Customer Ratings & Reviews

This PC has been amazing so far. Graphics are awesome and the FPS in games have been very high, “solid 120 and above,” including Forza Horizon 4, Destiny 2, and Rainbow Six Siege..just to name what I’ve ran. Just be sure you have a good gaming monitor or you are not going to get the full potential of this graphics card. As far as the fan noise goes, updating the PCs drivers and making sure the graphics card drivers are up to date has kept the fan noise down for me. This PC is air cooled so it will be a little louder than liquid cooled and PC fans tend to differ depending on lay out and case design. This PC is not as loud as my home build. All in all, this was a good purchase and was cheaper than building my own based off of current hardware prices. Would buy again!

Had this thing for a year now and it’s a power house. Sadly like other reviews mention it’s a Dell so you luck out sometimes and other times you run into issues with longevity. The fans are a bit loud sometimes but that’s just processing power (or at least I tell myself that instead of getting a liquid cooled build). Overall she plays any game and I’m satisfied. Easy upgrades for el Gato products and other SSD/HDDs. This computer cannot overclock according to manual, but their control tower software says otherwise. Idk just game and have fun and get a new one in 5 years time. Lots of USB ports and other ports. Couldn’t pass up the price. Oh it’s 39lbs, kinda on the heavier side so you’ll need a heavier duty desk mount like I have.

I bought this machine specifically for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and it handles the game very well. The processor and graphics combination are spectacular and it seems this machine has just the right amount of RAM needed for smooth game play. I would recommend this machine to any of my family or friends looking for a reliable gaming computer. Take note this machine has the 2000 series graphics and the 3000 was just announced.. Cheaper and faster, I’m sure it’ll be coming to Alienware shortly.

I usually build my own gaming systems so this was a first for me. I was really frustrated with one of my builds one day and I said to my self it's not worth it. So I headed to Best Buy and bought me this machine. I don't regret a second of it. This machine really is awesome. All of the hardware seems to work really well together. The O/S is super fast. I went from 71 FPS in Overwatch to an average of 104 FPS with this machine. I really have no complaints with it. Yes it's a little pricey but you get what you pay for and it's worth it.

The Aurora R9 arrived well packaged, good care was given to keeping the tower safe during transport. The case itself is very nice with gorgeous LEDs. The front has 3 USB ports in easy reach, along with ports for headphones and microphone. There were plenty more USB ports in the back for things you will not be unplugging often. By removing a screw from the back and pulling on the handle, I was able to open the side door and take a look inside. Space and cable management were well done and build quality looks to be superb as I would expect from a premium gaming PC like Alienware. To get to the internals of the PC you must flip up two switches on the back of the computer. This allows you to swing the power supply outwards, revealing the motherboard and cpu. Some things to note here. This machine comes with the 512 GB SSD as your main boot drive, and a 1 TB mechanical drive for storage. As we’ve all seen in recent years game download sizes have absolutely exploded, with many AAA titles now clocking in at over 50 GB. Its reasonable to assume that most people will only be able to fit 3-5 games on the main SSD along with your Windows 10 install and all the other programs you will need. That 1 TB drive is going to fill up quick so you will want to look for more storage. Here is where I ran into a slight problem. I had intended to pull the 4 GB storage drive from my old PC and add it to the machine, only to find that the two empty drive caddies will only take 2.5 drives. There is only 1 bay for 3.5 drives, which is filled by the 1 TB drive. My options were to either remove the 1 TB and replace it with my 4 TB drive, or get an external enclosure. As I did not want to waste the 1 TB drive, the option I am going with is an external enclosure. Be aware that if you want to expand your storage (and lets face it, these days 1.5 gb total storage isn’t much) your options will be to get a dedicated external HD, buy only 2.5 drives (you can add up to 2 of them to the machine), or remove the 1 TB drive and replace it with a larger drive. Moving on to the performance part, Windows loaded lightning fast. Less than 15 seconds to press the power button, boot, type my password, and have everything load. It did not take me long to install a few programs needed to get gaming. I installed both Doom and Code Vein and spent a few hours on each. Doom ran absolutely flawlessly on ultra settings at 1080p, as did Code Vein. Not once did I see any hint of slowdown on either title for the entire session. Solid 100+ FPS in both titles. Based on pure specs alone this machine should be able to handle both 1440p and 4k gaming at good frame rates on almost any current title. Checking the other reviews people have mentioned the fan has been a problem, but while playing for hours I did not hear the fan kick on much at all, the machine was very quiet during that time. I will note however, that while installing the games the CPU was obviously pushed harder and those times the fan did kick in, and it was loud for a few moments before settling down. Not unbearably so, but some are more annoyed by it than others. The machine also came with a very basic keyboard and mouse, which make for an okay backup but not what you want for playing games. If you’re buying a machine at this level of pricing, I am going to assume the user already has a quality gaming mouse and keyboard combo that they like. Like most PCs these days it does not have a disc drive of any kind. For me this isn’t a problem as I had not used the one on my old PC in over 2 years, but be aware that if for some reason you need one you’ll want to get an external optical drive. The CPU is the i7-9700 and not the i7-9700k, so if you want to play around with overclocking this rig probably isn’t for you. If you just want a fast rig that looks pretty that you can plug in and start installing games on in a minimal amount of time and don’t bother with that kind of thing, this machine will definitely suit your needs for some time. Testing the specs of this machine on UserBenchmark had this machine rated well over 100% in all categories. Unless you want to spend significantly more money (well over $1,000 as of this review) to get to the next tier of performance, the R9 is a very solid choice.

