I will never buy an Alienware or Dell product again in my life

R7 officially cannot support 9th gen cpu due to bios limitation.  It is a business model like it or not.  R8 (cfl-sc/r) is bios updated “refreshed” R7 (cfl-sc)

to run 9th gen cpu read this thread https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/alienware-desktops/aurora-r7-intel-9th-gen-cpus-installed/647f8320f4ccf8a8de1e8908

or upgrade to R8 motherboard which should fit R7 case like direct drop in. 

The Alienware Aurora R7 was released in 2017.  It's almost 10 year old computer.  Don't make a promise you can't keep because you won't find any of computer manufacturers out there providing support forever.

Same issue was resolved with the R10 owners.

Aurora-R7 was more like a 2018 model.

With an Intel 8th-Gen processor and TPM-2.0 ... but strangely ... already excluded from this Windows-11 list. Looks like the status depreciation started here (for no good reason AFAIK):

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000187485/dell-computers-tested-for-upgrade-to-windows-11

I was not criticizing OP.  Just pointing out the business practice is the same with other companies.  They stopped providing BIOS firmware update to their PC after certain time, around 5 - 7 years.

I'm not sure how Dell will survive. It appears that word of this boycott has hit the street . . .

@Chino de Oro​ ,

I was not criticizing OP.  Just pointing out the business practice is the same with other companies.  They stopped providing BIOS firmware update to their PC after certain time, around 5 - 7 years.

Yeah, some did.

On the other hand, some like Apple went back 15 years and just patched the BIOS-Firmware on my old Mac-Mini for CA-2023.

@ProfessorW00d , hah!  That's funny.

@Tesla1856 , good to know, thanks.

Some would say it's a business model, some would say it's OEM design decisions.

But then I started thinking about my R10 version 1.

And then I started wondering about some of the design decisions like they call them:

- PCI-x slot mechanically x16, wired electrically x8.

- Above 4G decoding: not available. So no resizable bar for the GPU.

- Power supply only comes with the cables your configuration needs. If you upgrade you might need to order

   the missing cables separately, if they are available for order.

- Extremely picky on what case fans the motherboard will accept, or you will get a hardware boot error if not.

- Extremely picky on RAM it supports.

- Very limited BIOS options exposed to the owner.

- No BIOS flashback button, so hopefully the power never goes out should you update the BIOS.

- Than we had the more recent TPM debacle, which they provide an update for but you have to go through this convoluted process to get the update (that one is a strange one to me as I don't see how that could be a design decision or a business model).

I am sure I missed some "features" of my R10.

Now in the end I would have been ok with all of that, if this was at the time not sold as a top of the line system AND it was cheaper than assembling one yourself with similar specs.

But it's actually more expensive than assembling one yourself, and pending on when you decide to purchase it substantially more expensive.

So it became clear to me the business model is profit + support for those with no to very little technical knowledge. Similar to Apple: plug it in and it just works, and if not there's ample support to get it to work.

Since I don't need support, I came to the conclusion I might as well go back to building my own, like I had done for 35 years before.

@Vanadiel​   you forgot the PSB vendor lock on the R10 processors . . . I'm not sure who made that business decision. Regarding design decisions; it is just amazing to me that, starting with the Aurora R5, it took 8 generations . . . to the Aurora R13, before they corrected the absolute worst airflow design in computer history, by eliminating the PSU swing-out contraption.

@ProfessorW00d​ I did not mention it because my BIOS version is an older version and I am not vendor locked.

I know this for sure because I moved the processor into a different system for my son back then and it worked fine.

But you are correct. PSB lock was silently introduced in some later BIOS update, and enabled by default. Since it's unreversible on AMD processors, once you update to the BIOS version it's locked to the motherboard,

I always thought the Area-51 R2/R3/R4/R5/R6/R7 triad hexagonal chassis was the best for usage, air flow, etc.

@DELL-ChrisM2​    . . . I agree

both Chris M and Professorw00d own triads.  I think Chris has triad1.0 and Professor 2.0.

It is certainly a unique case that might go into Dell desktop museum in another 50 years.  People would then say wow look at what they were using at in the early 2010s.

I personally find the case LEDs interesting, and the PC quite heavy when moving around from desk to desk (I do not have a heavy GPU installed).  It is Dell internal codename Centaur for whatever reason.

PS

I am looking at a retro full tower NZXT phantom case which has many more fans and probably better air flow.  It is gigantic.

@redxps630​    that is a very nice looking case to build in . . . but I am not really seeing 'more fans'. The Area-51 Triad case (4 case fans) was  "designed" to handle up to 4 graphics cards. Since those days are long past, with a single graphics card there is plenty of room for air flow & custom mods.

@ProfessorW00d​ I use this case.

Have done several different builds over the past years in this case, and I see zero reason to upgrade to a different case.

Plenty of space inside, and cooling wise silent and very high cooling capacity.