Alienware - Aurora R12 Gaming Desktop - Intel Core i9-11900KF - 32GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 - 1TB SSD - Lunar Light
Model: AWAUR12-9020WHT-PUS
SKU: 6459578
This item is no longer available in new condition. See similar items below
Customers regard the Aurora R12 Gaming Desktop as a high-performance machine, particularly praising its speed and ability to run games smoothly, even at maximum settings. Its capacity for virtual reality gaming is also highlighted. However, some customers express concerns about the system's cooling capabilities, suggesting that it may overheat, even with liquid cooling. Upgrades to the cooling system may be necessary for optimal performance.
No regrets. After two failures with buying an Alienware Aurora R12 from Dell, I suddenly came across this one from Best Buy. Was already made and ready to be shipped out. Had it shipped to my local store for safe pick-up rather than delivery + signature. Sold out at time of review, but I hope others have the chance to get this. For the prebuilt itself, its beautiful, but that is subjective to my opinion. It is something I've always dreamed about owning. Buying this exact spec from Dell itself would have been over $3,200. I was worried about the Answers from Dell stating this was air-cooled and had a 550 W, which made no sense. I can confirm after booting it up and also opening up the chassis, that it has the Liquid Cooling alongside the heatsinks and a 1000W PSU. It runs amazing. I've ran CS GO on max settings and R6 on medium/high settings and the temps are still below 60 Celsius. Fans never got loud at all. The 32 GB ram is set in dual channel and XMP2 was already enabled in the BIOS for my PC. I actually bought four Corsair fans, but I'm not sure if I'll need them yet. Boot up was lightning quick and everything is just so so smooth. Had a small issue as the computer itself wasn't turning on right out of the box. I switched it to a direct power supply, shut it off, pressed the power button for 30 seconds, also pressed the back black button to make sure the PSU was good (it was), opened the chassis and made sure everything was secure. This worked. One other thing, the Display Port was initially not working. HDMIO did though, so I recommend you use whichever cable works for you and update drivers via NVIDIA GEForce. I'm really impressed with this unit. Yes, it's not the most optimal chassis and its tight in there. But, it does the job for me, and it does it exceptionally well. I'm glad I was able to snag this particular one (avoid the cheaper model without Liquid Cooling tbh or buy it and plan to replace the air-fan with a Corsair AIO H60 Liquid Cooler). I'm slowly getting more used to the Alienware Command Center too, its not the best designed layout, but I don't mind it at all. Happy guy over here. Would recommend this 10/10 times to anyone looking. This is the crème de la crème for me:) I plan to use this for as long as possible, its definitely an investment and the specs will for sure let me keep up for a good while! ^__^
Posted by Yeoubi
I'm amazed at what you get for the price. This system is a beast. It runs Cyberpunk 2077 with no problem. I included a capture of the benchmarks from Novabench. That's straight out the box with no tweeking yet. Does not include the Alienware Mouse or Keyboard, just generic but for this price I didn't expect them. It's quieter than I thought it would be. Very easy to configure and update. All in all I'm impressed with this build.
Posted by streeknine
I have had mine for almost 2 years now, and while it runs a bit toasty it actually performs pretty well. I have had a few instances where it doesn't seem to POST, but another power cycle usually resolves that. It does have horribly inadequate cooling - so I added a 2nd intake fan to it (lots of YT vids for this) and also modified the removable side panel to eject some heat from the vid card area. Even before I did that - when setting to performance mode for cooling - it would get a bit noisy with the fans and it belched heat out the top... but it seems to work great, even after hours of constant flight sim in VR. Really wish they would go with a more traditional case inside to allow for proper cooling and cable routing.
Posted by srobak
The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products, promotional considerations or entries into drawings for honest, helpful reviews.