Not sure what an A11 is . I'll assume you mean Aurora-R11 .

a. For Intel i7 or Intel i9 you should get a Liquid-Cooler

b. No. Asetek OEM coolers are very reliable

c. You can do whatever you want, but why? Purchase with Liquid-Cooler and 850w Power-Supply and be done with it. Get your computer and start using it.

d. This is what happens when you try to use fan-cooling on an Intel-i7. Intel-i9 would be worse.

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R9-i7-9700-overheating/m-p/7639359/highlight/true#M28964

@Happyhiker1957 :

(a)  Do I need the AIO liquid pump or can I go with air cooling?

AIO liquid pump.

(b)  Should I worry about an AIO liquid pump and what maintenance concerns, if any, should I factor in to my decision making?

No serviceable parts in the AIO. Use it until wheels fall off.

(c)  Can you put a better CPU sink/fan in the A11?  Can you put a better AIO pump in the A11?

You can put a better fan (Corsair ML120 Pro). It's difficult to define better AIO pump. Most pumps even 3rd party ones come from one company called Asetek. The one that comes in the Dell is a pretty good unit.

(d) Any thoughts on the CPU or GPU selection?

Internet browser seems to scale number of tabs with the cores and memory utilized. So you could consider going up to 10900 to get all 20 cores so that Chrome will use maybe only 18 cores while you have 2 more cores to load Excel or something. Make sure you get loads of memory though. If you can score a great deal on your R11 config with 64GB from Dell, go for it and save yourself the headache of upgrading later.

"I am not a gamer (nothing against gamers) but will be using it to run heavy web surfing (40+ tabs)" 

"Internet browser seems to scale number of tabs with the cores and memory utilized. So you could consider going up to 10900 to get all 20 cores so that Chrome will use maybe only 18 cores while you have 2 more cores to load Excel or something. If you can score a great deal on your R11 config with 64GB from Dell, go for it "

@GTS81  Have you ever considered being a computer salesman?  I guess there are a number of things that came to mind (.. title of post is heat concerns), but the only thing I guess I'll comment on is that you forgot to mention an upgrade for the GPU, since we're now pairing a 1660 with a 10900 and 64 gb RAM the GPU would now be a bottleneck on performance, if the system were pushed to the max.

@Happyhiker1957 

I think your choice of CPU and GPU make a lot of sense for your needs. i7-10700 is a very good choice for video editing and multi-tab web browsing. I use Premier Pro a lot and the video rendering time is mostly determined by CPU's multi-threading performance. GPU does help a bit but not much. Therefore opting against a RTX card is a good decision. 

For cooling concerns, I am not sure about R11 but for our R8 users, switching to a third party AIO liquid cooling is a no-brainer. The stock fan cooling is just a joke and even the Alienware water cooling gets many complaints. I never used water-cooling before either, but I could not be happier after I installed an entry-level Corsair H60 and witnessed it keeping my i9 consistently under 80 degrees for hours of 3D rendering or game development in Unreal Engine. 

Whatever you do, don't buy the r11 with 2080 ti. I got one and I sweat everytime I play for a long time, because of the gpu heat, even with undervolt.

For high end gpus only buy with water cooling solutions

The oem 2080ti is not an asus rog strix (nice thought but wouldn't fit).

It is an msi custom rebrand for dell, based on their aero lineup, with a single blower fan. There is no direct retail equivalent version sold, it is oem dell only.

@Roberto B Costa 

Hey, I just placed an order for a 2080ti R11 2 days ago, and I've seen a lot of comments like this popping up. it's really got me second guessing that choice. Can I ask what version of the 2080ti OC card comes in that unit? Is it the single blower fan version from previous generations? I read in one forum that it's the Asus ROG-Strix. Also, the R11 only comes with GPU liquid cooling on the 2080/70 super cards, right?

I can just say to you "welcome to the heat club"

Honestly the temperature itself does not put the card at risk, it's an acceptable temperature FROM THE CARD perspective. But if you are close to the desktop you suffer with the heat and noise.

If you put the desktop far enough you might not sweat, but my table is not big enough for it. I am honestly thinking in repasting to check if it gets better, but there are all those concerns with warranty. Another option is waiting for a watercooled option for the rtx 3000 cards, alienware said that they would include 3000 series, but I don't know if there'll be watercooled options.

I can just say that I am not happy with my current situation. It's funny that I didn't see one single post of people saying this when I bought it, so I guess I am paying the consequences for buying it earlier.

@r72019 do you have any links with this info? I would like to know more details about the dell version of the rtx cards.