The AIO cooler is usually ok, although you may get the impression that you are taking-off on a runway. Good thing you chose with liquid cooling as you will have the VRM heatsink.
It is an air-starved nano case, you can consider many options like adding an upper front fan replacing the HDD cage, replacing with quieter fans, doing a pull/push config like with a H60, replacing the AIO cooler with a 38mm thicker radiator (single fan) like H80.
I've just bought one too and I've never bought a pre-built before. I just didn't want to bother with the research this time around plus getting hold of 30 series RTX cards is a massive hassle, so I bought the R10 thinking all components will be pretty much top-end and cooling etc will be on point since it's their own case.
I'm a little worried I made the wrong choice now. If I end up having to rebuild a prebuilt then it sort of defeats the point of letting Alienware take care of things for me and paying the premium for it.
I've also read they're using a non-standard motherboard which can be sensitive about what RAM it will accept etc which is also worrying. I didn't see in the advertising what motherboard they're using but even if it's their own I would expect it to be high-end, I hope I'm not disappointed.
I really hope I don't have to spend out more and buy Noctua fans to replace theirs.
I know I'm moaning before I've even got the machine (sorry) and there's tons of people with the machines that probably don't have the noise issues, so I hope I'm wrong as I'm looking forward to just plugging in and hammering a few games out without the hassle.
I feel the same as you. The only thing that is stopping me from requesting a return is that any other pre-built has issues as well and some you can't get any help for. A lot of those other pre-built computers have air starved cases as well, seems glass front panels are the thing now days.
There's just no way to get what you want without building your own and you can't reliably do that these days.
That CPU has a TDP of 65W, I would guess you should have not much trouble keeping it cool, it kept my i9-9900k reasonably cool TDP 95W. The AIO cooler is made by Asetek according to @Anonymous :
both the OEM Alienware AIO liquid cooler and the Corsair Hydro Series AIO liquid coolers are made by Asetek . . . and both are actually quite good quality. Even when money is not a issue,
you will gain nothing by switching from one Asetek cooler to another Asetek cooler. So I would keep your Alienware AIO liquid cooler
I have an R10, here's my observations on the board:
The board is not that great. Very basic bios options, most options you would expect on a higher end board are not present in the bios. It is an AMI bios menu, not an Alienware made bios. I would call it a bare bones bios. No bios flash back option.
Full length PCI-e slots run at half the speed (X8 instead of X16), including the graphics card slot.
Due to the size of the video card and the size of the board, there's only 1 full length PCI-e slot free for any other card you might want to add. All the other slots are covered by the video card and not available and never will be available.
VRM heat sinks are only supplied when you purchase it with the liquid cooling option. With air cooling you get no VRM heat sinks. An odd decision, I agree.
The VRM section is not all that beefy. I am not sure how many phases it is or how many amps it can supply, but it's visibly not even close to Asus, MSI etc boards.
The audio DAC is a custom Realtek, but it's an older model. I found the sound severely lacking and had to pop in a SB Z card, which made an audible difference. They also use a cut down version of Nahimic, not the full version you would see for example on MSI boards. It also makes it impossible to upgrade the Nahimic drivers directly from the Nahimic web site. You have to wait until Dell makes an upgrade available.
The chipset on the board is a B550A, again customized for Dell. Not the best solution in my opinion.
There's very little QVL on the memory side, meaning if you want to upgrade with third party memory, it is hit and miss. There's only a small QVL list compared to let's say Asus or MSI or Gigabyte or Asrock etc...
The bios is supplied by Dell. Currently they sell 2 versions of the R10, one with Ryzen 3000 and one with Ryzen 5000. Currently you cannot upgrade the R10 Ryzen 3000 to support Ryzen 5000, because Dell has blocked the Agesa version to support the 5000 from being flashed in the R10 "old" motherboard. Both boards are apparently the same, only difference is the Agesa version. There's a whole thread on this board dedicated to this issue with no official acknowledgment from Dell if/when this will be resolved, or why they block it. They are totally numb on this lack of upgradability.
The short of the long is that it works, but it's bare bones and honestly to bare bones for what you pay for these systems. It disappointed me once I started setting it up.
For me, I am planning to move the CPU and video card over to a different board and case at a later date. I already upgraded the memory with corsair memory, so I can move that over with it. Combined with a 240 mm AIO it will serve me for several years.
markburv
2 Intern
•
569 Posts
0
March 13th, 2021 00:00
Hi @Shadowofmopar
Welcome to the community
Let's anticipate, can we have your specs?
