Over the years I have purchased several Alienware machines. Never had any major issues until just recently with my Aurora. PC arrived and the graphics card was not operating as expected. I rang Dell, they had me run some tests and decided that the graphics card had been damaged in transit. They then sent a technician on a 6 hour round trip to replace and test a new graphics card. Been working perfectly ever since - That is why I buy Dell.
I just bought an aurora for black Friday. My friend said the same thing as you. Been using alienware for 8 years no problems except for one time his gpu was bad, technician was there the following day and it was fixed. A lot of people talk bad about them but you're also paying for customer service. My nephew bought a ibuypower from Amazon and can't get it fixed
The big thing imo is looking for sales and always always always getting water cooling options. The R13-14 might handle things better aircooled but sh.. no.. get the better cooling.
I bought an Alienware R8 about 5 years ago for $1700 and it still runs great. Runs any game on max graphics. People like to hate on pre-builts but if you don't know much about computers it's a great option
I’m not knowledgeable enough to build my own and was all pumped up about buying the R10 with upgraded specs and everyone’s raining on my parade for even suggesting such a thing lol.
With the price the R10 was well worth it for me. All others that had similar equipment was about 1k$ more. Mine works perfect for what I need. Liquid cooled and no overheating or noise issues. Added my own RAM and another TB of solid state memory.
Is liquid a definite? Because i ordered my r10 (haven't got it yet) without liquid cooling and im reading that i should upgrade the fans and the add the Alienware AIO liquid cooling
@@kokoro5110 definitely get liquid cooling, the air-coolers are absolutely horrendous on Alienwares, my water-cooled R11 has never had thermal issues tho, so definitely re-order it
for 4000€i can build you a way better PC than this hunk of junk... after a couple of months you will see the true issues with the PC once the heat starts to ware down the components like VRM and CPU/GPU thermal paste
Best review of a pre-built system I’ve seen. Very informative and you went beyond just the technical breakdown but also mentioned the after purchase service from dell for hardware issues. Given the fact that I don’t have the time I used to have to build and troubleshoot my computers, this is a big selling point for me. I just need them to work and if something fails I don’t want to have to mess with sending components off for warranty. And by comparison to other pre-built a that don’t have on site service this makes the purchase a no brained for me.
Dell has fantastic customer service. My R10 had a really bad idle coil whine problem. I contacted Dell and they took control of my PC and updated my BIOS and a couple other things and now it is compeletly fixed.
Dell has great after sale support, I had a m15 laptop with a 2060. The MB died and they replaced it with a brand new laptop (the new model - full spec)
Update, I returned my R10 for an R13. I was over my return window by a week and they still let me do it. I will never forget their great customer service.
The only good thing about the R10 I bought last year was that the CPU and GPU now run great with the new case, motherboard, memory and PSU I hooked them up to.
120 AIO on a 4k computer is just insane. Cpu overheating, bad airflow case, 6 phase vrm, ridiculous bad ram timings, custom bios with no options, something else?? They're like stuck 15 years in the past.
@@mahihkan3592 Alienware is shit period. The case is plastic, the coolers are shit, it doesn’t have an option for Linux (that’s just me nitpicking though since I use Linux), it has shitty customer service and the list goes on and on and on. Dell is shit.
NEVER EVER would I touch such a system, especially for this kind of money. Its like my ex - pretty on the outside, horrible on the inside (with a dark soul and no heart). I as well, remember back in the days saving more money to be able to purchase an Alienware PC or even a notebook with MXM Gpu for being futureproof. Nowadays its just a scam and not any better than a regular Dell or even worse OEM PC.
Yeah unfortunately a lot of these companies that own gaming lineups stopped giving the option of maxing out their normal home or business PCs. Like you are stuck with only professional gpus on the business side, and they won’t let you go above 50-60tier nvidia gpus on their home systems. They only let you get the highest end components on their gaming lineups and sometime they force you to buy the highest tier item just to get the 80 or 90 tier gpu or the unlocked i9 rather than a locked i7 or i9. Sucks because you used to be able to just get the standard atx tower from their home lineup and upgrade to the fastest i7 and the fastest gpu. It would be a blower, but it was still the fastest and the system would be hundreds of dollars cheaper, sometimes even over a thousand. These companies want the same money that boutique builders charge for simple custom loop builds. And you get a stock cooler, blower card or the cheapest version of a card, a single stick of ram if you don’t upgrade, a slow small ssd, and a baller no name platinum or gold psu. Lol you can get the same level of hardware but much better versions with a simple custom loop for the same money or less.
considering that - it actually has a functional VRM heatsink - the innner components are correctly marked - the GPU has functional backplate and has support bracket this exact sample looks pretty good from inside
I bought HP omen. It came with cpu 8 pin power unplugged. After that it was overheating due to ryzen 3700 cooled by 2200g size cooler. So good. Least it was only 1000€ with 3070.
I feel like HP and Lenovo are the two best brands for pre-builts. Most of their parts can be easily swapped and upgraded and they come with dual channel ram and everything. I got an Omen and am basically preforming a full case/mobo swap for a huge performance boost at a large savings on the gpu/cpu
I bought a r10 ryzen with the 5800x and rx6800t . Believe it or not it was cheaper buying pre-built than building it right now with all the price gouging. 3 noctua fans and a re paste later, it's a fucking solid rig. I agree it should come with better fans and paste out of the box , but in these times you gotta make do with what's in the budget
Important note, alienware's mbos use cheap pcie lane splitting that has fixed 2x 8x pcie lanes, never does the gpu get all 16 lanes even if the second slot is not populated. Also case has horrible thermal performance, just no
@@der8auer Yep, just look at the board and you'll see no pcie switches (those thin long IC's). It is not a big problem if the cpu has gen4, but not ideal for last gen intel cpu's and maybe 2080ti
r12 owner here, the 12cm fans on the aio and front is utter bullshit, by just changing it to Noctua A12x25 or Arctic P12, you will see much lower temps for both processor and gpu
The Included motherboard is crap in terms of build quality and VRMs might have USB ports but still crap you can’t even begin to compare it with a Z590 aorus pro. VRM temps are fine because of the great high RPM high airflow fans.
>Flashback from Steve's teardown This gun' be gud! [Edit] Alright, so not that bad. Color me surprised. Terrible airflow still, but compared to Steve's unit, it will do.
One thing I noticed with Dell.. (and it forced me into several buys rather than building my own..) is occasionally you get it far cheaper than you could building it yourself. In late 2017 That worked out to nearly $600CAD (414EURO) and in 2019 $250CAD (172 EURO) At those prices and difficulty getting 1080s in late 2017 I easily pulled the trigger on them. If I can't build it for cheaper with comparable parts.. it's always worth it.
One thing to keep in mind is DELL EU is not DELL USA, Gamers nexus and LTT videos show the USA side. It's tad different with EU consumer laws. So warranty and some consumer stuff is not the same. Im not talking about hardware/software just the support/warranty.
