Aurora R12, PCIe4?

Note the R11 is 3.0, but that's a CPU limitation (they share the z490 board).

11600KF/11700KF and 11900KF can all be overclocked to their upper turbo frequency, only i7 they ship that can't be overclocked is the 11700F

I surprised Dell did not use the came reasoning and keep PCIe 3.0 instead of having PCIe 4.0 in the newer motherboards the same way they nerfed the PCIe slots from 16x to 8x electronically (mechanically 16x).

So I wonder why did or do they incorporate PCIe 4.0 ... Why not stick with PCEI 3.0 ???

"I surprised Dell did not use the came reasoning and keep PCIe 3.0 instead of having PCIe 4.0 in the newer motherboards"

This wasn't a change on the board level.  It is essentially the same board for R11/12.  They are both z490.  The BIOS is updated, that's the difference.  The reason the R11 doesn't have 4.0 has nothing to do with the board.  It's the CPU.  Intel didn't support 4.0 with any chips sold with the R11. That's why it's 3.0.  It's not a board difference.  The R11 and R12 are essentially the same PC.  

the overclock option disappears if I install Intel XTU on my system. Over the XMP setting in the bios you should be able to enable overclock to level 1 or 2 or custom with the K CPU. otherwise try flashing the BIOS with the latest version. I did that and also got the latest VBIOS from Dell and now I can also enable resizable bar. too bad that dell cut the pci-e to 8X without specifying it on the product spec when you buy this coffin. I guess the bad airflow will get the better of your GPU before the pci-e speed becomes important.

No current GPU is anywhere close to saturating PCIE 4.0 8x anyway

Saturating the bus continuously?  what's the use of that.

think about latency for loading texture into the gpu memory. it would affect frame render time or keep the fps down is it takes 4 ms instead of 2 ms to load. I admit that theory vs real game can be different but then why are the scores in 3DMark or superposition on the alienware R12 are always 20% lower than other gaming sysem.

Could also be the cas 20 latency with the 1/2 speed memory bus on the R12 keeping the GPU from performing.

Because the benchmark scores on 3dmark that are in the top +20% are not stable for everyday use. They are often set just to run 1 pass to get  a high score.

If you use the compare function and compare it to your score, you will notice the GPU frequency up into the 2.2 Ghz mark, while yours and mine are around the 2 Ghz mark.

Since 3dmark does not go into great detail on the actual hardware setup, it's difficult to know what you are comparing against. For example it does not tell you the cooling of the GPU, or the power limits, or the Vram temperatures reached, airflow in case, etc...

You will never come close to the performance of a custom loop liquid cooled GPU, or the performance of a +10% power limit overclock, or to a triple fan card, or some other custom cooling setup.

The custom cards used in Alienware systems are locked at a power limit of 100% maximum, and there is no way to go past it.

6800XT in the Radeon settings goes to 115% on power limit. And using MorePowerTools you can change the SPPT tables of the card to change the power limit of the GPU from 255/300/55. I have mine at 290/330/60 and yes it does reach higher wattage usage. 

Why would you want to, it won't benefit you in any way. The Dell 3080 is a 2x8pin coming from a psu with some lack luster rails. My 6800XT barely gained 2% from increased power limit and it's all because the PSU can't effectively supply the 375w+ it wants to pull but eh it's whatever it's not like a stock 3080 or 6800XT is not a top contender 

Not the RTX 3000 series, what is what we were talking about.

 could handle it for a few minutes, just enough to run a benchmark and get a high score. That's how they achieve the top +20% scores on 3dmark.

Yes, on a non sub 50$ PSU and mobo. In that regard yes I'd say it's well worth it, just not in the Alienware R10/11/12's