Aurora R12, disappointing memory performance

How can they refuse your refund when you purchased a “product /configuration” that wasn’t delivered? Are they claiming that you only had 30 days to return it and you missed the window?

But at this point there should be a BIOS update soon so I would consider just waiting it out. These components are not easy to find in the marketplace. And these are the issues that we face as “early adopters.” My discussions with dell make me believe we should all be on the look out for a BIOS update in the next week or two. They are aware of all these problems - I’m sure Intel is as well. Their flagship chip is sinking in a very public way.

This thread is another post about the gear mode performance issue with stock OEM configs; it's not about aftermarket RAM. 

Linking to main thread:  https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R12-Unacceptable-BIOS-Z490-configuration-11th-Gen-Intel/td-p/7855848

To be clear from a Dell warranty and policy perspective, a user should not expect non-tested/non-validated retail 1.35V - 1.5V memory sticks to work without issues.

Buying 4266 ram and popping into your dell doesn't force the system to run at that speed. Past 3200 is marketing and a waste of money IMHO.

Mixing speed, rank, vendor, voltage is not supported.

OEM BIOS and OEM tested/validated memory sticks to work fine. 

XW21KG-MIE2 for example.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Alienware-Aurora-R10-R12-Kingston-HyperX-Fury-8GB-XMP4-DDR4-3200-Dell-/333957462133

Note these are DELL OEM and REQUIRE XMP for 3200

If its not about aftermarket ram Post the CPU, Motherboard, Bios, SPD for each Ram Stick using CPU-Z.  Showing CPU-Z on systems with 500 series chipset is not going to convince Dell to add this after the fact to 400 series chip-set motherboards.

That's also why there are different versions/revisions of the Aurora board.

Motherboard = P0JWX Pegatron 69M10HQ30A01

Team Red also has limitations.

Validated memory is NOT the same as OEM.

Mixing Vendor, speed, Rank, voltage is not supported.

The slower NON OEM RAM is less reliable ram and needs higher voltage .

"Quick question to those with more dell/alienware support experience.  If a bios update is released for this, we will be notified?"

In stock OEM config the default setting on the Aurora lineup is generally for BIOS and other Dell software updates to get pushed out automatically; however, the default setting can be changed to a push notification to the user.

This is about the factory configuration, and the memory performance issues associated with the R12. It has issues, does not perform well. There's another long thread about this specific issue.

So far it has been passed on to the Alienware team, and owners are awaiting a possible bios update that adresses the issue(s).

@speedstep with this theory , Alienware should focus selling 10th Gen intel instead , since 11th gen " its basically marketing.  Its not 5 to 10 times faster more like 1 to 5 percent faster."

Rocket lake with K series are having 2 memory controller mode which is Gear 1 & Gear 2 , They run very differently which on all the old Gen were run on Gear 1 just needed to turn on XMP it will be no issue.

On this latest feature from rocket Lake, you should be able to select your RAM to run on gear 1 or gear 2 .
Gear 1 runs on 1:1 Ratio and Gear 2 run on 1:1/2.

However on the R12 system with K series, on default, if your turn on your XMP on bios Ram frequency will run as per normal, what being hidden on our system is the memory run on GEAR 2 on default which we have no selection on that caused it to run 1:1/.2 Ratio. This means it will perform worse than the default setting.

Been contacting Dell support currently still looking into it and still no reply or responses.

The thing required dell to clarify : 
1) Is R12 Z490 chipset able to perform an IMC memory controller for gear 1 / gear 2?
2) If yes, can it be done by updating bios or another alternative way?
3) if all of the options are not available can it tweak the default XMP to run in Gear 1 instead at least ram do not suffer from the Gear 2 feature.

Therefore to quickly check, if you suffer the loss of performance, please post CPUZ on the memory tab ( and check Memory controller speed )

Is there any update from Dell regarding this issue? Extremely disappointing...

I have Intel based R12 and the memory performance was really, really bad, XMP made overall system performance better but memory performance horrible, XMP disabled made memory performance just bad (better than XMP) and everything else worse (XMP 3466MHz, non-XMP 2666MHz).

After June 3, 2021 BIOS Update installed:

XMP performance now gives memory User Benchmark score of 99.7, compared to 69 before the update. The original 8GB stick got score of 39 or something.

CPU went from 97.3 to 102 (obviously linked to memory improvement).

Overall, this is decent for a non-K i5-11400F.

Hope you guys see similar gains.

i5-11400F

16GB Corsair 3600MHz CL16 RAM (runs at 3466MHz)

RTX 3080

512GB Micron SSD

U got improvement from 1.1.1 or 1.1.2?

because I upgraded to 1.1.2 and my system performance went down 20%. 1.1.1 was a 25% improvement, but now gone. 

can you go back on bios update? 

Downgrade is not possible according to the release notes:

Once the BIOS is upgraded to version 1.1.0 or later, you cannot downgrade the BIOS to earlier versions.

R12 latest bios 

It is under the "Important information" tab further down that page.

Downgrade is not possible according to the release notes:

Once the BIOS is upgraded to version 1.1.0 or later, you cannot downgrade the BIOS to earlier versions.

@Vanadiel I think you miss-understood this - since 1.1.0, you cannot downgrade to versions before 1.1.0.  If you have flashed to 1.1.2, you can always go back to 1.1.1, or 1.1.0.  Just nothing before 1.1.0...

I have flashed back to 1.1.1 (had updated to 1.1.2, but had significant frame rate drops in ACC) since it provides better performance for me.

ok, it's poorly worded then.

The way I read it if you flash to version 1.1.0 or later, you cannot downgrade to earlier versions.

So if you flash 1.1.1 to 1.1.2, then I understood you cannot flash to earlier versions, and that would include 1.1.1 since that is an earlier version that 1.1.2.

Since you tried it and were successful, it's good to know that is not the case.

This is the way it is worded for the R10 bios, and makes a lot more sense: "- Once the BIOS is upgraded to a version later than version 1.0.7, you cannot downgrade the BIOS to version 1.0.7 or earlier."