This review is for the Dell Alienware Aurora R9 with an Intel i7 9700, 16 GB of Kingston Hyper X Fury XMP DDR4 2666 RAM, Nvidia RTX 2080 Super graphics, a 512 GB SK Hynix NVMe M.2 and a 1 TB WD Blue 3.5 inch HDD and Air cooling. The above components are mounted on a Dell Micro ATX motherboard and powered by a 850 Watt PS. There is one 3.5 inch HHD bay and two (empty)2.5 inch HDD bays. It is prewired with Full size and micro SATA power connectors to the empty bays. You will need to provide the data cables if you want to add storage. It has one 16 lane, one 8 lane and two 4 lane PCIe slots. You have room for dual video cards if wanted. It has both WIFI and Bluetooth. The OS is installed on the Hynix NVMe M.2. There is only one M.2 slot. You can use a 15 dollar PCIe to M.2 adapter and put in another NVMe M.2 if you need more fast access for a large gaming library. There is no access for a DVD player. You will have to use a USB DVD if you need one. It will come double boxed so there should be no shipping damage issues. Go here for a complete view and description of all the peripheral ports. https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/us/en/04/alienware-aurora-r9-desktop/alienware-aurora-r9-setup-and-specifications/views-of-alienware-aurora-r9?guid=guid-d3cb1479-5af9-4e2f-9a8b-416fc88c775d&lang=en-us and go here https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/us/en/04/alienware-aurora-r9-desktop/alienware-aurora-r9-service-manual/alienware-aurora-r9-service-manual?guid=guid-5b8de7b7-879f-45a4-88e0-732155904029&lang=en-us for a view of the service manual which details all aspects of accessing and changing components. Here you will also see a complete list of the BIOS setup features. Just be apprised that models with the i7 9700 will not have any of the performance / overclocking features available, as the non K Intel i7 9700 is a locked processor. I spent a lot of time with this before I wrote this review. First off it is a really sharp looking unit .The lights can be controlled from the Alienware Control Center App to a variety of colors and effects. Although it is a Micro ATX sized actual case, when you take off all the plastic around it, it will be about the size of a normal mid tower case due to the plastic bezels. Although it is narrow at the front it is nearly 9 inches wide at the rear. It is a full 19 in tall and a little over 17 in deep. The case opens easily and the power supply folds out to reveal the motherboard. Removal and replacement of all components are readily accessible. (Note: the screw in the release handle has to be removed to unlatch the side panel) If you want to install a second video card the power supply cable is already in place. This unit has air cooling. The heatsink is a circular radiator with a 90mm fan. There is one front and one top 120mm fan. There is an extra PWM fan connector at the top of the board that can be used for control for liquid cooling or to add another top fan, which I did. The power supply is a modular design so there are open plugs if for some reason you need them. The graphics is an Nvidia RTX 2080 Super. It is a full length card with one fan. It can be over clocked via the Alienware Control Center or MSI’s Afterburner, but, unless you are an over clocking fame seeker I saw little difference in real world results. At stock settings on my 4K display at 4K settings on Furmark and on the flight sim, I saw 67 FPS using Furmark as a benchmark in full 4K at the highest settings and 60 FPS running DCS World’s P51-D Mustang flight sim. Compared to my old setup which had a GTX 1070, it is running 30 FPS faster and the scenery in the flight sim is remarkable. Furmark benched at 123 FPS in Quad HD and 183 FPS in Full HD. On to the i7 9700. Cons are that it and the RAM are locked. The RAM is going to be controlled by the XMP and is only going to run at the rated speed of the RAM. I substituted a set of 2 x 16GB DDR4 2400 XMP and they ran at 2400 with no options in the BIOS to overclock them. I believe the native RAM speed for the i7 9700 is 2666 so putting faster RAM in it will probably not work as they will probably clock back to 2666. On the plus side the 9700 is probably a $100 cheaper that the overclockable 9700K and it is really quite impressive. Although it is rated at 3 Ghz it has a great turbo boost range. It will spike to 4.6 Ghz and hold 4.4 under a steady varying load such as Puget Sound’s Photoshop benchmark. My old PC had an i7 6700K with a GTX 1070 GPU. The CPU was overclocked and would run at 4.4 Ghz continually and this i7 9700 benches the Puget Sound benchmark at 100 points higher. Granted the Puget Sound Benchmark is partly dependent on GPU power, but Photoshop is still predominantly reliant on CPU clock cycles, so this really shows the improvement of this 9 series i7 over the older 6 series. OK we have a really sharp looking PC with a great CPU and Graphics, more than sufficient power supply, plenty of peripheral Audio, USB, Video ports and lots of storage expansion room. Those are really important pluses, but ,there are usually buts ,and this one concerns cooling. The case is cramped. There is only about an inch between the top of the CPU cooling fan and the side of the power supply. There is one case fan on top and one in front. In its standard configuration running Prime 95, it was thermal throttling at 70 degrees C down to 3.8 Ghz and CPU temp would rise to 80 degrees C. Prime 95 stress is not normal but even running the Photoshop Benchmark which loads the CPU to a maximum normal usage level it ran at 75 degrees C, although it maintained mostly constant CPU speeds of 4.3 Ghz due to irregular loading of the CPU cores as opposed to the constant 100% loading of all cores with Prime 95. So it will maintain top performance in real life although it will run in the upper 70s. Many will say that that is not a problem, but that is for you to decide. I added another fan to the top. There is room above the installed fan. The pod that the fan is attached to comes out so you can easily install it. Just unplug the CPU power cable and take out the RAM and you will have room to slide it out. I did this and it helped lower the temp. Speeding the front fan up helps, but it becomes really noisy. Now on to controls. The Alienware Comand Center which includes two built in CPU overclock settings and frequency controls for the Graphic card and controls for audio and lighting effects, has issues on my computer. I uninstalled it and reinstalled using Dell’s published tutorial, it still didn’t work right. I called Dell before I wrote this review. A tech took over my machine and showed me how to set the fan speeds, but they don’t work. I installed MSI’s Afterburner to control the GPU fan speed and by aggressively increasing the fan curve I was able to drop the temp of the Graphic card from 77 to 67 degrees C when under stress. Afterburner can also be used to overclock the GPU if wanted. If you are a casual gamer who is also going to use it for other uses it should be just fine. It will run way cooler than any laptop, and if Flashy is what turns you on then you should love it. If you are a serious competitive gamer/ overclocking junky, who just loves the case, then maybe Liquid cooling and the K series i7 would be a better choice.

