Alienware Aurora R15 Gaming Desktop

You can be one too, at least if you’ve ever listened to the bloviating gasbags on yootoob trying to rizz up their subs by bagging on alienware. See, to them owning an alienware is a crime which makes me…a criminal! To me? I love them. I had an alienware laptop which worked perfectly (maybe the M15 r2, I gave it to my kid), I eventually replaced that with an asus zephyrus S15 (also a great laptop). But when that was getting old I bought one of those pc-assembler towers that you kind of have to go with to get the best equipment. Although it was beautiful and highly reviewed, I had janky problems with it from day one–within the first 24 hours it had turned itself off, hung at the boot screen and a few other weird behaviors. It looked like power supply/system issues, so after a few days of that I sent it back and decided to get an R15 as these things actually go on sale, I had previous good experience with alienware, the trade sites were reviewing them much better than the neckbeards were, and I’m not big on getting into PCs to upgrade/overclock/whatev (thus proprietary mobo and F processor I’m perfectly fine with). I wanted something backed by a little better QC that was going to work out of the box. And I like the look.

BUT YUO HAEV OVERHETING PROBLAMS
I don’t have any temperature problems at all
REEEEEEEEEEEEE

At the same point that my previous one was showing issues (24hrs), the R15 is performing flawlessly. It worked right out of the box. I’m gaming in 1440p, which was my target, with high or ultra settings and the temps usually hang around 45-65 degrees. Fans are extremely quiet, I hear a low hum that tells me they’re working and that’s it. I did have a problem getting it to talk to my older HP printer, but my previous tower did the same thing and it’s a winblows problem and not alienware. In winblows with multiple tabs open on bong, discord up, steam, outlook, vortex updating and half a dozen other windows open I’ve got 39 on the CPU and 34 on the GPU per hwinfo.

Not much bloatware on this thing at all, half a dozen AW apps and that looks like it. Jeez, Rockstar is more invasive than AW is. So far I’ve tried crossout and RDR2, they look beautiful and the system runs under 50 degrees on CPU/GPU. Haven’t tried BG3 yet but that’s having a problem because my previous saves contained mods lol, and I have to downgrade skyrim before all my mods will work again. Now to be fair to the yootoob crowd: yes, the DDR5 memory is running at ~4800 MHz or 2400×2 (ddr = double data rate). This may be a problem for you (but if it was I doubt you’d be looking at alienware anyway) but for me a) I knew it was going to do this b) I can’t tell the difference c) my previous tower that I sent back had the ram at 5200 MHz and I actually had to DIAL IT BACK to 4800 MHz per the forums to try to fix its problems (seriously man) d) I don’t care e) no, really. It boots fast, hits my 1440p target with no problems, I haven’t had any of the stuttering others attribute to AW Customer Connect, winblows runs fine, gaming temps are cool, the price was right. That’s literally everything I wanted. Sure, something more than 1G SSD would have been nice but that’s all you’re getting anywhere, and I can throw another SSD in this PC if I need to. Another caveat: I’m not using sleep mode at all since that’s widely reported to cause lots of problems, and I’ve read that on several different PC forums. I have it shutting my display off but nothing more than that.

It may fall apart tomorrow but the first 24 hours with this thing have been a great experience. I also got a keyboard and mouse in the box which I didn’t know I was getting, so yay spares, and I got a year of Dell service that I also didn’t know about. It feels good to be back.

tl;dr be a smooth criminal and go alienware

EDIT: 1 week later
Still performing flawlessly. It did a hard reboot a few days ago but left a dump file, and when I looked at it in windbg it had been caused by easy anti-cheat throwing what looked to me like a null pointer (EAC has aways been a little flaky). Temps are still great, this thing runs surprisingly cool and quiet.

EDIT: 2 months later
Best PC I’ve ever owned. Works perfectly, delivers the framerates, runs cool as a cucumber. Main games: crossout, war thunder, rdr2, bg3, planet crafter, state of decay 2, journey (weird game), skyrim + mods (this can sweat your PC more than anything, runs great/cool)

Revision. Computer powered down a couple times and stopped working 1 day before the 30 days Amazon return deadline. I was able to return and get my money back. I have since read similar complaints. Of course I would not recommend!
Initial review
In a world where everything is getting smaller, this computer is massive, it’s a beast. It’s both massive and heavy! Delivery was fast. The box and the protective foam is well made and provide adequate protection for shipping. Installation is simple. I have not put it’s processing power to the test yet, but so far so good!

This pc came to me used open box! It would not even run properly! It had virus software on it that would not let win 11 do updates ! If i did not know about pc and software like most people ; i would have had to just ship it back to them!

This is my first Alienware purchase and after reading some negative reviews I still went ahead with the purchase. I’m very happy with the product and the negative reviews I read where completely wrong. The computer came and when turning it on I was getting no Screen and thought I got a broken shipped Alienware product like a review I read, I called the Tech number and was quickly connected to Tech support who had me open it up and take the Graphics card wire out and put it back in. That was the problem the computer wire was not pushed all the way in and not that I pushed it in I have the computer up and running and the games I play on this run and look incredible. I recommend this product because there are alot more things I could write about but I’m too lazy to write anymore, so short and simple, a Excellent Product!