You certainly can. To expand on what Jupiter_7 listed, here is what I did to get it where I was happy.
I removed the power supply shroud for clearance, then vinyl wrapped the power supply housing since the silver was funky. The plastic motherboard connector cover was too close, so I removed that. I bought a good quality PCI-E splitter and connected that to the 4080 power cable. The card won't work with the Alienware support brackets either.
The main issue with the R13 as everyone is familiar is cooling and noise. I went from a 3090 to the 4080 and the 4080 runs cooler out of the box. This will get it up and running, but especially since you have the I9, you may want to get things cooler. To get my PC as a whole where I was happy, I replaced all the fans, went push/pull on the CPU cooler and have both the 12700K and the GPU undervolted and overclocked. This gave me better numbers, ran much cooler and is MUCH quieter. Almost silent at idle and still very quiet regardless of playing games from Metro, Cyberpunk, Plague Tale which made it roar before. I'm sure people who hate Alienware would say "but can you run two stress test simultaneously while the PC is in an oven at 450 degrees?" Whatever, real world usage, it is great.
The R13 has been wonderful, but I have wanted a 4090 and considered the water cooled Suprim in the R13, but the sale Dell just had pushed me to get the R15 with 13900KF and 4090. This machine will now go to my son who can finally stop complaining about lagging in Tarkov. Maybe.
I don't know if a 4080 will fit inside that case. Maybe someone else who has fitted one in could chime in.
I guess it would depend on the dimension of the one you are planning on putting in there. That and the rating if your current power supply.
They are bulky so I have my doubts it will fit. the OEM 3090 card dimensions are Card dimensions = Length: 267mm, Height: 114mm, Width: 50mm
That is the typical standard to go by for card fitting. But with the 4080 you also have to take into consideration it's often a 3 slot card while the largest OEM is 2.5 slots. And then power requirements of course.
You can upgrade but its not going to be a simple drop-in.
First there is not enough clearance between the power supply and the GPU's air intake. You will have to remove the shroud to get a few extra mm of space, you may also want to up the speed of the lower intake fan to push more air into the GPU. Second, there are only 2 GPU power supply wires in the R13. You will have to get some dongles to get the correct number of 8-pin plugs and hope they didn't skimp too badly on the cable capacity. Third they put the motherboard power connector in the GPU path, meaning any GPU over 305mm will not fit at all. If you can get past all this, you could potentially get a 4090 Founders to fit and work!
I also have the 3080 Ti in my R13, to be honest I don't think you are going to get enough gain to go through this for the 4080. It's really new machine time.
Is there any game the 3080ti cant handle anymore? I would stay with the 3080ti for now. The R13 is not very old and I dont think its worth to get a complete new machine just to get a 4080. Perhaps it might be better to wait for the 50series. And as Jupiter_7 said: The 4080 would be very close to the powersupply, so the airflow would be really bad. The R13 has its thermal-problems even with oem-parts.
I read this all. But no one talk about what DELL-support say about this.
I discussed this with Support social Media Team long before the 4080 was launched and they told me very clear that my Alienware Aurora R13 from March 2022 is NOT compatible with a 4080. I was feeling sad about this because i spend a 3400 euro for that and just 10 months later they told me i cannot upgrade to a 4080.
So, can somebody explain that to me? I could purchage a R15, but i will wait till a R17 will launched.
Can you let me know what exactly was stated that wasn't supported? I am thinking they might have meant not officially supported/sold with a 4080.
Obviously making upgrades like this could impact warranty and you would need to put the old video card back in (and not do irreversible mods/physical damage to the system) in order to troubleshoot for warranty support. But I mean unless something catastrophic happens or you damaged something while installing the card/used a not properly sized PSU etc. you should be able to get a 4080 working as demonstrated in this thread.
Please note, this is just going off my personal experience and I am not officially saying a 4080 is guaranteed to work in your system, but I have done upgrades in the past on my personal machines and as long as you can put back the old card/no physical damage to the system it will still be covered. Dell will just not cover/troubleshoot the new 4080 card like it shipped with the system etc..