So far this has ran every game I’ve tried at ultra settings 4K at over 50 frames per second, usually over 60 fps. The machine has been perfect so far other than very loud fans while running pretty hot during gaming. So far I’m very happy with the machine.

Working with computers all day, few put a smile on my face but I have always enjoyed the Alienware range and now own my first one. This is a good looking machine although the front looks unusual. I put it side by side with the Dell XPS system it replaced and it was taller but not as deep. Although the look at the front is not what I expected, it is very functional with LED FX lighting and several USB ports, which are very welcome for charging phones and headphones. For the record,the system has the following USB ports: Five USB 2.0 ports Five USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports One USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C port One USB 3.1 Gen 2 port One USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port One USB 3.1 Gen 1 port with PowerShare One caveat to get out there at the start – there is no DVD drive with this system and nowhere to add one. I ordered an external drive that could play Blu-rays but really only because I use the computer for multimedia, connected to a 70” TV. It will be nice though if I want to install some old-school software – otherwise, you are expected to be downloading everything or using your own external. The machine boots up fast, with the 512GB SSD boot drive. It also has a traditional 1TB data drive you can install the big packages like games on. I found both drives fast enough that I wasn’t tapping my fingers waiting for anything to load. The Windows 10 Home setup process is quite fast and if you use your Microsoft account, it will synch up a lot of stuff you might otherwise need to transfer from an old computer. I was up and running relatively quickly and just had a few files to transfer over manually. I downloaded some games I already owned for Xbox – “Forza 7” and “Gears of War 4” – for testing purposes. It was nice to be able to crank up the detail and graphics settings to Ultra and let the included NVIDIA GTX 2080 Super do its magic. It seemed to handle both these games with no problems whatsoever. I felt they ran much smoother and looked better than I was used to on my Xbox OneX, a testament to the very nice graphics card included in the Alienware. I know some people think the 2080 Super is not much better than the standard 2080 but it certainly looks better in benchmarks you can check online and I’m happy that Dell included it in this package. For some reason, I could not get Passmark to run my own benchmarks – it would crash while it was capturing the system specs but it’s not something that bothers me and other benchmark software I tried ran ok. The video card has 8GB GDDR6 RAM on board which should help with rendering the high quality graphics today’s games demand. I was running a 70” 4K TV at 4K resolution at 30Hz but if you dropped the resolution to 1440P, you could run at even faster refresh rates. The 16GB RAM the system comes with is adequate although Dell say it will run up to 64GB for anyone that needs it. The Alienware Command Center software is useful for configuring and tweaking settings on the rig. You can monitor fan usage and CPU/video card temperatures, as well as change settings for fans to kick on and off. The overclocking is also managed here and it appeared to allow all manner of tweaks, to get that extra bit of performance out of the hardware. I was hoping to change the LED colors of the case outside which is apparently handled here too but I could not find the settings as easily as I have on older Alienware machines I have seen. There is built-in WI-fi on this system and it looks very good on paper (802.11AX, up to 867 mpbs). I connect mine up with Ethernet to a Gigabit home network so have not tried it but it is a great feature to include. The audio is handled by an integrated RealTek controller than can pass 7.1 sound through S/PIDIF or the 3.5mm ports. My setup is currently just at 2.1, so I used the HDMI audio through the NVIDIA 2080 Super, which seems more than adequate and has been great for listening to music while I work. Storage is good – the 512GB SSD seems fast and even with Windows 10 Home and a few other applications I need installed, still seems to have about half the disk available. I made sure other files and games were saved to the 1TB conventional disk that is include. I would think 1TB might not be much for people who game across several titles at once but it’s an easy remedy to swap it for something bigger when the time comes. I have not tested it but from photos I saw, this case is easy to open and you don’t need any tools to make internal changes like adding drives, RAM or swapping out video cards. The power supply unit is 850W which should be good for the vast majority of people. It would be interesting to see what sort of overhead the system uses at various points of usage but some good bench marking software should show that. If you are like me and use your system for more than just games, you will still be very happy with it. If it can handle the latest, greatest games with ease then I can’t think of many applications that will slow it down. I run the full Office 365 suite on it and as boring as that is for a gaming machine, it has absolutely no problems and runs very fast and smooth. All in all, this is a great system for anyone who is not going to build their own gaming rig but wants a powerful system. It includes most of what you want to play the latest games and is as eye catching as you would expect from an Alienware. If I had to find one complaint, I would grudging admit that the fan can be a bit loud on occasion but it seems to quickly cool things down internally and is not running continuously. A very nice system indeed, with some high end parts included and I look forward to some great gaming on it, over the coming months.

