1 year in - Disappointed with my R10 purchase

Let me first qualify the title of my post by saying that the Ryzen R10 is a pretty amazing machine for a pre-built and I have gotten quite a bit of enjoyment out of it.

That said, I'm very disappointed in a few areas of ownership of this PC. 

The Specs
Ryzen 3900, non-x
RTX 2080 Super
16GB Ram
1TB M.2 Drive

TLDR -This is a gripe post but IMO I have a couple valid reasons to do so. YMMV.

CPU:

First, when I purchased it in early 2020 the AW webpage had pictures of the liquid cooling option splashed all over the place which led me to (naturally) assume that my CPU/GPU choices would include said cooling option. Nowhere was it mentioned until I looked at the full order specs (who looks at those?) after purchasing that it said, "low profile air cooler". Bummer. 

I fired it up upon receipt, started a game (WoW) and the CPU temp immediately shot to 97C and pegged there while the fans went absolutely nuts and it sounded like a jet was taking off next to me. Solution, I promptly ordered a Corsair H60 and knocked the temps down to something more…reasonable (50-55 idle). Huh?

Next, concerned that the idle temps were out of whack, I opened up AWCC to check the OC options and de-tune if necessary. There were no tabs for memory or CPU OC settings…what? Digging further, I looked into the OC profiles in the program files folder and there were no entries for my CPU to use AWCC for overclocking. Seriously? Again, the AW webpage stated that overclocking the processor was available because this is an “Alienware!” for gamers and enthusiasts. Well, sure, unless you bought the 3900 OEM. Maybe I missed the fine print somewhere (no).

Oh well, since the Ryzen was fairly new, perhaps they would push an update to allow overclocking this CPU…a year later I’m still waiting. Ok, I’m creative, for the past year I load a Ryzen Master profile to undervolt/overclock EVERY TIME I BOOT UP.

STORAGE:

Having “only” a 1TB M.2 drive, I thought I could easily add a 2nd one and Raid them for more boot drive space…nope, only a single slot on this board. Not a huge deal, but still disappointing for what I think a gaming PC should include. Wholly my opinion, so this one’s on me, but disappointing, nonetheless. I added a 4TB Samsung SSD for my steam library and whatnot, as well as two 3.5” 8TB drives for 16TB of storage for Unreal Engine assets, vault cache, projects, etc. Livable but not optimal.

BUGS AND FAULTS:

I like to run the Killer Doubleshot Pro networking feature, but when it’s enabled, SupportAssist will not start up (repeatable and reported).

If I lock the screen, sometimes the PC will randomly reboot, no matter what is running. (It’s set to not go to sleep). This may or may not be the PC, it could be windows, etc but still aggravating if I had work open.

 

WHAT NOW?:

I’ve gotten tired of waiting for OC support for my processor and not having more storage flexibility so I’m upgrading/adding a few parts to improve performance/utility.

Gigabyte Aorus Master X570 (was on backorder for quite a while)

3x M.2 1TB drives, Raid 0

LSI HBA (PCI-E 3.0)– 8 port

7x 3.5” 8TB drives – Some flavor of Raid, not decided yet (Software or storage spaces)

Fractal Meshify 2 XL case

EVGA 1000w fully modular power supply (was out of stock for some time, bought direct)

64GB HyperX 3200

 

LATER DATE:

RTX 3080

Ryzen 5950X

280MM AIO (NZXT?)

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I still really like Dell/Alienware and have purchased a ton of laptops from them over the years for my wife and myself (She just got a new m17) but this was my first pre-built PC of any brand since 1998. The rest were built by me but I thought I would give it a shot since it looked like a good way to get a Ryzen. This is in no way a blanket condemnation of their PC’s, just that it didn’t meet my expectations. Lesson learned.