I feel like a lot of people haven't actually watched the Video? All the comments I'm seeing is "YEAH IT WAS THAT BAD" or "YEAH IT SUCKS"... But his final verdict was, well it's not great but it's not THAT bad. If you can get it on sales, especially considering that you cannot get a 3080 or 3090 otherwise, it's not the worst way to spend money. After some tweaking he was able to get reasonable temps (granted at the cost of higher noise) for all components and it performs a bit worst (like 5% at worst, more like 2 - 3 % most of the time) VS a build tested on an open test bench. Obviously if you are an enthusiast, like to build a PC yourself and are into overclocking, this is NOT a PC for you and you shouldn't buy it (I wouldn't buy it). But for someone who just wants to play some games without too much hassle, and with a 3080 or 3090 at that, well this isn't the worst options. Now all that being said, I have had to deal with DELL's customer support in the past, I would strongly recommend getting a prebuilt from another company as you DO NOT want to have to deal with their support (trust me, if you don't just take a random's stranger word on the internet, just look at videos from GN, LTT where they call DELL sale' department or support department, it's terrible). But the PC itself isn't all that bad. I think if you really want an RTX 3080 to play newer games (and we all know you can't find one right now) and this PC goes on sale, and you are OK with the drawback of this PC (I wouldn't be OK with it because no upgrade path possible, high noise, mediocre temperature), then this is an option if no other companies sell prebuilt in your area. Laptops are also a decent alternative, mobile GPUs are quit decent these days.
@@der8auer Well bashing stuff is funny and entertaining so I can see why some people expect it, but that's not why I watch your channel. Thanks for taking the time to reply wasn't expecting a reply or anything really. Keep making good content!
@@Sp4rKzTV The PC itself could be "good enough" but when you buy a prebuilt, you buy the whole package. And your argument can easily be flipped : As you said, that PC is not meant for enthousiasts. So in that sense, the bad warranty sales department with auxiliary customer support is way much more detrimental to the product. So no, taht Alienware is a bad product, and in that regard, all Alienware are. You pay for the "WOW factor" or the fancy case, but that's all, because unless you want insurance, the Dell support won't do anything for you when things go wrong (and they will, their cases and the components they uses in those being desingned to heavily rely on brute airflow, wich will be inevitably restricted by the dust the "non-enthiousiasts" that PC is targeted towards will unknowingly let add itselft up).
This is for sale in Aussie now for 2,965.99 euro..I am going to buy..its crazy cheap for 4800 AUD, Just a FYI a 3090 here is going to cost u around 3600 to 4000 AUD alone if u can even get one. Most custom PC builds with a 3090 are running around 5500 to 8 grand AUD. bang for the buck its hard to beat and should keep me in VR land for a while at least the next 3 years. I do a 21/7shift at a coal mining camp..so power is free so is the air con ;-) but I need a small PC to lug around and this is small.
i wuld recommend you to not do that since the Dell 3090 will burn down your house ... a 400W card with a bad cooler and shit PSU is just bound to create an issue
10% more performance, yes ... for an additional 28 seconds ;o) Outside of the confusing Cinebench numbers, it seems ok. I agree, that if you have the time and interest, building your own is the way to go for PCs. It's much more likely you'll end up with something modular that you can upgrade later and you can put function over form when it comes to noise/temperatures.
The internal case design alone is reason to steer clear of Alienware PCs. You'll never get the max performance out of your PC due to extreme thermals. The only reason to advise someone to buy an Alienware Aurora is when something fails, they can contact Dell instead of you.
Air cooling isn't the Intel box cooler - it's something that Dell makes to cool all the Intel and AMD CPUs, which is a ridiculously small heatsink and a loud fan.
The first and only reason I wont buy a pre-built is that I genueinly know what I'm getting in terms of pricing, parts and build quality. However it is sad people who don't want to build themselves or don't have the knowhow can't get a reasonable deal from an OEM they should be able to trust.
With the endless number of build tutorials on UA-cam, there is no reason to fear building one's own PC. I built my first PC recently copying the build of a couple youtubers and following their tutorials.
man. if only Dell could have put all the money they spent on the molds, tooling & convoluted engineering for those cases & put it into competent case design, cooling & parts selection. oh and customer service sans warranties.
They’ve had cooling issues before. I used to buy dell bare cases and their cooler and add a cpu ram and gpu and hdd. The cases look awesome but have no where for the heat to go. If you open the side it runs way better
I've been using the alien A 12 over 1 year the only problem is dust which makes it very very very hot but with a good power plan its a decent pc that will last me a couple more years
The Aurora R10s we recieved with 5800(nonX) had the crappiest littel air coolers, like, i think it was the same kind of cooler that came with my Athlon 3000G Side note, with 5800 nonX, and 6800xt it was unser $2000
@@bobbrock4221 You shouldnt have to for a 65w part. Just because you bought Air cooling because you wanted less maintenance, doesnt mean you should go from getting a $100 cooler, to a $5 cooler The air cooler is too tall getting choked by the PSU being too close It has no heat pipes so the top of the cooler is practically useless It doesnt get great coverage on the IHS with a small circle that appears to not even be covering the 2 dies completely. This requires the heat to travel horizontally before it can even get to the cooler I weep for anyone that bought a 3 die CPU though i dont remember if they offered the '65w' 3900/5900 nonX I have a noctua L9A on my 3700x, and i get significantly higher clock speeds on that, than our esports machines at work get with this garbage cooler. Heck, my 3950x got better frequency. Sure it wasnt running at 4.1Ghz under full load like it does with my dark rock pro, but at least it was over 3.5Ghz This Dell cooler fails to cool the 5800 well enough to maintain 2.8Ghz in games. In prime 95, the dell does so poorly compared to the L9a, that it is almost 1Ghz slower than a 3950x at 2.2Ghz VS 3.1Ghz Remember, the 3950x is literally twice the cores, under a much smaller cooler. IT was also much more quiet
I remember, a time many many years ago, when I saw reviews of Alienware computers and they made me want it. Back then, it was like comparing a Corba to a GTO. But, of course, I stopped dreaming when I saw the price. Now, and much older, I finally got one. An Alienware Aurora R8, which I ordered with max options, $4000+. I've had it for two years and just love it. Had a small problem with the pre-installed WIN 10 and they fixed it ASAP. Their service, in my opinion, is awesome. I've had such a great time with this computer that I've ordered their 38" curved monitor. As I like to say, "You treat me good and I'll treat you good."-
Very cool, fair review. Amazingly balanced and insightful. What I liked the most is that you didn’t just use it and test it, but you tried to get to perform in the most optimal settings. To be honest I think the gamer’s nexus reviewers purposely go for reviews which will knock pre-builds. I’ll keep your channel in mind for more insightful reviews. A German dude with a cool tude…
I got my first ever prebuilt a refurbished R11 with 3080 / i9 - price was less than components (due to high cost of 3080s and refurbished) - the mobo crapped out but dell service came to my place and replaced and now works like a charm - I never thought I'd say it but it's a damn good computer, and their service was way better than it used to be like
I bought an R10 ( Ryzen 5900 and Nvidia 3080 ) in Germany in the summer. At that time there was a 10% discount and it was really the only place you could actually buy any decent GPUs. I looked at self-build and also NZXT, but I paid €2700 and had a month's wait for delivery. Even now, 3080s are over €1300, but at least they are available. OK, the case runs hot, but it's easy enough to replace/add better fans and even improving the thermals on the Nvidia is doable. And a case/mobo swap is always an option.
I agree, as a self builder myself, try building a 5950 with 3090 system yourself, you just can't get the parts without paying insane scalper prices. Dell isn't so bad at the moment with their discounts, better service and returns policy then other prebuild companies and it doesn't look like a 1980's RGB disco. 😉
The problem is that airflow is total shit in Alienware case. It runs cooler with the side panel off and that’s ridiculous. I had to spend 300 euros in order to totally revisit the gpu cooling on my Aurora r9, which was ridiculously noisy in gaming
Problem is you picked a dell to test a pre built. They have lately been known for using substandard hidden components or outdated ones and bad aftermarket support.
One thing to mention about Dell/Alienware they also provide for free and accessible to everyone the Service Manual for their PC and laptops (extremely detailed) and the far as I know they are the only ones.