This is the new Dell Alienware Aurora R9 / 512GB NVMe and RTX 2080 Super Gaming Computer - and it’s as cool as it looks. The packaging was solid and thankfully so, for a computer with such a decent price tag. Heavy duty foam caps were on both ends and they definitely work because one corner of the box it came in had some pretty good damage (can you say … DROPPED?). Once unboxed & the annoying, yet helpful, scratch-saver tape has been removed - you’ll want to crack it open. To open the shell, you need a screwdriver to remove a small screw in the back that keeps you from pulling the handle that pops off the side (I wonder if that was there for shipping. Hmmmm.) Anywhoo, once that’s off, pull the handle, pop off the side and then you can flip a few unlock levers and are then allowed to “swing out” the power supply, giving insight and access into the guts of the computer. It’s pretty streamlined and the RTX 2080 Super is a dual-slot beast. This device came with 2x 8GB DIMMs for memory, which offers dual channels (and allows for a single failure) vs a single 16GB stick (single point of failure) and there are still two slots remaining (4 slots in total). When popping the side back on, you’ll want to pay attention to the frame at the bottom, where it shows you the proper placement for the metal guide tabs on the cover. Once Windows was setup/configured/registered, one of the first things I did was run Dell’s Support Assist to make sure I was up-to-date on drivers/BIOS etc. The components were pretty current; no major updates required -- just the obvious Windows Updates. I tweaked some of the RGB capabilities on the tower with the Alienware Command Center, turning the ring around the middle white, the 'Alien head' red & the word “Alienware” blue. I also made some network bandwidth tweaks with the “Killer” Control Center and loaded up a few gaming engines to give them a whirl. After a day or so, lots of updates hit: NVIDIA, Alienware Command Center, etc. With the Alienware Command Center update, it broke the functionality — ‘you don’t have an Alienware box’ is in essence, what it told me. So, the RGB was stuck as-is and the other “cool” things to tune, were unavailable. Dell’s website doesn’t show the Alienware Command Center as ‘compatible’ with my Service Tag, so I ended up calling support to lend a hand. As a techie (and tech support guy myself), I’m very thankful when I get a support engineer that knows how to troubleshoot and resolve an issue without saying “have you tried rebooting?’ I got a solid support guy and after reinstalling the software, I gave him the ‘nicely done, close the case’ line, which we all like to hear when an issue is fixed and a customer is happy. Let’s talk about Performance. The 512GB NVMe boot/OS drive is fast. The RTX 2080 Super has 4 monitor inputs: 3x DP & 1x HDMI. The video is super responsive and I don’t notice anything with my main Dell (non-gaming) U2415 via HDMI (or the Dell U2412M side screens). There are plenty of older USB2 ports (webcam, keyboard, mouse adapter, etc) and a bunch of USB with at least two USB-C (shared) as well for flash drives, external HDDs and the like. I spent around 20 hours reliving some of my early twenties playing a first person shooter to write this review. Here, I focused on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Borderlands 3. After giving those some solid hours and running everything on the highest settings, I feel that I can make a pretty good statement that this computer is faaassst. I did combo this computer with a few Logitech gaming devices: the G Pro keyboard and G604 mouse. The Logitech G Hub syncs up with the games to maximize the RGB capabilities of the keyboard. The fast-select DPI modes of the mouse were super handy as well (I have reviews for those accessories on bestbuy.com too). I tried the pre-configured “overclock” features of the Alienware Command Center, but they didn’t seem to do anything … no overclock percentage or allowing it to get warmer was set. Then, a recommendation from a coworker was to run 3DMark to get a feel for where this machine, in its current configuration, compares to others in the ‘real world.’ After around 25 minutes of testing, a score of 6620 and (at the time) rating of “Better than 94% of all results” made me feel pretty good that this was a fantastic box. Observations: Fans. They kick on from time to time when the CPU blips to over 90%+ but I didn’t notice anything like another reviewer mentioned. I also didn’t see any ping lag when it happened, but it was definitely happening when there was a ton of rendering taking place. A BIOS update was released on 10/31 (1.03 -> 1.04), so flash it up and that may help, should you have a noisy tower. The 1TB Spinning HDD. 1TB isn’t much. I guess since most things are stored in the 'cloud' now, it should be “OK” — and you can relocate old games to the HDD for archival if needed. I just think a 3-4TB 7.2k drive would make more sense. You know, because then we have to buy larger external HDDs for backups and everyone wins. Cons: For almost $1900 (or more than $2k if you live in a state that charges sales tax), it comes with a standard Keyboard & Mouse; the same pair you get when you are buying a $200 mini tower; that’s just weak-sauce. I mean, at least include a basic gaming mouse/keyboard -- even it super entry-level. I wish it wasn’t the “Home” edition of Windows 10. I can’t say I’ve ever run an Operating System’s “Home” edition before, but I'll live. So, do I recommend this Gaming PC? Absolutely. Am I going to continue to burn hours acting like a kid again? Mhmm.

