Aurora R13, Gamer's Nexus negative reviews

Yeah, I just saw it and it's pretty bad and not because they improved on the previous R10/11/12 design but because they glossed themselves convincing potential customers that the NEW and IMPROVED R13/R14 was so much better. It's not and in some instances it is actually worse but honestly, we all knew that. I know I did, I just didn't expect Dell to charge so much for a mail it in effort. I could get a top of the line HP Omen 45L for less than what Gamers Nexus paid and the HP Omen 30L/40L/45L are quality prebuilts with standardized parts.

They shouldn't have to even see that review to know they really dropped the ball on the R13.  I can make most of the money I spent on it back by selling mine.  I think it's the most expensive barebones, featureless gaming PC I've seen.  

I know I sound salty, and that's because I am. The promo videos saying how they listened to what gamers wanted, etc., kinda got to me and sold me.  I fell for it.  Won't happen again.  Sure, they got me this time.  It won't happen again.

Yup watched it too and It’s really bad news. Stay tuned for part 2. Now I can I understand why people are having throttling issues ect. This is terrible !!! 

The worst part about the Aurora series isn't so much the thermals because you can workaround that. I have and the temps are quite manageable even on the R10 by ramping up the airflow. The worst part is the proprietary parts that are still used. The GPU still looks to be OEM for its size. So you are totally locked in. They did not listen to gamers and used a proprietary motherboard and PSU. If you don't have an extended warranty plan you are in serious do-do because Dell won't sell you a PSU or mobo. So that means hitting up Ebay to find spare parts or send off the parts to a repair center. Motherboards tend to be a lot more reliable than the PSU but a warranty is a must if you spent over $1500 or you could regret it later.

As Gamers Nexus has said, it's really hard to take the Alienware series, seriously. Not when you sell RAM sticks without heat spreaders or sell air cooled system or single channel configurations.

They also did not listen to gamers who wanted standardized parts and a better case design. The R13/14 just look nicer but suffer pretty much from the same problem as the previous series. 

HP, listened to its customers and redesigned the HP Omen series. They use standard parts include a standard Mid Tower case which if IIRC is a Corsair Case. I own an HP Omen 30L and the thermals are 1000% better than my R10. That includes an i9 10850K, LC and an RTX 3080.

Im agree about that gpu thingy, but about a psu or mobo im not, Alienware built his own mobo and they are top of the build, and about the cooling my fans are around the 45-56 c and the i7 is around the 27-30 c while gaming. so the worst part you called isa the proprietary parts inside, i agree about that cpu cooling but about the gpu you can simply replace from another brand..I did look at 3 brands before i bought my Alienware R13, it was HP Omen, MSI and Dell Alienware. i deside to go along with the Alienware because the configuration and price, and current avaliable in my country

I personally do not believe Alienware motherboards are "top of the build", based on the amount of posts on this board about systems failing to boot, BIOS flashes having issues etc...

Initially the X4 slots did not work with bunch of retail cards on the R13, and it took forever to get that fixed.

I would skip the R13/R14 and hope with the next iteration they actually "listen" to their customers.

You must be playing mahjong or solitaire to get gaming temps that low lol. 

You could be right but I thought I read somewhere that the Aurora series uses motherboards supplied by Pegatron which is part of the Asus group. I do agree that the R13/R14 should be skipped. I'd much rather have the previous R10/R12 tbh especially since Dell is trying to unload their remaining stock. You can find some seriously good deals at the moment.

I take a retail Asus over a Pegatron board any time.

For around $150 you can get some really nice retail boards, and I wish they would have gone with that option for both the R13 and R14. 

@RodsterB 

ASUS divorced Pegatron over 10 years ago Now.

ASUS will use other ODMs, such as Cal-Comp, ECS, Global-Brands Manufacture, and Info-Tek Corp. Pegatron is a notable ODM of motherboards, notebooks, AIO PCs, and other PC components. ASUS is also working to get its notebooks manufactured by ODMs such as Foxconn, Quanta, and Compal, while reducing its orders to Pegatron.

Also have to think about the thought process they had when designing this thing.  "Hey, let's make this thing with 2 x4 slots, but one of them won't be able to be used because the GPU is going to cover it up."

"Hey, this is for gamers so let's make sure we don't enable XMP, because games don't want that RAM to actually be nice and speedy."

smh

I really getting tired of all the shortcuts they chose to take and claim that they listened to gamers.  I can promise this is the last item I buy from Dell.  I also won't recommend buying from them.  Just have a really sour taste about all of this.  It's my fault to be honest though, I shouldn't have went in blind and bought it based on the youtube videos from Dell.

So, over the last two years, they got three laptops and a desktop bought by me.  That's all they'll be getting.

Part 2 is up

(1) The Worst Pre-Built We've Ever Reviewed: Alienware R13 $5000 Gaming PC Benchmarks - YouTube

This was a great reply