one of these passed down from my late uncle a couple years ago... I have very mixed feelings about the system itself - it looks cool, and absolutely amazed my 9 year old self when my uncle got it back in 2012... but man, with how much I know about servicing computers now, the early Dellienware Aurora series kinda blows. Keep in mind when I say Dellienware, I'm referring to Alienware since Dell's acquisition of the brand was completed in 2009.
I'll start with some subjective positives - if you're into RGB, this had programmable lighting several years before what feels like everything had it. Most of the time you had single-color LED fans, and maybe if you were willing to add it, you could add RGB strips that would likely plug in from a USB 2.0 header or a SATA, molex, floppy connector, whatever source of power was common for RGB strips in the old days. If you had your Aurora R4 specced with the motorized flaps like mine and the one shown in the video do, that's also pretty neat. Just putting that out there, it's just neat. Although upon watching the video, I can see how the aesthetics aren't all a positive - since the money that went into designing the case could have been used towards making it more functional, actually practical for servicing, and giving it better airflow.
the R4 in particular is the most interesting of the first four Dellienware Aurora systems since it uses the X79 platform, whereas the original (retroactively called R1), R2, and R3 used 1366/X58, 1156/P55, and 1155/P67 platforms respectively. From what I understand, X79 was far less common than X58 on OEM prebuilt systems. And despite only having four RAM slots, quad channel memory is still possible. I'll get back to this system being on the X79/LGA2011 platform later, because it's not all a positive.
Most (I say most for a reason) of the main components are standard form factor unlike modern Dellienwares, especially those after the R12. Does that mean the components are any good though? I will let you be the judge of that.
*Now for why this system would have disappointed me ever since I started really getting into PC hardware...*
- The case is extremely overbuilt and way too big and heavy for only being able to house up to a MicroATX motherboard. the liquid cooling system died many many years ago, so I had to replace that with one of few low profile LGA2011 air coolers since anything bigger would be blocked by the VRM heatsink and fan above the CPU. an LGA2011 socket and appropriate chipset is a lot to pack into a MicroATX motherboard - so a compromise had to be made by putting the VRM heatsinks above the CPU socket and not to the left side. Liquid cooler failures were extremely common on the Aurora R4 within only two years of owning the system due to Dell cheaping out on the coolant used. I would not be surprised if my unit ran with a broken liquid cooling system for 6 years, because this system wasn't maintained a whole lot. Oh yeah, airflow is shit - no surprise there.
- I also had to replace the power supply when I got my R4 due to being left on a lot with SLI GTX 580's (one of which was factory equipped) in its previous life, and since the cables are routed in a very specific way to go into the hard drive sliding area, it seems like a real pain in the ass to un-route every cable. thankfully, the Precision T5500/Aurora R4 power supply has one big cable containing all the connections that can be removed, making the power supply replacement much easier provided you're replacing it with the same model 875W unit. For literally any other power supply, good fucking luck.
- The GPU door is pretty annoying, because it prevented larger GPU's like my old MSI Armor mk2 RX570 from fitting unless the door was somehow removed, due to the GPU having a metal corner that was blocking the door hinge from shutting. Not sure how that's to be removed without breaking it, but you could always make modifications should you want to actually build in one of these cases and use a GPU that has a big chunk of metal or plastic in the upper left corner.
- Oh yeah, the power button is fucked on my unit. the plastic that depressed down to the power switch has gone loose and the switch itself takes a lot more pressure than it should to trigger. and a replacement power switch board is basically nonexistent, yay! And since the power switch is in a very tight space, it's effectively a proprietary part. Not that I know of many other Aurora R4's with this problem, but it is noteworthy nonetheless.
My verdict on this system? I like it as an art piece, and also because I personally have sentimental value for my particular unit. But one could have gotten a much better experience if they built their own system (or maybe had one built by an SI) using similar off-the-shelf components but stepping down to LGA1155 and i7-2600K, provided you didn't order your Aurora R4 with the 6-core i7-3930K (or 4930K on later production units). Due to the motherboard being MicroATX, you likely couldn't use all the PCIe lanes of X79 anyway - so nothing that actually mattered at the time was lost, especially for purely a gaming system. Unless you're a collector, these early Dellienwares - or even later ones - aren't worth the hassle.