Alienware Aurora R9 review [TL;DR ] - this frigging thing ROCKS!! Cinematic in-home gaming experience!! Ray Tracing is the next game-changing revolution. [/TL;DR] ----- [‘Grab a Snickers , this might take a minute’ version] I’d been considering custom built vs pre-built, but after many months of constantly chasing the next must-have advancement, and the indecision of never knowing when to take the plunge fearing inevitable buyers remorse, the timing was perfect to explore this new Aurora R9 pre-built machine. My anticipated usage for this is the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. I remain actively enrolled candidate in their alpha / beta program but didn’t make the October cut, perhaps next flight school late Nov. Traditionally a life-long console gamer, I’ve long realized the many benefits that PC gaming provides over consoles — namely incremental hardware upgrades, instead of long wait cycles between console generations, much like we are entering now. The next wave of consoles aren’t expected to launch until the end of 2020 with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Project Scarlett. Future gaming promises AMD’s Navi, 3D audio, and 8k, but we will have to wait and see if it pans out as promised (I’ve been in the industry too long to believe marketing hype), and missed out on years of enjoyment playing the waiting game. I do know this. The Alienware Aurora R9 is a beast of a gaming rig, featuring hardware-based real-time ray tracing, and it is here now, today — supported by a growing list of current and pending PC games (published below), and it is absolutely breathtaking in its cinematic realism. This machine is an investment in future trends in the game industry. The games are only going to continue to get more immersive and engaging. It’s sure going to be an exciting run. Texture detailing, anti-aliasing and other previous cutting-edge technologies have become commonplace. The future starts now with realtime hardware based Ray Tracing. PLEASE NOTE: there are many configurations of this machine; most have the RTX 2070 graphics processor, but do yourself a favor, and at least get one equipped with the nVidea GeForce 2080 Super (or Ti, Founders Editions anyone?) Many reviewers here have astutely tackled various aspects of this machine. I will attempt to avoid duplicity and focus my efforts elsewhere where I personally feel the biggest advantage lies. The $64,000 question of whether the Aurora R9 is a worthy big ticket investment of your hard-earned dollars comes down to the value-quotient you associate with next-generation technology, and the direction vector of where the game industry is headed. We are in the early phases of a radical revolutionary change in game development capabilities. Never before have the tools enabled software engineers the ability to present uber realistic lifelike environments as they do now. Undoubtedly the single component to make the biggest performance impact (with biggest expense to match) is the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER. As of this writing, this is currently the 2nd fastest graphics processing card on this planet, trailing only nVidea’s RTX 2080 “Ti” or Founders Editions. A.I. and deep learning is being used intelligently with real-world results near the 4k/60 fps industry milestone. This is largely possible because it implements “Real Time Ray Tracing” (RTX) in hardware (silicone). This implementation far-exceeds software-based implementations. We are approaching an era of Hollywood blockbuster CGI render house quality, in an affordable home gaming PC. I firmly believe RTX is _the_ key ingredient, main differentiator, and the Aurora R9’s secret sauce (hence the emphasis of this deep dive into this key component) to ultimately determine if this product makes sense for you. WHAT IS RTX ? Real-time Ray Tracing simulates mother nature’s physical behavior of light on the objects in our world, producing an authentic true-to-life cinema-like experience for graphical game presentation. No longer will games have that “looks nice but something is ‘off’ that screams ‘artificial’” facade. Granted, using traditional light-mapping techniques like shadow maps and reflection maps (aka “tricks”) get you close, but often falls short and negatively impacts authenticity. Ray Tracing is comprised of various graphical elements, including : - De-noising, which polishes each frame of gameplay to make it look like a photographic image. - Ambient Occlusion (AO) is the detection of objects which would refract, reflect or absorb light, - Real-time shadows, based on multiple light sources, arguably accounting for various types of light as well (natural, artificial, neon, etc) - Global Illumination (GI) simulates physical light on an entire environment with an astonishing “one ray per each pixel “. This is used to great effete in the game “Metro Exodus” Ray traced reflections uses the developers’ “reflection maps” of the game environment, to assign variable reflectivity values to specific regions of the image. Details such as puddles of water, car windshields, glass surfaces, and even mirrors (including recursion, i.e. placing 2 mirrors facing each another, so the image propagates repeatedly beyond your visual focal depth, eerily simulating the subtle bending of light towards infinity in our curved space universe) can now be accurately and naturally reflective well beyond the first or second reflection points, just as an image can “bounce” among reflective surfaces. An example would be playing an FPS, and cleverly using a subtle reflection in a glass window, lacquered surface, or a shiny spoon to spot and attack your opponent. This RTX 2080 card is capable of handling “Billions of rays per second” using Deep-learning Super Sampling (DLSS). Not an easy feat, and technically impossible just a few short years ago. Can you imagine the potential? The simulation has started, and we have a front-row seat to watch it unfold. Gaming will never be the same, and has never been better. GAMES FEATURING RTX RAY TRACING (Nov 11, 2019) Battlefield V Control Shadow of the Tomb Raider Metro Exodus Quake II RTX Deliver us the Moon (demo) Stay in the Light Wolfenstein : Youngblood PENDING Atomic Heart Call of Duty : Modern Warfare Cyberpunk 2077; Doom Eternal Dying Light 2 Enlisted Justice JX3 Minecraft Mechwarrior V : Mercenaries ProjectDH Synced: Off Planet Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 Watch Dogs: Legion Note: Rockstar’s recently released Red Dead Redemption 2, does not [yet?] officially support ray tracing, yet according to www.pcngamesn.com RDR2 runs silky smooth with 4k high frame rates and a mix of ultra and high settings on the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. PROS + Top-of-the-line specs to usher in 2020. + real-time Ray-Tracing is truly spectacular, a sight to behold + new thermal design silenced fan noise for me after bios update — no longer do you feel #EpicFail if you didn’t opt for water-cooled design. + Airflow is directed over the CPU and RTX 2080 graphics card so it doesn’t buckle under load and drop frames. +Compact form factor for portability to LAN parties +the RGB LEDs looks dope. +850-watt power supply +plethora of convenient front inputs - 3 USB 3.1 ports - 1 USB-C port - headset out - mic input + rear ports - 1 USB 3.1 - 5 USB 2.0 - 1 USB-C connector - SP/DIF digital output (Coax and Optical) in addition to nVidea High-Definition HdMi Audio - side surround output - line out - gigabit Ethernet + GeForce Experience utility + AlienWare command center (easy overclocking, though limited with Intel i7-9700 processor, buy the more expensive “9700K” processor for extreme OC ) CONS -Needed bios update to fix fan noise issue -512 GB SSD cheaper to upgrade capacity after-market -More expensive than custom build (but no headache or Dell support) -Flimsy cheap pack-in wired USB mouse and keyboard set SPECS # 9th gen core i7 9700 (not unlocked K variant) - 12 MB cache, Turbo post to 4.7 GHz # nVidea GeForce RTX 2080 Super (star of the show) - 8 GB GDDR6 memory - dual graphics support - optional SLI interleaved expansion w/ $79 NVLink bridge # 16 GB DDR4 Kingston HyperX Fury RAM # 512 GB SSD primary (PCIe m.2 class 40) # 1 TB HDD 7200 rpm mechanical data drive CONCLUSION The Alienware Aurora R9 is a serious contender for best in class all around gaming rig, not to mention excellent all-around workhorse. It works out of the box (bios upgrade notwithstanding) and is capable of just about any computing task you may undertake. Alienware conveniently take the work and headache out of individually sourcing components, assembling the custom build, and especially the time sink spent fiddling with device drivers, BIOS, firmware, hardware incompatibilities, etc. The mfg thoughtfully provides Alienware Command Center and other utilities like nVidea GeForce Experience RTX tools and dashboard applications. For me the benefits, time-savings and Dell support team greatly outweigh the alternatives. The real kicker, if you can’t tell from above, is the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER graphics processor and hardware-based real-time Ray Tracing. This is a real and justifiable game changer, and it is here now !

