Alienware Aurora R12 Desktop - Buy it or not

LKKzz on 04/10/2021 - 13:18
Last edited 04/10/2021 - 13:29 by 1 other user

Got the price down to $2858 for the following specs.

Been searching for an RTX 3070 pre-build PC for a while.

To be honest, with 3070 and the latest CPU, it's pretty much around this price anyway. (+-$200)

Takes approx 4 weeks for shipping. or should I wait for Black Friday t get a better deal? (Taking the risk of no good deals on Black Friday and shipping could take forever since it will then be Christmas and New year break.)

Yes, I'm aware of the heating issue, but there are some online tutorials for fan replacement and thermal paste.

11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 11700F (8-Core, 16MB Cache, 2.5GHz to 4.9GHz w/Intel® Turbo Boost Max)

Windows 10 Home English

NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3070 8GB GDDR6

16GB, 2x8GB, DDR4, 3200MHz, XMP

512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)

Lunar Light chassis with High-Performance CPU Liquid Cooling and 1000W Power Supply

Poll Options

  • 4
    Yes
  • 30
    No
  • 1
    Wait for Black Friday deals
Computing Alienware Computer Desktop Computer

Comments

  • knightslay2 on 04/10/2021 - 14:17

    I would say building the PC yourself will be cheaper. Pre-built tends to be cheaper parts.

  • diddy50 on 04/10/2021 - 14:31
    +1

    The two 8gb sticks are kinda low. Better off doubling the RAM.

    • KKzz on 04/10/2021 - 14:44
      +1

      Agree. Think it would be cheaper to upgrade by myself rather than buy it from the package.

  • rektrading on 04/10/2021 - 16:14

    NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3070 8GB GDDR6

    Is this LHR?

    • KKzz on 04/10/2021 - 16:19

      Yes it is.

  • Rayzorback on 04/10/2021 - 16:55

    I would say YES if it was the fortress bundle…. but just the tower, nah

  • Pelicannn on 04/10/2021 - 17:08

    Not right now, sometimes dell have some decent deals on their Alienwares that make it worthwhile especially factoring in the GPU.

    BPC has a 3070 build that has some better components for under $2300. If you are gaming only, I wouldn't consider the 11700K to be an upgrade over the 11600K regardless of one being an i7. The 3070 will be doing the majority of legwork anyway. Also, my partner has an R12 with 3080 which we picked up earlier in the year for under $3,000 with the monitor and peripherals so there have been much better deals in the past. That being said, the PC is fine and does the job good for her uses of gaming, but people are correct that they use proprietary parts that all can't be upgraded later on.

    So if it was a case of same cost, I'd go with the BPC build, if it's a case of the BPC being $600 cheaper, sure as heck BPC build.

    https://www.bpctech.com.au/kp-biforstrefresh-kraken-power-bi…

    • KKzz on 04/10/2021 - 19:06

      Yeah ok, thanks.

      I got the AW3821DW screen when it was on promotion, would be good to match it with R12 for a "family looking".

      I only do casual gaming, not in urgent to get a new PC anyway. might as well wait for a good deal.

      • Pelicannn on 04/10/2021 - 20:16

        I also have the AW3821DW. Looks right at home in my set up even if I don't have an AW main.

        https://imgur.com/a/nGFORIt

        • KKzz on 04/10/2021 - 20:41

          Think what I really need is a large desk.

          Throw my current 120cm desk to the garage.

          • Pelicannn on 04/10/2021 - 20:51

            @KKzz: Damn, with a 38" monitor you need 150cm mininmum and ideally 180cm if you can fit it. Otherwise it just looks out of place like a giant TV on a tiny entertainment unit.

  • xazark on 04/10/2021 - 19:25

    Yes, I'm aware of the heating issue, but there are some online tutorials for fan replacement and thermal paste.

    if you are willing to do this yourself, you should be building your own PC, its simply not worth the cost to get a pre-built, you end up with much lower quality parts for a higher overall cost.

    • KKzz on 04/10/2021 - 19:41

      Getting too lazy to do research, but yeah, you are right.

      Better to start learning rather than just buy good looking machines. (like the dogshit iMac I bought in 2017 for gaming.)

      • xazark on 04/10/2021 - 19:52

        I was in the same boat, having not upgraded my PC in something like 7 years, but it doesn't take that long to research once you decide on CPU and GPU, the rest is fairly straight forward to figure out the top 2-3 options and then pick value/money

        • KKzz on 04/10/2021 - 20:43

          Think the majority of the parts will be on sale @ Black Friday.

          Prob will make a list prior and buy parts.

          Thanks!

  • GoldPhoenix0 on 04/10/2021 - 21:14

    As someone who got a R11 with similar specs except with the 3080, it is honestly one of my regret purchases. If you don't want to touch anything inside the machine, it is probably fine, but for the price, it has so many flaws.

    My biggest complaint is probably the thermals. For a CPU with water cooling, it runs toasty. I've disabled overclocking, and even just a single core running a bit causes the temp to spike to 70C+, and maxing it out was getting it to 100C. It was only then I realised that the default thermals were absolute trash and not utilising full fan speeds. That pushed it back down to 70 after some tweaking, but it is the most I have heard any electronic device sound like a jet engine.

    The internals are tightly packed in there, and only has room for 2 2.5" SSD slots (I was hoping at least another 3.5" slot for the expanded storage). It only just had room for a single PCIe M.2 SSD converter. Apart from that, don't expect any other space for anything else.

    I had also done some research on RAM to upgrade it with, as the Dell branded ones are morbidly overpriced. I settled on some Corsair Vengeance sticks, but this would cause the device to no longer boot. After a whole bunch of configurations, I could never get it stable, mainly due to no control over the timings. I then caved and looked into Dell RAM upgrades instead (which came with the machine), but the week I was looking at it went from ~$250 up to $350+. Guess who is stuck with 16GB and maxes it out regularly.

    Basically I would have much preferred a custom built PC over a Dell one any day… just that price allure made me jump at it in the first place.

    • KKzz on 04/10/2021 - 21:32

      I can feel your pain bro, It's like the Mac I bought, too expensive to just throw it out or sell it at peanut price.

      I thought Alienware is a good brand, guess it changed when sold to dell.

      Thanks a lot for sharing the experience.

      I better off just buy parts and assemble them.

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