Fuck, I spent over an hour and a half writing and revising this comment. I hope someone finds the information I provided valuable :')
X79 might have been a bit better for SLI due to having enough lanes to run both cards at x16. Sandy Bridge-E(P) also has PCIe 3.0 unlike mainstream Sandy Bridge, though some earlier revision CPUs might have some problems at 3.0 speeds. But yeah, for a single card system with only a 4c/8t CPU X79 doesn't make much sense.
I think X58 was more common in OEM systems because for close to a year it was the only platform with i7's, with the mainstream being stuck on LGA775 until September 2009. With X79 it's pretty much the opposite, mainstream Sandy was released in January 2011 and X79 didn't come out until November 2011
Btw I recognize you from Pixel Talk
I read it bro, was a good read! Though yeah it's a matter of Dell being Dell in the end isn't it, Like there are some really cool things they did here, but then as you mentioned so much overengineering to the point where it just made it a pain for longevity purposes. My power button is a bit mushy, but hopefully it has some life left in it. Did yours go mushy first? if so how long did it last for after that.
@@techyescityHi, I appreciate you reading my comment! My power button is still working, but as you said - it’s pretty mushy and requires way more force than it should to get it to work. I can’t say much for this system’s life from 2012 to 2020 though, only from when I inherited it in mid-2021 and the time I’ve kept and tried to preserve it since.
@@Pasi123 for SLI, X79 would be more sensible. But most of these Aurora R4’s were configured with a single GPU and SLI may overload the power supply along with having not that great of airflow, this is a system where you would have been best off sticking to a single GPU anyway.
As for X58 being the most common HEDT platform in OEM systems, most of them seem to have been made in 2009 when Core 2 was still the latest mainstream platform and 1156 didn’t have an iGPU yet - so it made sense for the higher end.
also good to see ya from the pixelpipes server :P
No games with DX9. DX10, DX11 ? I was really curious about the GTX 555.
Engraving, provide no fps advantage. That was some fancy case though. It's pretty good
i remember when x79 was all crazy hyped up like x58 for the budget gamer like 5 years ago, i even ran it with am x79 extreme4 asrock board, e5 2670v1, 16gb ram and a 980ti
I had that same board, ran an e5-1680 v2 overclocked to 4.2ghz. Also used cheap ecc ram which was super cool at the time
My secondary PC has been on X79/C602 since 2021 with a Xeon E5-2690 8c/16t and 64GB DDR3. My main PC was on X58 in 2013-2023 (first with a 4c/8t, and since 2016 a 6c/12t X5670 @ 4.4GHz) but some months ago I upgraded to X299.
It would interest me to see someone mod the hell out of it and put something decent in there under the hood. For you and your channel that's probably not a thing but I'd be curious as to what someone could come up with.
My radeon hd 6950 that I bought in 2011 had 2GB of vram
Hey I just found you this evening. Thanks for your tip on under-volting an AMD 7950. I have a questions related to Old PC/Cases. I've got a Corsair Obsidian 600D with an i7 3770K setup. I'm updating to AMD but do you know of a company who retrofits USB ports on old cases?
Keep up the fun videos.
Did Dell own them at this point? Because that would explain the GPU. Alienware that I remember was all custom built and used NZXT cases for the most part. Edit: Commented before a quick google search. Yes, Dell did own them and that is why IMO the brand took a nosedive.
I was in the last years of school when these came out. I was looking round for my first gaming pc around then and all ways wanted one of these, but the price was astronomical and I wanted to build my own pc. Ended up getting a gaming laptop that could run a modded Oblivion and so I could take it into school. and once I left school for uni finally built my own pc. Alienware brand was already starting to diminish after just a few years.