I love this pc, so happy I decided to spend the extra money for it! I play fortnite mainly on it, and the graphics look awesome. The photo is deceiving though, it is a lot bigger than I thought it would be, and really heavy. But I bought a decent stand to set it on under my desk. Also love how alienware products allow you to customize the light color scheme.

It’s always a dilemma having to choose between building your own gaming rig or buying a pre-built one. Having done both, its sure nice when all the heavy lifting is done for you and with a warranty and helpdesk to back you up. Pros: • Blazing fast • Bullet proof right out of the box • Showy case but not too showy Cons: • Does cost more than building your own • Not the prettiest insides • Case LEDs doesn’t have the smoothest fade (minor detail) This particular setup will handle all the latest and greatest. The mobo bios screen is nice and clean and takes less than 22 seconds to boot to the desktop. The M.2 512GB SSD makes loading windows and a few storage hungry games ultra fast loading. There is only one slot for the M.2 so no SSD raid mobo options here. The 9th gen i7 is plenty fast and will take a few years to outdate. The true hero in this gaming rig is the Nvidia RTX 2080 Super graphics card. Plenty of performance with standard options and can be overclocked with the included alienware software. I paired this R9 with an AW2518H display and boy is it immersive. Throw a good mouse and keyboard and you’re ready to go live with twitch. I was able to get an avg of 46fps on Shadow of the Tomb Raider and an avg of 106fps with Far Cry’s New Dawn on Ultra settings. I do recommend Alienware R9 Aurora to anyone needing an updated gaming rig. Having built systems before, it sure is nice to know that everything was done right and will work without troubleshooting. This configuration will run all the hottest titles on full Ultra settings without hesitation. I do wish it came with an “actual” gaming keyboard and mouse but I guess Dell figures the end users would want to customize these to their own liking.

