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Aurora R8, Experience of Buying
My Alienware Aurora R8 experience
It has been 95 days since I hit the "order" button and at this point, I am glad to say that I am happy with my purchase of the R8. My decision to buy an Alienware desktop started a month before that when I bought another Dell system, an Optiplex 27" AIO with i7 8700 and GTX 1050. At that time, my plan was to use the PC mainly as a surfing/ email machine with some additional juice to run games like Forza Horizon 4. Long story short, that plan fell apart and I decided I needed something that I can have a little bit more control over. Enter the desktop PC.
I've been over to several BYO websites like wepc and pcgamer to look at building my own rig but like many of us here observed, Dell's solution are usually cheaper... provided you're willing to live with what it means to deal with the many colorful issues we see in this forum.
Configured my system as below (trimmed to show the main parts):
1 210-ARGS Alienware Aurora R8
1 801-1540 Onsite/In-Home Service After Remote Diagnosis, 1 Year
1 490-BEUO AMD Radeon RX 560X with 4GB GDDR5
1 321-BDXH 850W EPA Bronze PSU Liquid Cooled Chassis
1 801-1493 Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Initial Year
1 570-AACN Alienware Mouse Is Not Included
1 580-ABUI Keyboard Not Included
1 555-BDBY 802.11ac 1x1 WiFi and Bluetooth
1 400-AMXY 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s (64MB Cache)
1 370-ADUC 8GB, DDR4 2666MHz
1 619-AHCQ Windows 10 Home (64bit) English
1 338-BSDW 9th Gen Intel Core i5-9400 (6-Core/6-Thread 9M Cache,4.1GHz Processor with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology)
The order was placed about a week before a US holiday so I was wary of a price drop. However, there was a good 15% discount and that takes a big chunk out of the 850W PSU + liquid cooling upgrade. Total damage is $875 + $76 in tax. I also have DFS account with 12 month interest-free payment and 6% reward.
Like many of you AW owners, waiting for the PC to arrive was a practice of patience. Initially the system showed that it will take ~10 days for it to arrive. I reached out to order support via chat and the rep was very helpful in explaining that other than ready-to-ship AW (like the tons of outlet R7s), most AW systems are built after order received. He did mention he will put a note that we chatted about my wait time concern. I didn't expect that to change anything until 2 days later, I was notified the system was shipped! And 2 days after that, a huge brown box with an alien head sat on my front porch. Without any signature required. Thanks UPS!
Unboxing the system brought me back to my first Dell which was a 17" laptop bought as a college graduation gift in 2003. As I plugged the cables and powered on the system, everything was flawless. Including Cortana's 90dB "HELLO". Ran Heaven benchmark just to get some numbers on the RX560 before shutting down the system and adding/ replacing the following:
WD Blue 1 TB HDD --> Crucial P1 500GB SSD [$61]
RX560X --> MSI RX580 Armor OC 8GB [$160 after $20 rebate]
Reinstalled Win10 with the image from Dell's recovery tool on the SSD. Everything worked great after that until the day I decided to upgrade my RAM...
Anonymous
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January 14th, 2020 13:00
@GTS81 And the rumor mill spins.
I'm satisfied with 18 cores . . . for now
GTS81
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January 14th, 2020 15:00
@Anonymous :
Spoke with Titan Rig rep this morning to ask if they will have the 360mm FLT reservoir brought in from EK Europe and the answer was "not in the short term".
Anonymous
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January 14th, 2020 20:00
@GTS81
radiator fans??
Noctua NF-P12 redux-900, 3-Pin, Ultra Quiet Fan
. . . any thoughts?
r72019
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January 14th, 2020 21:00
With the redux brand, the corner vibration pieces, cables, y splitter, etc. are not included, just fyi.
GTS81
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January 14th, 2020 23:00
@Anonymous :
For once you're free of Dell's shackles on fan type and size, yet Noctua is chosen? Well, there's no denying that they make really good and silent fans so from a functional perspective, getting a quiet and high static pressure fan makes sense.
However, you can make your rig look much nicer with the fans from InWin (Polaris), Thermaltake, or even Corsair (LL120 RGB). Also, if you go for lower FPI radiators (read thicker), the static pressure requirement goes down, no?
One more thing to consider is you have to distinguish static pressure and airflow fans in your mega rig. Use specific static pressure fans to overcome radiator fins, but you need airflow fans to move the air deep enough into your case for the exhaust fans to "catch" the warm air and send it out. Else you risk having pocket of warm air lingering near your reservoir(s).
@r72019 :
I guess my plan to retrofit my R8 guts into the new R6 case is a no-go. I was going over the case once more before transplanting parts and saw that big "R6" print on the back IO panel. Looks very well glued to the chassis and I think any attempt to mess with that wouldn't end well.
So the decision was made for me. Either keep it, risk the hostile stare from my wife for having 2 PCs. Or sell individual parts. So many drive cages now I may as well start an auction account called AuroraParts or something.
r72019
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January 15th, 2020 05:00
You can remove the bottom part entirely and swap it (or let AuroraParts sell it)
r72019
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January 15th, 2020 07:00
(I can't recall if you dremeled an air vent in it.)