I have an R9 and R11 with the 3090 and these machines are rock solid ! But these rigs do not like to be overclocked over 4.9 ghz because of the 120 rad. The ticket is using AWCC thermal offset setting in manual and set top fan to 49% and front fan at 48% and then save that profile for your game. I have the stocks fan still and soon will upgrade to Noctuas. Again 5.0-5.3 ghz these rigs do not like at all. Let intel thermal velocity boost do the work. I hope you a hold of the new R13 and it’s new design and ddr5 ect I think your the best man to review it.
I better add that I’m not a pc builder and have no experience about it I just wanted to buy a good gaming machine to run DCS in VR and these machines will do it with any game you throw at it.
If you factor in the still hugely inflated 3090 price, and that Dell can probably get their 3090 for 'normal' prices, the price difference compared to DIY should be closer to 1500 euros. And of course the motherboards are only comparable in terms of number of USB ports. Btw I did exactly the same back in the day, looking at the alienware website when I was a kid. With the AMD Athlon 64 FX. So cool, so incredibly expensive. No idea if they were any good back then, but they looked amazing. Edit: a bunch of people are trying to sell these things on eBay without the GPU. What a great world we live in.
I've been building PC's long enough that I can go into my parts closet and put a system together at any given time. I want to say about the pre-built vs DIY question: build your own if you want a hobby and go with a reputable systems integrator if you just want a machine that works. It might sound controversial in this community, but consider that I, with all my experience, nearly burned my house down last night. My big mistake was using an EPS cable from a Corsair PSU with an EVGA PSU. Not only that, but I also spent hours troubleshooting an other system because I used a motherboard power cable From a Gen 5 Gold EVGA PSU with Gen 5 Bronze PSU. So Now I have all my power cables properly sorted and labelled, but this is the price of learning lessons nobody bothers to teach you in a youtube build guide.
I should add more warning as to never use and mix cables even on the same manufacturer psus even sometimes same looking model from different years (ie. old hx1000 vs new hx1000 psus from corsair). This applies to at least corsair and evga and I am sure many others.
You can also sometimes use some of the cables and think it's fine then use the sata cable on your drives and fry the drives btw which happened to a friend of mine. He no longer does anything he isn't sure of without consulting me first lol.
In the conclusion: there are are also vendors that build a PC for €75 using the components of your choice. That is a better option than prebuilt still, if you cannot / don't want to risk building yourself.
Got a refurb R11 with an RTX3080 in it right around when this video was released. The only reason I bought it was for the GPU but, being a refurb, the cost was actually on par with building it myself so I consider it a good deal.
I cant speak for the r12 but I bought the R10 with 5900x and 3080. It ran very hot and loud at nearly 90deg c under load and the cpu would start to throttle. It was also extremely loud. I have since moved everything into an o11 case. Doing that dropped the temps by nearly 10deg c. I have now upgraded the mother board and cooler and I am now down to 75deg c Max while gaming and am getting 20% more performance. The other issue that I had with Dell/Alienware is that I upgraded my m.2 my self when I got it to a 2TB drive. I ended up on the phone with tech support later for something and mentioned that I had changed the drive. They told me that I no longer had any warranty and ended the call. would I buy another Alienware, No. I am glad I was able to get the parts I wanted back in February at an alright price but there were just to many compromises to the system in my opinion. I could also just be to particular and it could be just fine for someone else. I expect a 5600 cpu would have been perfect in the system.
no issues with my R10 ryzen. I was happy to buy, the financing program works great. I have the air cooled, its a bit loud, other wise fantastic. I was someone selling a the RTX 3080 on fb market place for $2500 when i paid $2512 with taxes for the whole thing last year.
I missed this video when it came out but I'm very happy you did this one. I have a few of these, all water cooled, and I was pretty frustrated with GN's review. The air-cooled model should have never happened and that's Dell's fault. But GN bought the air cooled model and gave it a review that, while probably fair for the cheap machine, wasn't commensurate with my experiences with the properly configured water cooled models. I thought their review was fair for the air-cooled model, but unfairly condemned the entire lineup when the $100 water cooler was all that the system needed to change the results. And they called Dell incompetant in their review while themselves bungling their understanding of the service plan they accidentally signed up for. lol Thanks for the 100% fair review.
I would never buy it. Some parts are proprietary are they not? The PSU does not look standard. Can you put another PSU in? It is such a big tower but still cramped like hell. It really is like pre build PCs from like 10 or 15 years ago. I still have one of those lurking around in my room. It was a waste of money. This gives me kinda ptsd.
Standard ATX and also all normal ATX connectors (24 Pin, 8 Pin EPS, 8 Pin PCIe...) So yea you could change to a different PSU. If you use µATX you could even use a different Board
Not sure about your market but here in the states the 3090 card is 2k alone, ddr5 ram is 800 bucks and the processor is 600$ when you add the other parts it seems like a good deal
Currently there’s a deal for Black Friday and it only costs about 1200 USA dollars. Even with these issues I still think it’s a great deal (yes it has the same statistics)
I got very interested in Alienware 👽 cause of the brand and the awesome design 👌 however very sad that I've seen both negative reviews and the fact there is limited Alienware options. I heard that a brand new pre-build PC 🖥 is coming out next year the aurora R16 and the design is major improvement both cooling and design.
i would worry that with a 11900kf the 120mm cooler wouldn't be able to handle the heat. it's barely adequate for the 11700kf tested. if they live somewhere with high ambient temperatures this might be a horrible choice of pc.
@@der8auer so where i live it wouldn't be great. I also think resale values of a pre-build like this should be considered. other pre builds that use more off the shelf consumer parts, seem to have higher values. the alienware stuff seems to not hold its value at all, compared to similarly spec'ed systems. certainly a lower priority at purchase, but most people seem to be upgrading every 4 to 6 years. also reparability is a concern with such proprietary components in the long run, when warranty runs out.
They're okay with the liquid cooling....terrible without it. Better than spending $1200 on a $500 graphics card. Don't know about dropping $4000 on one, though. Mine was under $1300 (3700x, 2060 Super)
14:45 Dell labelled the parts and colour coded it’s connectors for its own employees who know nothing about computers 💻 🖥 🤦🤦♀️🤦🤦♀️🤪💥💥💥👍. Great review thou Derbauer 🥰👍🏆🎉🥳
The original price is outrageous but the system seems functionally fine. If the latter price you saw is the new standard price then it's not really that bad of a buy.
Nice video. the only issue with the i9 system, is if Alienware (DELL) keep the same 120mm radiator. That system inside such a restricted airflow case will probably be bad for the long term usage.
Should have tested the system with a fresh install of windows. Also i think the added cost of ordering quality parts you can show off is worth the extra cost.
@@kelownatechkid personal rig is exactly that, can't say it's easy, but personally, I find it much more satisfying when(if) it works, also, it let's me fit 11x120mm of radiators in a mid tower
G'day Roman, So you Overclock the CPU on this Alienware & your Cinebench Score goes from 3792 to 5510, Oh wait no it drops from 5510 to 3792 🤦♂️, I don't think Dell understands what Overclocking is Supposed to do for your PC Performance, Ps the i9-11900KF & RTX3090 Version is $8259AUD here in Australia 😲
I own the r12 I have had no problems with anything except the Xbox app and I had manually activate my extra xmp in bios. Overheated on new world one time. Great computer but its prebuilt and expensive
It's super interesting how different approach you have to this review, comparing to Steve from GN... he completely bashed almost entire computer, especially case and PCB (with exception of GPU).