Walked past an Alienware store yesterday in Shanghai. Their stores always seem to be empty. Feel like the are like the "Bose" of PCs. Looking for a niche of customers with lack of understanding of the product and cash to burn.
that shit for 1800 USD was a freaking scam, I bet you could get a similar performance build for around 300 USD at the time
I want one of these old alienware cases just because.
That case alone is worth much more than US$65 to any PC enthusiast over 30 years of age.
that would be an awesome case for a sleeper build
I have a palit 650ti which uses the mini hdmi..had a hard time finding a cable locally back in 2012
Mini HDMI is annoying on a full size ATX PC...
...and Micro HDMI is?
This case reminds me of those people who live in Cuba. They live in villas, but they don't have money to buy food.
I remember when I wanted an Alienware desktop, laptop back in the dayss
lol the top of the case reminds me of that active aero on Travis pastranas car
I bought one of those motherboards, or a very similar one once second hand on ebay. I was going to use it to overclock, but although that feature should have been supported it seemed the feature had been removed or locked at some point from a bios update. Some real BS from dell.
Is the case identical to the ALX versions that came with motorized and adjustable upper fins? I love old Alienware cases
what's mind boggling is that there's no leak or corrosion from that liquid cooler in almost 12 years...
Yeah, least they got that right!
I see locals trying to sell OptiPlexes that are older and slower for twice that much money lol.
Love TYC!
I have an in-law with one of these sitting in a closet. I wonder if I should buy from him for cheap and see what can be done? I presume I can’t gut it and put modern stuff in the case and still make those vents work? It should do stuff like Minecraft as is, right?
It'll run Minecraft, probably not well though. Put a better GPU in it and it'll be just fine.
It’s a collector’s dream. Reselling as a museum piece maybe, but not to anyone.
Why I build my own shit! Since Socket 7 in '97....
PS What's a GTX 555? Got a 550 Ti* from a deal once
*Could be good(better than my good OL' GTX 260 C216) for a W2K/XP Socket 939 Opteron 180 (RE)build! What say ye, TYC followers?
I remeber, at the time i was a kid playing minecraft and I really loved alianware design laptops and desktops, its a piece of art from apearance
That's a pretty weird Alienware, normally these kinds of builds are now meant to be picked up by afficionados or someone into nostalgia, they feel empathy towards it because maybe they saw it when they were a little kid. For video cards if ur stuck with only 16gb of system ram then I recommend sticking with an RTX 3050 8GB which I believe is pretty much the best all around card worlwide for old computers and old monitors and old tvs, anything from an i7 870 from 2010 and up. The 1660 Super is kinda weak even for First Generation Intel i7 depending on the game of course so yeah if u have to pick only one card rite now I would say 3050 8GB. If ur not into nostalgia then that motherboard badly needs to be moved over to a modern case. Of course you have to be proficient with cutting wheels and grinding stones because ur going to have to modify a modern case to make this fit. Be careful if u go down that path cause it very easy to cut urself. Thanks for the video. Now go back out there and see what else u can find for the History Channel. 😇
Great video, subscribed just because you have my same dell monitor. Cheers from chile
what i never got, is those old cases that weigh 50 pounds, and are completly bullet proof, i always tried to buy the most airflow, even back in the day 40 years ago, computer get hot, and only getting hotter..lol we need airflow, it doesnt need to protect you if someone fires a tank at you, and i am an old US Marine Tanker....haha
I had the alienware aurora r2 i5 760 found on marketplace free cleaned it up and traded for a modded psp
Did the folks that bought it originally waste their money? Totally! Did you? No way. You talking about case swapping that. But honestly the case is the main attraction for those things and you got it for a good deal so definitely don't case swap. Somebody that's all about aesthetics and that kind of stuff will love that rig
If you owned a GTX580 this comes with two DVI ports and a mini HDMI port you just need to buy the correct cable - I have lots!
back in the days, "gaming" designs were goofy, it's like adding LED strips inside the PSU for no reason.
🙂 back in the day u could buy colored Florescent Tubes to lite up the case