Aurora R7, upgrade to i9-9900K?

No matter what pc you purchase, it will be outshined in less than a year!...Every time!

Even BYO would be old after a year. You will have to replace the motherboard and almost everything else to stay current. Yes it would be easier, and space/cooling wouldn't be an issue with physical restrictions like our beloved auroras. But if it were me, and I was upgrading, I would get a new case to go with it.

So meh...*shoulder shrug*, no way to win.

I tried it yesterday, just about bricked my system, ended up not even getting installed after I got my system running again. Approach with caution!

I prob won't bother with it.

I really would love it to work, so that I my command center doesn't show cpu fan like the rest of us. But desktop is working good so far, and after my terrible experience with .16, it's such a gamble. Scary stuff man...

I ran it straight from Support Assist.  Rebooted into BIOS update utility.  After, it took about 3 minutes with several reboots.  Confirmed once it had finished that the BIOS version indeed showed 1.0.17.  Unless there's a hardware issue with your PC, it should update OK.

FWIW, I made sure all OC options were disabled prior to the update.

Yeah, I thought I had all OC items off. But this time I will do it through bios first (including xmp profile), then make sure my graphics card is not OC'd as well.

Wish me luck? :/

1.0.17 just installed.  Works fine in my R7.  Command Center now shows CPU Pump: Running instead of CPU Fan: RPM.

No mention of i9 support though.

Might entertain it again then...

Mr's Dell & Azor would like to thank the R7 community for your past contributions

In related news, the Area-51 will get a Bios firmware upd8 in the near future to run new Basin Falls SkylakeX Refresh. Why? They paid more is one answer, the Aliens understand that 51 owners can't get tossed under the bus is another, &, like only 4 people complained in this forum thread, which is about the same amount as complained when they forbid R5 6700k owners to upgrade to R6's 7700k ... this company's used to no pushback ... the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing ... not so much as a tweet ... ... ...

There should be no reason at all why our R7 boards won't work with the i9's as long as Dell updates the BIOS.

True. But it doesn't do the long-term owners or brand loyalists (which I'm certainly not) any favors. In fact, it simply justifies in my mind that the DIY option is the best. Now I'm hoping Dell steps up and proves me wrong, but from what I've read, it seems like they honestly care about anybody once they have their money; which in my opinion is detrimental to their long term profitability.

I think they'd get more sales from owners and enthusiasts via word of mouth testimonials about how Dell/Alienware took care of them post-sale, including providing BIOS updates to keep their machines running for as long as physically possible.

In the end, I don't think asking for a BIOS update to allow CPU compatibility for motherboards that can physically support it is a huge ask. On the other hand, the goodwill generated by such a move would more than make up for short-term sales losses. In other words, if Dell came out today and said,
"Hey guys, we know you made an investment in us so in return, we're going to make an investment in you. Here's a BIOS update so once your warranty runs out and if your motherboard can support it, you can install Intel's newest i9 processor. And we're going to keep serving our current and future customers in a similar fashion."

If they did that, you bet I'd drop another couple thousand on a replacement machine from Dell when it was truly time to upgrade. I'd also tell everyone I know that was in the market for a new PC to consider buying a Dell because they care about their customer base. But as of this moment, I'd rather eat a shoe then tell people to buy an Alienware.

Hi amstel!

The words you speak are so true! I am asked rather often what to buy by people that don´t have a clue what to buy. Only my own experience with products, manufacturers and the way they handle their customers (with the service they give to us) gives me the idea why to recommend one over the other.
At this moment The biggest reason to NOT recommend Alienware is the RAM compatibility issues they have. Otherwise I´m very happy with my R7.

Cheers

The "new" Aurora R8's are out now featuring i9-9900k processors.  Well guess what?  Looking at the specifications, the ports are exactly the same.  And what's evening more surprising (well not really since I actually had a strong suspicion Dell would do this anyway), the chipset used in the i9 computers is still the Z370. In other words, the motherboard is exactly the same.  That said, there should be absolutely no reason no why Dell can't release a BIOS update for R7 owners.

Don't believe me? Have a look at the specs for yourselves: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/cty/pdp/spd/alienware-aurora-r8-desktop

Here's the link to the R8 BIOS.  I have a sneaky feeling this will actually install just fine on our R7 machines.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/drivers/driversdetails?driverId=66KG9&osCode=WT64A&productCode=alienware-aurora-r8-desktop

With the information I posted a while back about the R7 and R8 boards being practically identical save for a BIOS update to allow I9 processor compatibility, I'm really surprised that none of you tech heads here really give a flying.  Don't you guys not want your R7 to go the way of the dodo simply because Dell doesn't want to give you an R7 specific BIOS update to allow support for a CPU that the motherboard already works with?

Unbelievable.