Looking for a high-end gaming computer? Then look no further. The Alienware Aurora desktop computer is meant for you! This computer was extremely easy to setup. The setup time was approximately 30 minutes. The desktop is aesthetically pleasing to the eye. After the setup was completed, I decided to test out a few games. I played a few street fighter games and noticed the processing speed was extremely fast. I was impressed with how there was no input delay with the games. So far this desktop is faster than what I have ever used. For the price point, the desktop is excellent. PROS: 1TB HDD + 256GB SSD - White/Lunar Light Intel Core i7 - 9700 - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 - More than two USB ports and 1 USB type c CONS: NONE I love it!

I was installing my software on this computer and playing Diablo 3 when the computer completely froze up. It would not re-boot. So I called Dell and they said that it is a common issue for this Alienware to fry mother boards and rams at 4 hours!! That’s crazy. Day 1 and it is already fried. My RL family member bought the IBuy power computer that was $100 cheaper then this and it is liquid cooled and it is running 40°C CPU where this Dell air cooled was 75°C and fan was running. Also Dell support is terrible and they said it was out of Warantee because it was over 6 months old!! Best Buy put this on sale just because Of this. Who would want to pay just to have a computer repaired on the day you bought it!!! So needless to say I’m going to exchange it for the liquid cooled IBuyPower because Dell does not stand behind their products and also this unit is over priced for still being air cooled! Oh, and also this is a compact unit and case so it will be building up heat and the fans will have to run full speed to keep it cool. So like others has said, it is super noisy and the fans are not consistent so it kicks on and off constantly like every 5 seconds it shuts off and then restarts.

I have had several machines, this was my first dedicated gaming rig. You can tell an Alienware from a Dell. The computer itself looks amazing. FYI this weighs about 40 pounds, my FedEx guy had to help me with it into my house. You need ports? you have ports! A ton of USB ports (14), kinda disappointed they were not just USB 3.0 and C (there are only 2 C total). I wanted my computer to use a hardwired connection, there is a network optimization application, the computer does not recognize my combined 2.4/5GHz network has 5 and only sees the 2.4. The video card (mine shipped with 2080 super like some other people) is 4 connections 1 HDMI and 3 displayport (the specs say there is a DVI but there is not so have the correct cables). At boot after the setup, I have about a 5 second boot time. Yes, this is loud. If you need a quiet place this is not for you. My system by default did not use the Data drive for data files such as games and music its all on the boot SSD drive. I will have to go back to move all my data files at some point You have some fine controls for the CPU etc in the Alienware Command Center. I have messed around with them some, but need to do some research on the effects of the overclocking and heat in the chassis. This does run hot.I have room around all the sides and the chassis is raised. My computer was running in the 50-60degree range. I did the updates from Dell, but still running warm. Once again more research. The LEDs can change color, I left mine on a solid color, mine had a weird stutter when I wanted the LEDs to change colors. I play mostly Steam games, Civ type, world of tanks, star wars. This has plenty of power for you. The flow of the games were amazing, there was some streaking on some games. This may be a monitor issue and not the game, so new monitors. I plugged the computer into my 4k tv and it of course looked amazing. Playing games on a 50" 4k tv will blow your mind. only cons I can tell you about are the noise from the fans and the missing DVI connector.

Not only did I purchase this and bring it home to have it not turn on. I have had this not even 3 days and alienware on desktop support has gave me a blue screen of death and this computer is complete junk and alienware support will not help because they have no idea how to fix this. My desktop I built in 2016 has had zero issues and I physically cant even use this without giving me errors.