Here's example thread stating pretty much the same thing.
I believe I’m not understanding something here as you stated you discussed “long before the 4080 was launched”.
How would you and/or Dell know any technical specifications that would limit compatibility with the R13, if it hadn’t launched yet?
If specifications were available and you were told it was not compatible, it could simply be because technically it isn’t due to the standard power connectors that are available on the PSU.
As I stated in my post, a purchase of aftermarket adapter that will allow the correct amount of 8 Pin adapters needed for the 4080 is available, Dell is not going to recommend that since it would technically not be covered under warranty.
As a pc user that is interested in upgrading any component on a prebuilt PC, you should always consider numerous sources for research of information on components that can work with your specific hardware, outside of what is provided by the manufacturer.
Generally, upgrades and alterations can or have already been made by other people that can assist you on achieving the same or better result.
VengerA51
1 Rookie
•
16 Posts
1
March 3rd, 2023 14:00
You certainly can. To expand on what Jupiter_7 listed, here is what I did to get it where I was happy.
I removed the power supply shroud for clearance, then vinyl wrapped the power supply housing since the silver was funky. The plastic motherboard connector cover was too close, so I removed that. I bought a good quality PCI-E splitter and connected that to the 4080 power cable. The card won't work with the Alienware support brackets either.
The main issue with the R13 as everyone is familiar is cooling and noise. I went from a 3090 to the 4080 and the 4080 runs cooler out of the box. This will get it up and running, but especially since you have the I9, you may want to get things cooler. To get my PC as a whole where I was happy, I replaced all the fans, went push/pull on the CPU cooler and have both the 12700K and the GPU undervolted and overclocked. This gave me better numbers, ran much cooler and is MUCH quieter. Almost silent at idle and still very quiet regardless of playing games from Metro, Cyberpunk, Plague Tale which made it roar before. I'm sure people who hate Alienware would say "but can you run two stress test simultaneously while the PC is in an oven at 450 degrees?" Whatever, real world usage, it is great.
The R13 has been wonderful, but I have wanted a 4090 and considered the water cooled Suprim in the R13, but the sale Dell just had pushed me to get the R15 with 13900KF and 4090. This machine will now go to my son who can finally stop complaining about lagging in Tarkov. Maybe.
Vanadiel
6 Professor
•
7K Posts
0
March 3rd, 2023 09:00
what graphic card and PSU do you currently have?
waterobot
1 Rookie
•
3 Posts
0
March 3rd, 2023 09:00
now is i9 12900kf and 3080ti
Vanadiel
6 Professor
•
7K Posts
0
March 3rd, 2023 10:00
I don't know if a 4080 will fit inside that case. Maybe someone else who has fitted one in could chime in.
I guess it would depend on the dimension of the one you are planning on putting in there. That and the rating if your current power supply.
They are bulky so I have my doubts it will fit. the OEM 3090 card dimensions are Card dimensions = Length: 267mm, Height: 114mm, Width: 50mm
That is the typical standard to go by for card fitting. But with the 4080 you also have to take into consideration it's often a 3 slot card while the largest OEM is 2.5 slots. And then power requirements of course.
waterobot
1 Rookie
•
3 Posts
0
March 3rd, 2023 10:00
PSU is 1000W
Jupiter_7
1 Rookie
•
107 Posts
0
March 3rd, 2023 10:00
You can upgrade but its not going to be a simple drop-in.
First there is not enough clearance between the power supply and the GPU's air intake. You will have to remove the shroud to get a few extra mm of space, you may also want to up the speed of the lower intake fan to push more air into the GPU. Second, there are only 2 GPU power supply wires in the R13. You will have to get some dongles to get the correct number of 8-pin plugs and hope they didn't skimp too badly on the cable capacity. Third they put the motherboard power connector in the GPU path, meaning any GPU over 305mm will not fit at all. If you can get past all this, you could potentially get a 4090 Founders to fit and work!