Anonymous
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January 15th, 2020 10:00
@GTS81 However, you can make your rig look much nicer with the fans from . . . .
At this point I still do not have the case in front of me, but all indications from photos and videos are that I will not be able to do push/pull fans with a 45mm thick radiator. If I cannot do the push/pull configuration, then I would have all radiator fans setup as 'intake'; pushing fresh outside air through the radiators and into the case. There will be one or two exhaust fans at the rear of the case.
So if this turns out to be the setup, the radiator fans would not be visible, leaving the ugly, but quiet Noctua fans as an option. If I can do 3 radiators (2*360 & 1*240) that would be 8 fans, so I want them as quiet as possible.
If it turns out that I can do the push/pull configuration . . . the fan search starts over from the beginning.
GTS81
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January 15th, 2020 10:00
@r72019 :
Still waiting for your pics to be mod approved.
I dremeled 2 parts of my R8 chassis: the lower front to get the big gaping hole and the inside of the front bezel.
Too exhausted to hide my R6 chassis in the storeroom last night so I left it next to my R8. So far, still no message on "why do you have 2 Auroras?". Silent Base is very silent in the storeroom.
Anonymous
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January 15th, 2020 20:00
@r72019 With the redux brand, the corner vibration pieces, cables, y splitter, etc. are not included, just fyi.
Thanks. I have like 8 Noctua fans sitting around I could steal parts from, if needed. If I don't steal the corner pieces, I may do a 360mm gasket. I have been looking at those, just in case I have room for that Nautilus rad cover.
GTS81
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January 15th, 2020 23:00
@Anonymous :
That's so tempting isn't it. Tonight I had a good dose of reality. Was attempting to snap a big piece of plexiglas into a smaller rectangle. First snap created a curve like a tidal wave. Second snap created a smaller tidal wave. I dremeled the rest but it looks ugly. Then I went to the short side. Hey, I'm a pro now in scoring plexi with the last 2 failures, gave the blood sacrifice, and this is a short side. *snap* *mini-wave*. Dremel made it worse after that.
The flaws can still be hidden but the next step it to carve out a hole in the middle to match the motherboard tray. .
I'll have to try out that Dremel router/ plunger tool that just arrived today.
I'm just a PC mod wannabe...
EDIT: Went and watched a bunch of YouTube videos. There were so many ways to do it right but I got lazy, took the easy way out, and paid for it. Will try again.
GTS81
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January 16th, 2020 09:00
@Anonymous :
Good read here: https://www.ekwb.com/blog/radiators-part-2-performance/
If I understand that article correctly, a thick radiator is still going to need higher fan speeds to shine compared to thin radiator. At 900 RPM, I'm not sure if that's gonna maximize the potential of any thick radiator.
r72019
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January 16th, 2020 21:00
When I needed to cut plexi I've always used a circular saw with a guide; it looks really good this way for straight cuts.
Anonymous
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January 16th, 2020 21:00
@GTS81 At 900 RPM, I'm not sure if that's gonna maximize the potential of any thick radiator.
Understood. I have already 'dreamed down' from 80mm to 60mm to 45mm, which I don't consider a thick radiator; perhaps mid-range. Regardless, I will have between 9 and 18 fans, and they need to be quiet.
I had the 3 Noctua FLX fans @ 1200 rpm fixed on the first loop and those were quiet. Even more quiet is the 6 Alphacool push/pull fans on the radiator tower, which I have never heard, at all. Then when I did the second loop I switched to 3 Aerocool 'DeadSilent' fans @ 1500 rpm; and they were LOUD. So I put the 7v reducers on to slow them to 900 rpm, and while it is better, they are still louder than the Noctua fans at 1200 rpm. I don't want to sit here looking at my beautiful dream build listening to fan roar. 'Whisper Quiet' is my goal.
On a side note: that stupid Obsidian fan tray is still not available
GTS81
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January 16th, 2020 23:00
@Anonymous :
At this point, I'm thinking that I may have to settle for 2 slim (28mm) 360mm radiators. This way, I can have push-pull for the front radiator. I only have 60mm for both a radiator and fans (if any) up in front, so if I go to something like 40mm radiator, there's no option for a fan, unless I try my hand at rivet removal because the PSU shroud is partly riveted to the main chassis.
I totally agree that Noctuas can spin fast and still be quiet. I haven't tested those be Quiet! fans that came with the Orange yet.
Still looking at the 1000D? Isn't your Cosmos C700M suppose to have reached your office by now?
@r72019 :
I walked into HD to get a refund on the plexiglas cutter and ended up walking out with a variable speed jigsaw. Kept that in the trunk as a backup while I learnt how to use the Dremel router/plunger kit. It did very well in straightening out the badly cut edge. Only drawback is that some parts rebonded due to the heat and had to be worked over with a file. Watching online videos thought me one thing: a jig is needed. Anything to just guide the tool in straight lines over and over again. I never inherited my dad's tool handling genes. He never needed any jigs and mostly used hand tools with great precision.
Of course, circular saw with a guide is the dream. Well, after a CNC machine/ laser cutter.