I almost love the Alienware Aurora R9, but sadly this pc falls just short of perfection. The design of the R9 is going to be divisive, you either love it or hate it, I happen to love it. I'm a big fan of smaller form factor PCs and the R9 takes up much less space on my desk than my previous full-tower behemoth, and it outperforms that pc as well. So let's get into it. WIth a 9700k boosted up to 4.4ghz and a gtx 2070 you'll be able to play almost any game on ultra settings at 1440p 60fps. Right now I'm running this system on a 1080p monitor, which is nothing for this system. I run a rock solid 60fps with everything on ultra and v-sync enabled. Disabling v-sync yields slightly lower temperatures on my gpu and system overall, but I find that leaving it on provides a better overall experience. No screen tearing or dropped frames. This PC is of course g-sync capable, and you can force compatibility with most free-sync monitors. A monitor upgrade is definitely in the future. My favorite thing about this system, and it's going to sound very underwhelming, is the IO. There are 10 usb ports on the back panel of this PC, 5 usb 2.0 and 5 usb 3 variants, including one type C. I absolutely love this. I run a lot of peripherals - 2 external HDDS, high def HDR webcam, high-end usb mic, wireless headset, 2 cables for charging/syncing devices, and my mouse and keyboard. This is the first computer I've ever had on which I could plug everything into the back plate and keep the front plate open for flash drives and various other uses. It's great. All of the ports work at their proper speeds on front and back. Did I forget to mention there are another 4 usb (2.0 and 3.0 w/ 1 type C) on the front panel as well. Amazing. I've simply never seen so much IO on a single motherboard. I love it. I have no issue with the performance of this pc in terms of raw horsepower. It absolutely shreds games and productivity. This is an upgrade from a socket 2011 6-core 12-thread system, and I find that this pc bests it in performance in most tasks. Rendering photos and videos is extremely fast on this pc. I'm very happy. There is one downside though. The fans. The fans on this pc are terrible, they're way too loud and don't do a great job of keeping the system cool. I fired up the included alienware command center software to check out temps and I was shocked to see the system idling anywhere between 41-49C. That's just crazy with an ambient temp of 20C. During a game of league of legends the temp gets up to the low to mid 60s. During more demanding games you'll easily hit 70C. The thermal limit of this cpu is probably in the 80s with a max temp of 100C allowed by the processor die. I've never had a cpu much above 30c at idle, and this thing only has 8 cores. Part of the problem is that the boost clock is almost always active, meaning that the 9700 is running around 4.4Ghz at all times on all cores. As I'm typing this, with just a browser, command center, and task manager running, my cpu is at 42C. This is unacceptable. And to make matters even worse, I'm using an aftermarket fan. Let's talk about these fans. This system is very quiet when you first boot it up, but as soon as windows loads you'll hear a very noticeable increase in volume as the fans rev up to keep pace with the heat. The worst offender here is the cpu fan, by default alien command center runs the "balanced" preset which keeps fan speeds around 9% on the cpu, 12% on the top fan, and 10% on the front fan. this is not adequate. At these speeds the cpu will sit in the mid to high 40s. I created a new profile with custom curves on all 3 fans, and with my CPU fan running at around 33% I'm seeing temperatures in the low 40s during idle to light usage. The reason for this is simple, this system was built to be water-cooled, it was not meant to work with air coolers. The entire design of this case is meant for a water-cooled cpu, I can't imagine why Dell would even offer an air-cooled option, it's certainly not worth the tiny bit of savings to the company or the consumer. Even with a new fan swapped in on the cpu, much quieter but it performs maybe only slightly better, my temps are still trash. There's only so much an 88mm fan can do to dissipate heat when the heat is staying in the system. You need a liquid cooler to pull the heat away from the CPU and exhaust it out of the top. I would happily spend the 80 bucks or so to get a 120mm AIO cooler if not for the problem you always have with custom hardware, compatibility. In order to install an aftermarket cooler you have to basically completely disassemble the R9. There is no backplate cutout, which makes a 10 minute job a 45 minute job. And I'm not even sure if an aftermarket AIO would be compatible with this motherboard. Dell products, like all system integrators, are finnicky when it comes to using 3rd party hardware. They like to keep their stuff proprietary. So far now I'm sitting here with temps roughly 10C above where I'd like them to be at all times, with a CPU that's always set at it's max boost clock for some reason. The bios on this alienware motherboard is incredibly simple, it offers you very little in terms of control over your system. Which is great if you're afraid of messing something up, but terrible if you want that granular control to make your system perform exactly the way you want it. So with all of that said, great performance with terrible thermals - would I recommend this desktop to anyone? The answer is yes, with a few caveats. Buy this if you're not comfortable building your own system, but it if you're tired of building your own systems and you're comfortable installing an aftermarket cooler. Despite the lousy thermal performance and stock fans that sound like jet engines, this pc is an absolute monster, and I haven't seen a motherboard out there in this form factor that has this much IO. 14 usb ports is pretty much unheard of, and if you're like me - always using a ton of peripherals - this is a major plus. So yeah, if you sound like you might be either kind of person I've described here, or are someone who doesn't really care about temps or noise as long as your system is working, then definitely buy this. The components are pretty high quality, the performance can't be argued with, and the IO can't be beat. It's not perfect, but it's close.

Bought this back in 2019! Played thousands and thousands of hours on this! Vr included! I love this pc! No problems playing everything on high settings until ray tracing came along and ruined my life. Starfield low settings ark survival ascended low settings... not gonna lie i did feel sad switching out my alienware. This computer has stayed basically the same price over the past 4 years. Great buy!

Awesome graphics and speed. I use this PC for VR gaming and it rocks! HTC Vive looks amazing in it. Fast smooth motion and it also had an open PCIe slot that I needed for adding the wireless WiGig card that the Vive uses for untethered wireless play. Setup was a breeze. I timed it and it only took 10 mins 44 seconds to completely setup windows etc. once I plugged it in. Boot time is blazing fast only takes about 5-6 seconds. When I did the Steam VR Performance Test it pegs it at the top end. Not sure if the scale normally goes to 10, but they rated it an 11! See pic attached. The graphics look amazing in VR. The resolution, crispness, and details are literally 25-30% better than my old PC and graphics. VR is so much more immersive with this PC/Graphics combo (came with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super 8GB graphics card). In short this pc rocks and VR is awesome with it.

Great Pc still after all these years working strong.