Is this motherboard standard form-factor and power delivery or same as in Gamers Nexus review? Because if its not standatd, it is literally a part of the case with PSU, which devalues it quite heavily. Also VRM is quite far from Aorus Elite, which devalues it even more. Like if you see somebody selling this case+PSU+MoBo combo for Aorus Elite+PSU+case, would you take it and put your 11900K and GPU in? Then again, its hard to find GPU in the wild.
I would only recommend buying Alienware if you can't find a video card and have credit with Dell. I have the same configuration mining crypto 24/7 in my closet and an i9 10900 version for gaming. It (r12) should pay itself off in just under a year, and still under warranty. I used everything from the i9 except the mobo and case in another build which runs far cooler with proper liquid cooling and airflow.
I got the r8 last year which there was a wicked deal for buy one get 1 free gpus so I have dual 2080 supers but my PC has also has 32 gb and an i9-9900 with 1 tb nvme
Even with this video i can absolutely not recommend Alienware. I play flightsims in VR and tried to help someone who bought an Alienware with a Ryzen 5800X for the same purpose. He wasn't able to get his CPU frametimes down. The bloatware and bad cooling just killed the performance. No BIOS options for AMD CPUs. He ended up pulling CPU/GPU out and built his own new system with new RAM. 3500€+ is just crazy. Absolutely not worth the hassle. Putting the new parts together was a fraction of the time he did troubleshooting.
I'm still trying to get my r12 to not black screen when gaming. Loss of monitor and keyboard & mouse. The dell engineer wants me test the computer with a different GPU which would be fine if my other fitted lol. .now wants me to use DDU and uninstall all the drivers. Only had the r12 one week before Christmas. Would be funny if it I didn't pay 2699 pound
Still more reliable and competent hardware than all those "HIGH END GAMING PC FORTNITE 1TB" crapboxes that I still see go for $1000. I bought a R12 minus a GPU since I already had a GTX 1660 6GB, and with the stock i7 11k, a 2TB M2 SSD, and 32gb RAM, I have a very humble gaming rig for about $1500, barely breaks a sweat with Cyberpunk on Ultra w/ Reshade, Horizon Zero Dawn runs exceptionally well too. My only real gripes being that the internal airflow is poorly thought out, the PSU placement is bad, the compartment that swivels out is a bit tight, it sometimes resembles a jet fighter, and it's not great to have a basic 1TB HDD in 2021, but the guy I bought it from obviously went low-spec just to get a cheap RTX from factory or something. Either way, not a bad template for slapping nicer hardware into, maybe even a new one if you want a reliably new GPU for a fair price. Like I tell people, you buy Alienware, you're just getting Bougie Dell, and with parts scalping, maybe the best or at least easiest value depending on your expectations and budget.
HELP! I’m on the fence right now. I recently bought a x17 r1 & I had to send it back due to issues right out of the box. Example, shift & caps key didn’t work at all. Now, I can get a full refund or I could get this but with an I7-11700f, 3090 gpu, 32gb of ram, 2tb ssd etc... & I would actually get money back on top of it with a 1yr warranty (open box new). I know that Alienware/dell doesn’t have the best....... I’m just not sure what to do. I’ve tried putting similar builds together but they’re usually 3500+. Any suggestions would be nice. Thanks
i liked the review, honest and we don't need to be elitists, people do need prebuilds because not everyone wants the hassle. I do all on my pc or bikes, but i couldn't care less about my car for example.
dont know how you can even compare the dell proprietary parts to 3rd party manufactures but ok, the power supply is proprietary the motherboard is proprietary the gpu heatsink/aio is proprietary, dell uses the most cheapest parts so honestly the Alienware probably costed them just under $2400, i seriously doubt they spent 3500 without the case and left themselves a few pennies.
Over the years I have purchased several Alienware machines. Never had any major issues until just recently with my Aurora. PC arrived and the graphics card was not operating as expected. I rang Dell, they had me run some tests and decided that the graphics card had been damaged in transit. They then sent a technician on a 6 hour round trip to replace and test a new graphics card. Been working perfectly ever since - That is why I buy Dell.
I just bought an aurora for black Friday. My friend said the same thing as you. Been using alienware for 8 years no problems except for one time his gpu was bad, technician was there the following day and it was fixed. A lot of people talk bad about them but you're also paying for customer service. My nephew bought a ibuypower from Amazon and can't get it fixed
I have an Alienware aurora r10 and the 25inch 360 hz monitor and it runs fine with a 3060 ti graphics card
@@shanebrodeur8641 that's good to hear :). I just got the r12 with the 3060ti
The big thing imo is looking for sales and always always always getting water cooling options. The R13-14 might handle things better aircooled but sh.. no.. get the better cooling.
you still pay massive premium for bad cooling, cheap mobo, and bad build quality
I bought an Alienware R8 about 5 years ago for $1700 and it still runs great. Runs any game on max graphics. People like to hate on pre-builts but if you don't know much about computers it's a great option
I’m not knowledgeable enough to build my own and was all pumped up about buying the R10 with upgraded specs and everyone’s raining on my parade for even suggesting such a thing lol.
@@Drift-Daddy happened to me too man but it'll be a great computer and you probably won't have problems for years to come
Why would it not run good its a pc. Pre built
Or not its still a pc. But you payed for a overpriced pc you could have had better specs
@@KhaaniGames because not all PCs can run great? Depends on what specs you have but a 1050 isn't gonna run a lot of games
@@silentnoise4137 you say that you bought it 5 years ago and that it still runs great, of course it still runs great what should happen to it
I have the R12. Never had a single problem and I'm extremely happy with it.
what specs? i’m looking into i711700F and 3060 ti
With the price the R10 was well worth it for me. All others that had similar equipment was about 1k$ more. Mine works perfect for what I need. Liquid cooled and no overheating or noise issues. Added my own RAM and another TB of solid state memory.
Is liquid a definite? Because i ordered my r10 (haven't got it yet) without liquid cooling and im reading that i should upgrade the fans and the add the Alienware AIO liquid cooling
@@kokoro5110 definitely get liquid cooling, the air-coolers are absolutely horrendous on Alienwares, my water-cooled R11 has never had thermal issues tho, so definitely re-order it
for 4000€i can build you a way better PC than this hunk of junk... after a couple of months you will see the true issues with the PC once the heat starts to ware down the components like VRM and CPU/GPU thermal paste
@@kokoro5110 you absolutely need liquid cooling.
Best review of a pre-built system I’ve seen. Very informative and you went beyond just the technical breakdown but also mentioned the after purchase service from dell for hardware issues. Given the fact that I don’t have the time I used to have to build and troubleshoot my computers, this is a big selling point for me. I just need them to work and if something fails I don’t want to have to mess with sending components off for warranty. And by comparison to other pre-built a that don’t have on site service this makes the purchase a no brained for me.
Dell has fantastic customer service. My R10 had a really bad idle coil whine problem. I contacted Dell and they took control of my PC and updated my BIOS and a couple other things and now it is compeletly fixed.
Dell has great after sale support, I had a m15 laptop with a 2060. The MB died and they replaced it with a brand new laptop (the new model - full spec)
Update, I returned my R10 for an R13. I was over my return window by a week and they still let me do it. I will never forget their great customer service.
@@bobbrock4221 do you enjoy the r13 because I was gonna get r13 or r12 but I heard r12 has bad cooling
The only good thing about the R10 I bought last year was that the CPU and GPU now run great with the new case, motherboard, memory and PSU I hooked them up to.
So you case swapped?