I also have the 3080 Ti in my R13, to be honest I don't think you are going to get enough gain to go through this for the 4080. It's really new machine time.
JohnnyRamone
1 Rookie
•
118 Posts
0
March 3rd, 2023 11:00
Is there any game the 3080ti cant handle anymore? I would stay with the 3080ti for now. The R13 is not very old and I dont think its worth to get a complete new machine just to get a 4080. Perhaps it might be better to wait for the 50series. And as Jupiter_7 said: The 4080 would be very close to the powersupply, so the airflow would be really bad. The R13 has its thermal-problems even with oem-parts.
Brad L (retired)
9 Legend
•
2.7K Posts
0
March 10th, 2023 20:00
Very impressive, thanks for sharing this!
Asus27
1 Message
0
March 23rd, 2023 07:00
Now for me, it's Asus TUF-RTX4070TI-O12G-GAMING.
Innovative313
1 Rookie
•
56 Posts
0
March 30th, 2023 17:00
Sure can, I added the 4080 to my Aurora R13…
Jliriano21
1 Message
0
April 3rd, 2023 16:00
Can you explain how you connected the power? thanks in advance.
Innovative313
1 Rookie
•
56 Posts
0
April 4th, 2023 04:00
The 4080 FE comes with the 12VHPWR connector that runs from GPU to 3 8Pin connectors.
I have the 1000PSU that has 2 8Pin connectors and 2 6 pin connectors.
I purchased a dual 6pin to one 8Pin connector so that my PSU now has 3 8Pin connectors and ran them to the 12VHPWR cable.
Hope this helps…
EdCo64
2 Intern
•
201 Posts
0
April 5th, 2023 14:00
I read this all. But no one talk about what DELL-support say about this.
I discussed this with Support social Media Team long before the 4080 was launched and they told me very clear that my Alienware Aurora R13 from March 2022 is NOT compatible with a 4080. I was feeling sad about this because i spend a 3400 euro for that and just 10 months later they told me i cannot upgrade to a 4080.
So, can somebody explain that to me? I could purchage a R15, but i will wait till a R17 will launched.
Brad L (retired)
9 Legend
•
2.7K Posts
0
April 5th, 2023 16:00
Can you let me know what exactly was stated that wasn't supported? I am thinking they might have meant not officially supported/sold with a 4080.
Obviously making upgrades like this could impact warranty and you would need to put the old video card back in (and not do irreversible mods/physical damage to the system) in order to troubleshoot for warranty support. But I mean unless something catastrophic happens or you damaged something while installing the card/used a not properly sized PSU etc. you should be able to get a 4080 working as demonstrated in this thread.
Please note, this is just going off my personal experience and I am not officially saying a 4080 is guaranteed to work in your system, but I have done upgrades in the past on my personal machines and as long as you can put back the old card/no physical damage to the system it will still be covered. Dell will just not cover/troubleshoot the new 4080 card like it shipped with the system etc..
Here's example thread stating pretty much the same thing.
Innovative313
1 Rookie
•
56 Posts
0
April 6th, 2023 04:00
I believe I’m not understanding something here as you stated you discussed “long before the 4080 was launched”.
How would you and/or Dell know any technical specifications that would limit compatibility with the R13, if it hadn’t launched yet?
If specifications were available and you were told it was not compatible, it could simply be because technically it isn’t due to the standard power connectors that are available on the PSU.
As I stated in my post, a purchase of aftermarket adapter that will allow the correct amount of 8 Pin adapters needed for the 4080 is available, Dell is not going to recommend that since it would technically not be covered under warranty.
As a pc user that is interested in upgrading any component on a prebuilt PC, you should always consider numerous sources for research of information on components that can work with your specific hardware, outside of what is provided by the manufacturer.
Generally, upgrades and alterations can or have already been made by other people that can assist you on achieving the same or better result.