Aurora-R7, pre-purchase questions

I bought an Aurora R7 in February and returned it because it was defective, then bought another R7 in May.

I bought the February R7 with a 512 GB NVMe M.2 drive (it was an OEM SK Hynix drive), which turned out to be a mistake. Performance was decent – similar to a 500 GB Samsung 960 EVO NVMe drive – but Dell’s drive costs around $400, which is way too expensive. Samsung recently released their 970 line of storage drives, so for the May R7 I chose the cheapest storage option (a 1 GB HD), then bought a 500 GB Samsung 970 EVO NVMe drive for $200. When the PC was delivered, I installed the Samsung 970, installed Windows onto it, and wiped the 1 GB drive.

So instead of having one 512 GB NVMe drive, I have one faster 500 GB NVMe drive, one 1 TB HD and saved around $200. If you decide to go this route, you might want to consider the Western Digital Black 3D NVMe instead of the Samsung 970.

Regarding RAM, the current situation is kind of ugly. The main thing you should know is that the R7 has four RAM slots, but according to the R7 service manual it doesn’t support four 8 GB DIMMs. This means if you buy the R7 with two 8 GB DIMMs, you will have no upgrade options that don’t involve discarding those two 8 GB DIMMs. It’s possible this might change in the future, but AFAIK Dell has not responded to any of the forum discussions about this limitation.

As for the graphics card, it looks like Nvidia will be releasing their next generation of GPUs in two months (July).

Strange, I'd love to hear your thoughts but I didn't see them before they were deleted.  Perhaps a PM?  I did place an order last night but was told I can change the config for the next day or so.

I decided not to do the 8700k and just did the base 8700.  I went with the 2666 ram so I could get dual channel (two 8gb chips) and stuck with the GTX1080.  Hopefully you don't tell me the exact opposite :)

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@ks-man2 wrote:

Just started researching this and am debating a few options. 

 

Those options look fine. Yes, you definitely want a boot-able M.2/NVMe SSD for Windows.

I also suggest the 850w Power-Supply and Liquid-Cooler for your Intel-i7.

I think this thread explains build options pretty well.

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/XPS-8930-or-Aurora-R7-selection-advice/td-p/6028753

I'm surprised you didn't select the "K" model CPU, which is clockable.  Most gamers want to overclock their CPU's or at least the capability if they ever do.

I decided the $100 was better spent on the 1080 over the 1070 rather than going with the 8700k.  I don't see myself overclocking it anyway.

Hi ks-man2,

Looks like you have already pulled the trigger, but thought I would chime in anyway :-).  Unless you purchase the 8700K (which you did not), there is no reason to pay for the faster RAM (2933Mhz).  That only comes in to play when you are overclocking your system.  That extra money would be better spent on a faster GPU or more SSD storage than the RAM.  Also, the 8700K is the top CPU available for the R7, but again if you are not overclocking, it may not be worth it in the long run.  Good luck with your purchase :-)

Rich S.