120 AIO on a 4k computer is just insane.
Cpu overheating, bad airflow case, 6 phase vrm, ridiculous bad ram timings, custom bios with no options, something else??
They're like stuck 15 years in the past.
Except, Alienware, while overpriced, built well made PCs back then.
@@Cakebattered Until Dell bought them.
Spoken by someone that can't afford a high quality pc
I like my 3080 rtx imma have to hard pass son.
@@mahihkan3592 Alienware is shit period. The case is plastic, the coolers are shit, it doesn’t have an option for Linux (that’s just me nitpicking though since I use Linux), it has shitty customer service and the list goes on and on and on. Dell is shit.
NEVER EVER would I touch such a system, especially for this kind of money. Its like my ex - pretty on the outside, horrible on the inside (with a dark soul and no heart). I as well, remember back in the days saving more money to be able to purchase an Alienware PC or even a notebook with MXM Gpu for being futureproof. Nowadays its just a scam and not any better than a regular Dell or even worse OEM PC.
Yeah unfortunately a lot of these companies that own gaming lineups stopped giving the option of maxing out their normal home or business PCs. Like you are stuck with only professional gpus on the business side, and they won’t let you go above 50-60tier nvidia gpus on their home systems. They only let you get the highest end components on their gaming lineups and sometime they force you to buy the highest tier item just to get the 80 or 90 tier gpu or the unlocked i9 rather than a locked i7 or i9. Sucks because you used to be able to just get the standard atx tower from their home lineup and upgrade to the fastest i7 and the fastest gpu. It would be a blower, but it was still the fastest and the system would be hundreds of dollars cheaper, sometimes even over a thousand. These companies want the same money that boutique builders charge for simple custom loop builds. And you get a stock cooler, blower card or the cheapest version of a card, a single stick of ram if you don’t upgrade, a slow small ssd, and a baller no name platinum or gold psu. Lol you can get the same level of hardware but much better versions with a simple custom loop for the same money or less.
she was cheating on you with me the entire time you thought you were 'together with her' btw.
Did you even watch the video?
Oem pc was always a scam. Been building myself for 20 years
considering that
- it actually has a functional VRM heatsink
- the innner components are correctly marked
- the GPU has functional backplate and has support bracket
this exact sample looks pretty good from inside
I bought HP omen. It came with cpu 8 pin power unplugged. After that it was overheating due to ryzen 3700 cooled by 2200g size cooler. So good. Least it was only 1000€ with 3070.
You get what you pay for!
@@SilverKnightPCs just funny how other parts are pretty good and then 1$ cooler ruins it. Had founders gpu too.
3700? At malaysia it come with 5700g and 3070. And price at 7k malaysia 😢
@@mad3237 well they had no supply for newer cpu. Maybe that is why they were priced same as just the gpu.
I feel like HP and Lenovo are the two best brands for pre-builts. Most of their parts can be easily swapped and upgraded and they come with dual channel ram and everything. I got an Omen and am basically preforming a full case/mobo swap for a huge performance boost at a large savings on the gpu/cpu
I bought a r10 ryzen with the 5800x and rx6800t . Believe it or not it was cheaper buying pre-built than building it right now with all the price gouging. 3 noctua fans and a re paste later, it's a fucking solid rig. I agree it should come with better fans and paste out of the box , but in these times you gotta make do with what's in the budget
Important note, alienware's mbos use cheap pcie lane splitting that has fixed 2x 8x pcie lanes, never does the gpu get all 16 lanes even if the second slot is not populated. Also case has horrible thermal performance, just no
wow really? Damn I missed that :O
@@der8auer Yep, just look at the board and you'll see no pcie switches (those thin long IC's). It is not a big problem if the cpu has gen4, but not ideal for last gen intel cpu's and maybe 2080ti
Er hat recht. Ich hab einen mit ner 2080ti und kann das bestätigen. Kann mir jemand erklären, was genau das bedeutet?
r12 owner here, the 12cm fans on the aio and front is utter bullshit, by just changing it to Noctua A12x25 or Arctic P12, you will see much lower temps for both processor and gpu
Luckily this is a pcie4 system so it shouldn't really matter
The Included motherboard is crap in terms of build quality and VRMs might have USB ports but still crap you can’t even begin to compare it with a Z590 aorus pro. VRM temps are fine because of the great high RPM high airflow fans.
>Flashback from Steve's teardown
This gun' be gud!
[Edit]
Alright, so not that bad. Color me surprised. Terrible airflow still, but compared to Steve's unit, it will do.
Of course, this was sent to der8auer. Steve bought his one.
Steve's was air...."cooled". This one has the liquid cooler. Way more useable.
One thing I noticed with Dell.. (and it forced me into several buys rather than building my own..) is occasionally you get it far cheaper than you could building it yourself. In late 2017 That worked out to nearly $600CAD (414EURO) and in 2019 $250CAD (172 EURO) At those prices and difficulty getting 1080s in late 2017 I easily pulled the trigger on them. If I can't build it for cheaper with comparable parts.. it's always worth it.
Hi Roman, great video!
Just a quick tip, the "b" in subtle is silent, it's pronounced more like suttle (rhymes with shuttle)
til
One thing to keep in mind is DELL EU is not DELL USA, Gamers nexus and LTT videos show the USA side.
It's tad different with EU consumer laws. So warranty and some consumer stuff is not the same.
Im not talking about hardware/software just the support/warranty.
I got my aurora r12 a month ago and the only issue I have is probably the air flow location but other than that it’s a good rig on my end.
I have a couple of them. Take off the side panel and your temps will drop a measurable amount
Roman: "You can go for it"
Me, staring into the distance: "No, I don't think I will"
I feel like a lot of people haven't actually watched the Video? All the comments I'm seeing is "YEAH IT WAS THAT BAD" or "YEAH IT SUCKS"...
But his final verdict was, well it's not great but it's not THAT bad. If you can get it on sales, especially considering that you cannot get a 3080 or 3090 otherwise, it's not the worst way to spend money. After some tweaking he was able to get reasonable temps (granted at the cost of higher noise) for all components and it performs a bit worst (like 5% at worst, more like 2 - 3 % most of the time) VS a build tested on an open test bench.
Obviously if you are an enthusiast, like to build a PC yourself and are into overclocking, this is NOT a PC for you and you shouldn't buy it (I wouldn't buy it). But for someone who just wants to play some games without too much hassle, and with a 3080 or 3090 at that, well this isn't the worst options.
Now all that being said, I have had to deal with DELL's customer support in the past, I would strongly recommend getting a prebuilt from another company as you DO NOT want to have to deal with their support (trust me, if you don't just take a random's stranger word on the internet, just look at videos from GN, LTT where they call DELL sale' department or support department, it's terrible). But the PC itself isn't all that bad. I think if you really want an RTX 3080 to play newer games (and we all know you can't find one right now) and this PC goes on sale, and you are OK with the drawback of this PC (I wouldn't be OK with it because no upgrade path possible, high noise, mediocre temperature), then this is an option if no other companies sell prebuilt in your area. Laptops are also a decent alternative, mobile GPUs are quit decent these days.
yea that's youtube 2021 unfortunately. Sometimes it also feels to me that people expect me to always bash everything for entertainment reasons
@@der8auer Well bashing stuff is funny and entertaining so I can see why some people expect it, but that's not why I watch your channel. Thanks for taking the time to reply wasn't expecting a reply or anything really. Keep making good content!