The AIO cooler is usually ok, although you may get the impression that you are taking-off on a runway. Good thing you chose with liquid cooling as you will have the VRM heatsink.
It is an air-starved nano case, you can consider many options like adding an upper front fan replacing the HDD cage, replacing with quieter fans, doing a pull/push config like with a H60, replacing the AIO cooler with a 38mm thicker radiator (single fan) like H80.
henleyb
2 Posts
0
March 13th, 2021 03:00
I've just bought one too and I've never bought a pre-built before. I just didn't want to bother with the research this time around plus getting hold of 30 series RTX cards is a massive hassle, so I bought the R10 thinking all components will be pretty much top-end and cooling etc will be on point since it's their own case.
I'm a little worried I made the wrong choice now. If I end up having to rebuild a prebuilt then it sort of defeats the point of letting Alienware take care of things for me and paying the premium for it.
I've also read they're using a non-standard motherboard which can be sensitive about what RAM it will accept etc which is also worrying. I didn't see in the advertising what motherboard they're using but even if it's their own I would expect it to be high-end, I hope I'm not disappointed.
I really hope I don't have to spend out more and buy Noctua fans to replace theirs.
I know I'm moaning before I've even got the machine (sorry) and there's tons of people with the machines that probably don't have the noise issues, so I hope I'm wrong as I'm looking forward to just plugging in and hammering a few games out without the hassle.
Shadowofmopar
12 Posts
1
March 13th, 2021 06:00
Shadowofmopar
12 Posts
0
March 13th, 2021 07:00
I feel the same as you. The only thing that is stopping me from requesting a return is that any other pre-built has issues as well and some you can't get any help for. A lot of those other pre-built computers have air starved cases as well, seems glass front panels are the thing now days.
There's just no way to get what you want without building your own and you can't reliably do that these days.
markburv
2 Intern
•
569 Posts
0
March 13th, 2021 07:00
That CPU has a TDP of 65W, I would guess you should have not much trouble keeping it cool, it kept my i9-9900k reasonably cool TDP 95W. The AIO cooler is made by Asetek according to @Anonymous :
Vanadiel
6 Professor
•
7.1K Posts
0
March 13th, 2021 10:00
I have an R10, here's my observations on the board:
The board is not that great. Very basic bios options, most options you would expect on a higher end board are not present in the bios. It is an AMI bios menu, not an Alienware made bios. I would call it a bare bones bios. No bios flash back option.
Full length PCI-e slots run at half the speed (X8 instead of X16), including the graphics card slot.
Due to the size of the video card and the size of the board, there's only 1 full length PCI-e slot free for any other card you might want to add. All the other slots are covered by the video card and not available and never will be available.
VRM heat sinks are only supplied when you purchase it with the liquid cooling option. With air cooling you get no VRM heat sinks. An odd decision, I agree.
The VRM section is not all that beefy. I am not sure how many phases it is or how many amps it can supply, but it's visibly not even close to Asus, MSI etc boards.
The audio DAC is a custom Realtek, but it's an older model. I found the sound severely lacking and had to pop in a SB Z card, which made an audible difference. They also use a cut down version of Nahimic, not the full version you would see for example on MSI boards. It also makes it impossible to upgrade the Nahimic drivers directly from the Nahimic web site. You have to wait until Dell makes an upgrade available.
The chipset on the board is a B550A, again customized for Dell. Not the best solution in my opinion.
There's very little QVL on the memory side, meaning if you want to upgrade with third party memory, it is hit and miss. There's only a small QVL list compared to let's say Asus or MSI or Gigabyte or Asrock etc...
The bios is supplied by Dell. Currently they sell 2 versions of the R10, one with Ryzen 3000 and one with Ryzen 5000. Currently you cannot upgrade the R10 Ryzen 3000 to support Ryzen 5000, because Dell has blocked the Agesa version to support the 5000 from being flashed in the R10 "old" motherboard. Both boards are apparently the same, only difference is the Agesa version. There's a whole thread on this board dedicated to this issue with no official acknowledgment from Dell if/when this will be resolved, or why they block it. They are totally numb on this lack of upgradability.
The short of the long is that it works, but it's bare bones and honestly to bare bones for what you pay for these systems. It disappointed me once I started setting it up.
For me, I am planning to move the CPU and video card over to a different board and case at a later date. I already upgraded the memory with corsair memory, so I can move that over with it. Combined with a 240 mm AIO it will serve me for several years.