@@Sp4rKzTV The PC itself could be "good enough" but when you buy a prebuilt, you buy the whole package. And your argument can easily be flipped : As you said, that PC is not meant for enthousiasts. So in that sense, the bad warranty sales department with auxiliary customer support is way much more detrimental to the product. So no, taht Alienware is a bad product, and in that regard, all Alienware are. You pay for the "WOW factor" or the fancy case, but that's all, because unless you want insurance, the Dell support won't do anything for you when things go wrong (and they will, their cases and the components they uses in those being desingned to heavily rely on brute airflow, wich will be inevitably restricted by the dust the "non-enthiousiasts" that PC is targeted towards will unknowingly let add itselft up).
This is for sale in Aussie now for 2,965.99 euro..I am going to buy..its crazy cheap for 4800 AUD, Just a FYI a 3090 here is going to cost u around 3600 to 4000 AUD alone if u can even get one. Most custom PC builds with a 3090 are running around 5500 to 8 grand AUD. bang for the buck its hard to beat and should keep me in VR land for a while at least the next 3 years. I do a 21/7shift at a coal mining camp..so power is free so is the air con ;-) but I need a small PC to lug around and this is small.
i wuld recommend you to not do that since the Dell 3090 will burn down your house ... a 400W card with a bad cooler and shit PSU is just bound to create an issue
10% more performance, yes ... for an additional 28 seconds ;o) Outside of the confusing Cinebench numbers, it seems ok. I agree, that if you have the time and interest, building your own is the way to go for PCs. It's much more likely you'll end up with something modular that you can upgrade later and you can put function over form when it comes to noise/temperatures.
The internal case design alone is reason to steer clear of Alienware PCs. You'll never get the max performance out of your PC due to extreme thermals. The only reason to advise someone to buy an Alienware Aurora is when something fails, they can contact Dell instead of you.
I have an r11 with i9 10900k & 3090 and been streaming and gaming on it since I got it...works gr8
Air cooling isn't the Intel box cooler - it's something that Dell makes to cool all the Intel and AMD CPUs, which is a ridiculously small heatsink and a loud fan.
The first and only reason I wont buy a pre-built is that I genueinly know what I'm getting in terms of pricing, parts and build quality. However it is sad people who don't want to build themselves or don't have the knowhow can't get a reasonable deal from an OEM they should be able to trust.
With the endless number of build tutorials on UA-cam, there is no reason to fear building one's own PC. I built my first PC recently copying the build of a couple youtubers and following their tutorials.
The only reason doing this is because it's the only way to get a high performance GPU. In a normal time I could see your point.
Absolutely amazing video review, thank you sir. New sub I love how much information you showed here. This is truly a solid video.
man. if only Dell could have put all the money they spent on the molds, tooling & convoluted engineering for those cases & put it into competent case design, cooling & parts selection. oh and customer service sans warranties.
They’ve had cooling issues before. I used to buy dell bare cases and their cooler and add a cpu ram and gpu and hdd. The cases look awesome but have no where for the heat to go. If you open the side it runs way better
I've been using the alien A 12 over 1 year the only problem is dust which makes it very very very hot but with a good power plan its a decent pc that will last me a couple more years
The Aurora R10s we recieved with 5800(nonX) had the crappiest littel air coolers, like, i think it was the same kind of cooler that came with my Athlon 3000G
Side note, with 5800 nonX, and 6800xt it was unser $2000
You have to get liquid cooling.
@@bobbrock4221 You shouldnt have to for a 65w part. Just because you bought Air cooling because you wanted less maintenance, doesnt mean you should go from getting a $100 cooler, to a $5 cooler
The air cooler is too tall getting choked by the PSU being too close
It has no heat pipes so the top of the cooler is practically useless
It doesnt get great coverage on the IHS with a small circle that appears to not even be covering the 2 dies completely. This requires the heat to travel horizontally before it can even get to the cooler
I weep for anyone that bought a 3 die CPU though i dont remember if they offered the '65w' 3900/5900 nonX
I have a noctua L9A on my 3700x, and i get significantly higher clock speeds on that, than our esports machines at work get with this garbage cooler. Heck, my 3950x got better frequency. Sure it wasnt running at 4.1Ghz under full load like it does with my dark rock pro, but at least it was over 3.5Ghz
This Dell cooler fails to cool the 5800 well enough to maintain 2.8Ghz in games.
In prime 95, the dell does so poorly compared to the L9a, that it is almost 1Ghz slower than a 3950x at 2.2Ghz VS 3.1Ghz
Remember, the 3950x is literally twice the cores, under a much smaller cooler. IT was also much more quiet
I remember, a time many many years ago, when I saw reviews of Alienware computers and they made me want it. Back then, it was like comparing a Corba to a GTO. But, of course, I stopped dreaming when I saw the price. Now, and much older, I finally got one. An Alienware Aurora R8, which I ordered with max options, $4000+. I've had it for two years and just love it. Had a small problem with the pre-installed WIN 10 and they fixed it ASAP. Their service, in my opinion, is awesome. I've had such a great time with this computer that I've ordered their 38" curved monitor. As I like to say, "You treat me good and I'll treat you good."-
I did the same with an r7 and had it for many years now. Love it.
Very cool, fair review. Amazingly balanced and insightful. What I liked the most is that you didn’t just use it and test it, but you tried to get to perform in the most optimal settings. To be honest I think the gamer’s nexus reviewers purposely go for reviews which will knock pre-builds. I’ll keep your channel in mind for more insightful reviews. A German dude with a cool tude…
I got my first ever prebuilt a refurbished R11 with 3080 / i9 - price was less than components (due to high cost of 3080s and refurbished) - the mobo crapped out but dell service came to my place and replaced and now works like a charm - I never thought I'd say it but it's a damn good computer, and their service was way better than it used to be like
I wish they sold that case with the active top vents. That case was cool.
Best Buy has this one within a week with a 3080 1TB 32G for $2800. That's a pretty good deal today where I live.
I bought an R10 ( Ryzen 5900 and Nvidia 3080 ) in Germany in the summer. At that time there was a 10% discount and it was really the only place you could actually buy any decent GPUs. I looked at self-build and also NZXT, but I paid €2700 and had a month's wait for delivery.
Even now, 3080s are over €1300, but at least they are available.
OK, the case runs hot, but it's easy enough to replace/add better fans and even improving the thermals on the Nvidia is doable.
And a case/mobo swap is always an option.
I agree, as a self builder myself, try building a 5950 with 3090 system yourself, you just can't get the parts without paying insane scalper prices. Dell isn't so bad at the moment with their discounts, better service and returns policy then other prebuild companies and it doesn't look like a 1980's RGB disco. 😉
The problem is that airflow is total shit in Alienware case. It runs cooler with the side panel off and that’s ridiculous. I had to spend 300 euros in order to totally revisit the gpu cooling on my Aurora r9, which was ridiculously noisy in gaming
der8auer is forgetting this pc was sent to him , he needs to review a alienware prebuild without dell knowing is for him.
Got the R11 on November with liquid cooling and its been flawless. Wish I could afford the newer one with rtx 30 series gpu
I'm gonna order this new one with a 3070 soon. Gonna be my first PC so I'm hyped.
I got mine last Nov w i9 & 3090. Definitely a beast
I got mine like a month ago with the amd equivalent of the 3080 and it’s a beast at 1440p ultra wide
I'm getting that exact pc except 3070. Is liquid cooling a must and how much does aftermarket better cooling cost because it has thermal issues?
Problem is you picked a dell to test a pre built.
They have lately been known for using substandard hidden components or outdated ones and bad aftermarket support.
They have been know for that their entire existence lol
@@DroneMee Yes, but more exposure has been given on that end recently.
@Klip One ?
Would be interesting to try the Dell service to fix stuff the next day. Setup a forced problem for them to handle.
Ive had them come out and replace parts on several years old PC. They are pretty good.
It's nice to see that you can get a decent enough dell pc for only 4000.
Dell left a bad impression on me with the xps 9560 thermal throttling for days seems they haven't changed haha
However they make great space heaters
One thing to mention about Dell/Alienware they also provide for free and accessible to everyone the Service Manual for their PC and laptops (extremely detailed) and the far as I know they are the only ones.
dell's 2005 version of bios is enough to never buy their prooducts
add medion to the list as well
I have an R9 and R11 with the 3090 and these machines are rock solid ! But these rigs do not like to be overclocked over 4.9 ghz because of the 120 rad. The ticket is using AWCC thermal offset setting in manual and set top fan to 49% and front fan at 48% and then save that profile for your game. I have the stocks fan still and soon will upgrade to Noctuas. Again 5.0-5.3 ghz these rigs do not like at all. Let intel thermal velocity boost do the work.
I hope you a hold of the new R13 and it’s new design and ddr5 ect I think your the best man to review it.
I better add that I’m not a pc builder and have no experience about it I just wanted to buy a good gaming machine to run DCS in VR and these machines will do it with any game you throw at it.
If you factor in the still hugely inflated 3090 price, and that Dell can probably get their 3090 for 'normal' prices, the price difference compared to DIY should be closer to 1500 euros.
And of course the motherboards are only comparable in terms of number of USB ports.
Btw I did exactly the same back in the day, looking at the alienware website when I was a kid. With the AMD Athlon 64 FX. So cool, so incredibly expensive. No idea if they were any good back then, but they looked amazing.
Edit: a bunch of people are trying to sell these things on eBay without the GPU. What a great world we live in.
I've been building PC's long enough that I can go into my parts closet and put a system together at any given time. I want to say about the pre-built vs DIY question: build your own if you want a hobby and go with a reputable systems integrator if you just want a machine that works. It might sound controversial in this community, but consider that I, with all my experience, nearly burned my house down last night. My big mistake was using an EPS cable from a Corsair PSU with an EVGA PSU. Not only that, but I also spent hours troubleshooting an other system because I used a motherboard power cable From a Gen 5 Gold EVGA PSU with Gen 5 Bronze PSU. So Now I have all my power cables properly sorted and labelled, but this is the price of learning lessons nobody bothers to teach you in a youtube build guide.
oh sweet summer child.....
I should add more warning as to never use and mix cables even on the same manufacturer psus even sometimes same looking model from different years (ie. old hx1000 vs new hx1000 psus from corsair). This applies to at least corsair and evga and I am sure many others.
You can also sometimes use some of the cables and think it's fine then use the sata cable on your drives and fry the drives btw which happened to a friend of mine. He no longer does anything he isn't sure of without consulting me first lol.
In the conclusion: there are are also vendors that build a PC for €75 using the components of your choice. That is a better option than prebuilt still, if you cannot / don't want to risk building yourself.
have fun finding a gpu
Dawid and Steve have already shat on cheap/cheapest Aurora :)
Got a refurb R11 with an RTX3080 in it right around when this video was released. The only reason I bought it was for the GPU but, being a refurb, the cost was actually on par with building it myself so I consider it a good deal.
how is it a good deal when you cant sell the other parts since they only fit in that specific dell build ...
im gonna call it now: Yes, really that terrible
hahahaha
Well it's the AIO version so slightly less terrible than it could have been. At least the heat exchanger isn't getting choked.
It's actually fine! 🎉
Turns out it's fine. This model is overpriced, but there are some that come in cheaper than self built...
I cant speak for the r12 but I bought the R10 with 5900x and 3080. It ran very hot and loud at nearly 90deg c under load and the cpu would start to throttle. It was also extremely loud. I have since moved everything into an o11 case. Doing that dropped the temps by nearly 10deg c. I have now upgraded the mother board and cooler and I am now down to 75deg c Max while gaming and am getting 20% more performance. The other issue that I had with Dell/Alienware is that I upgraded my m.2 my self when I got it to a 2TB drive. I ended up on the phone with tech support later for something and mentioned that I had changed the drive. They told me that I no longer had any warranty and ended the call. would I buy another Alienware, No. I am glad I was able to get the parts I wanted back in February at an alright price but there were just to many compromises to the system in my opinion. I could also just be to particular and it could be just fine for someone else. I expect a 5600 cpu would have been perfect in the system.
My first time testing a Pre-Buit PC... Really that terrible? Alienware Aurora R12
there is an L missing :)
thanks! fixed
notebook vrm, now we're getting cool. good job dell
no issues with my R10 ryzen. I was happy to buy, the financing program works great. I have the air cooled, its a bit loud, other wise fantastic. I was someone selling a the RTX 3080 on fb market place for $2500 when i paid $2512 with taxes for the whole thing last year.
I missed this video when it came out but I'm very happy you did this one. I have a few of these, all water cooled, and I was pretty frustrated with GN's review. The air-cooled model should have never happened and that's Dell's fault. But GN bought the air cooled model and gave it a review that, while probably fair for the cheap machine, wasn't commensurate with my experiences with the properly configured water cooled models. I thought their review was fair for the air-cooled model, but unfairly condemned the entire lineup when the $100 water cooler was all that the system needed to change the results. And they called Dell incompetant in their review while themselves bungling their understanding of the service plan they accidentally signed up for. lol Thanks for the 100% fair review.
I would never buy it. Some parts are proprietary are they not? The PSU does not look standard. Can you put another PSU in?
It is such a big tower but still cramped like hell. It really is like pre build PCs from like 10 or 15 years ago. I still have one of those lurking around in my room. It was a waste of money. This gives me kinda ptsd.
Standard ATX and also all normal ATX connectors (24 Pin, 8 Pin EPS, 8 Pin PCIe...) So yea you could change to a different PSU. If you use µATX you could even use a different Board
Not sure about your market but here in the states the 3090 card is 2k alone, ddr5 ram is 800 bucks and the processor is 600$ when you add the other parts it seems like a good deal
Currently there’s a deal for Black Friday and it only costs about 1200 USA dollars. Even with these issues I still think it’s a great deal (yes it has the same statistics)
I got very interested in Alienware 👽 cause of the brand and the awesome design 👌 however very sad that I've seen both negative reviews and the fact there is limited Alienware options. I heard that a brand new pre-build PC 🖥 is coming out next year the aurora R16 and the design is major improvement both cooling and design.
R13 just came out with a new case and cooling
What do you even do on these computers? What games are they graphics intensive?
i would worry that with a 11900kf the 120mm cooler wouldn't be able to handle the heat. it's barely adequate for the 11700kf tested.
if they live somewhere with high ambient temperatures this might be a horrible choice of pc.
both are physically the same die. If it's set to the same power draw the temperatures won't be much different
@@der8auer very true, thanks for clarifying!
By the way around what ambient temperature did you test this at?
@@F41LZZz 23°C
@@der8auer so where i live it wouldn't be great.
I also think resale values of a pre-build like this should be considered. other pre builds that use more off the shelf consumer parts, seem to have higher values. the alienware stuff seems to not hold its value at all, compared to similarly spec'ed systems.
certainly a lower priority at purchase, but most people seem to be upgrading every 4 to 6 years.
also reparability is a concern with such proprietary components in the long run, when warranty runs out.
I’m still shocked, one fan AIO.
They're okay with the liquid cooling....terrible without it. Better than spending $1200 on a $500 graphics card.
Don't know about dropping $4000 on one, though. Mine was under $1300 (3700x, 2060 Super)
14:45 Dell labelled the parts and colour coded it’s connectors for its own employees who know nothing about computers 💻 🖥 🤦🤦♀️🤦🤦♀️🤪💥💥💥👍. Great review thou Derbauer 🥰👍🏆🎉🥳
Love that he picked the o11 as the case for the custom PC.
The original price is outrageous but the system seems functionally fine. If the latter price you saw is the new standard price then it's not really that bad of a buy.
Nice video. the only issue with the i9 system, is if Alienware (DELL) keep the same 120mm radiator. That system inside such a restricted airflow case will probably be bad for the long term usage.
Should have tested the system with a fresh install of windows. Also i think the added cost of ordering quality parts you can show off is worth the extra cost.
"you need a high grade case for watercooling"
nah, get a bottom of the barrel case and use the extra money to buy a dremel
The DI-Why solution lol
@@kelownatechkid personal rig is exactly that, can't say it's easy, but personally, I find it much more satisfying when(if) it works, also, it let's me fit 11x120mm of radiators in a mid tower
G'day Roman,
So you Overclock the CPU on this Alienware & your Cinebench Score goes from 3792 to 5510,
Oh wait no it drops from 5510 to 3792 🤦♂️, I don't think Dell understands what Overclocking is Supposed to do for your PC Performance,
Ps the i9-11900KF & RTX3090 Version is $8259AUD here in Australia 😲
I own the r12 I have had no problems with anything except the Xbox app and I had manually activate my extra xmp in bios. Overheated on new world one time.
Great computer but its prebuilt and expensive
Could’ve gotten something way better from nzxt before covid hit
@@le.doc_main5526 I wanted what I got a 3090 no scalper price
why does it look like the blue lining on the thermal pads in the VRM heat sink is still on. Aren’t you supposed to remove it before installing? 13:33
It's super interesting how different approach you have to this review, comparing to Steve from GN... he completely bashed almost entire computer, especially case and PCB (with exception of GPU).
Those Seasonic ads are looking better and better in light of gigabyte's explosive situation.
Oh god seasonic over gigabyte any day
Great PSUs. Added CableMod Sleeved Cables. Top notch
my b450 tomahawk max vrm temp dont go over 40c and its heavily overclocked
sure...
@@lxmedia3911 lol
Is this motherboard standard form-factor and power delivery or same as in Gamers Nexus review? Because if its not standatd, it is literally a part of the case with PSU, which devalues it quite heavily. Also VRM is quite far from Aorus Elite, which devalues it even more.
Like if you see somebody selling this case+PSU+MoBo combo for Aorus Elite+PSU+case, would you take it and put your 11900K and GPU in?
Then again, its hard to find GPU in the wild.
Hello,
I was curious about what you mentioned afterburner not working.
Does this not work at all for any GPU in it?
I usually like to undervolt my GPU
I would only recommend buying Alienware if you can't find a video card and have credit with Dell. I have the same configuration mining crypto 24/7 in my closet and an i9 10900 version for gaming. It (r12) should pay itself off in just under a year, and still under warranty. I used everything from the i9 except the mobo and case in another build which runs far cooler with proper liquid cooling and airflow.
It would be more reasonable to buy a prebuilt just for the gpu. Id do it and just sell the rest of the system to make up for what i paid.
I have an old Alienware 14 laptop and can’t decide what to get next. Right now think Mac mini or building a pc.
I got the r8 last year which there was a wicked deal for buy one get 1 free gpus so I have dual 2080 supers but my PC has also has 32 gb and an i9-9900 with 1 tb nvme
I have an r7 and I love it
Does the GPU come with LHR? When did you receive the pc?
You need to take this case and redo everything to make it perfect. With better hardware and a custom loop.
Even with this video i can absolutely not recommend Alienware. I play flightsims in VR and tried to help someone who bought an Alienware with a Ryzen 5800X for the same purpose. He wasn't able to get his CPU frametimes down. The bloatware and bad cooling just killed the performance. No BIOS options for AMD CPUs. He ended up pulling CPU/GPU out and built his own new system with new RAM. 3500€+ is just crazy. Absolutely not worth the hassle. Putting the new parts together was a fraction of the time he did troubleshooting.
I bought an r12 and its OP
Dell has absolutely no idea on how the cooling of a gaming pc should work. Putting a GPU in a PC is not enough to call it gaming PC
I'm still trying to get my r12 to not black screen when gaming. Loss of monitor and keyboard & mouse. The dell engineer wants me test the computer with a different GPU which would be fine if my other fitted lol. .now wants me to use DDU and uninstall all the drivers. Only had the r12 one week before Christmas. Would be funny if it I didn't pay 2699 pound
Still more reliable and competent hardware than all those "HIGH END GAMING PC FORTNITE 1TB" crapboxes that I still see go for $1000. I bought a R12 minus a GPU since I already had a GTX 1660 6GB, and with the stock i7 11k, a 2TB M2 SSD, and 32gb RAM, I have a very humble gaming rig for about $1500, barely breaks a sweat with Cyberpunk on Ultra w/ Reshade, Horizon Zero Dawn runs exceptionally well too.
My only real gripes being that the internal airflow is poorly thought out, the PSU placement is bad, the compartment that swivels out is a bit tight, it sometimes resembles a jet fighter, and it's not great to have a basic 1TB HDD in 2021, but the guy I bought it from obviously went low-spec just to get a cheap RTX from factory or something. Either way, not a bad template for slapping nicer hardware into, maybe even a new one if you want a reliably new GPU for a fair price.
Like I tell people, you buy Alienware, you're just getting Bougie Dell, and with parts scalping, maybe the best or at least easiest value depending on your expectations and budget.
How did you get a 3090 at around 2000usd here in the US it ranged from 3000-3500USD with CPUs a tiny more expensive.
Last October ordered my 10900k and 3090 payed like 3050 usd. Plus dont forget the 18 month no interest financing. Couldnt have afforded it otherwise
HELP!
I’m on the fence right now. I recently bought a x17 r1 & I had to send it back due to issues right out of the box. Example, shift & caps key didn’t work at all. Now, I can get a full refund or I could get this but with an I7-11700f, 3090 gpu, 32gb of ram, 2tb ssd etc... & I would actually get money back on top of it with a 1yr warranty (open box new). I know that Alienware/dell doesn’t have the best.......
I’m just not sure what to do. I’ve tried putting similar builds together but they’re usually 3500+.
Any suggestions would be nice.
Thanks
It’s also liquid cooled
9:30 you had it set at 15.5 W not 155 W. O.o Yet it still worked?
i liked the review, honest and we don't need to be elitists, people do need prebuilds because not everyone wants the hassle. I do all on my pc or bikes, but i couldn't care less about my car for example.
I’m having problems with the Alienware Software, it won’t update the cumulative software. Annoying, considering it is supposedly top end.
dont know how you can even compare the dell proprietary parts to 3rd party manufactures but ok, the power supply is proprietary the motherboard is proprietary the gpu heatsink/aio is proprietary, dell uses the most cheapest parts so honestly the Alienware probably costed them just under $2400, i seriously doubt they spent 3500 without the case and left themselves a few pennies.
Should be updated for R13/14, the inside was fully redesigned
I got the Aurora R11 the only thing I don’t like is the fan noise.
is there no room inside for an additional pci-e card? like the thunderbolt which seems to not be there as a connector
@der8auer Hi. Can you make a video about Alienware Area 51 R2? Now they are dropping prices rapidly on Dell sites. Nevertheless great channel