Alienware Aurora R15 Gaming PC Review: Re-Designed For Peak Performance
by
Dave Altavilla
—
Thursday, March 16, 2023, 01:00 PM EDT
Alienware Aurora R15 Acoustics And Thermal Performance, And Our Review Conclusion
We spent some time monitoring noise levels and temperatures while we subjected the Alienware Aurora to a battery of gaming tests. As you can see here, in F1 22, under a looped, continuous gaming workload, the system only emanated roughly 42.5 dB of acoustic output, which was about 10 dB over our room's ambient noise floor.
Alienware Aurora R15 Fully Loaded CPU And GPU While Overclocked
This is perhaps our most tell-tale test with the new Alienware Aurora R15. Here you can see fully-loaded CPU and GPU workloads, with both Cinebench R23, as well as 3DMark's Speed Way DX 12 Ultimate gaming and graphics test running simultaneously. The result is that our Core i9-13900KF 24-core CPU hovers in the 90ºC range, which is expected -- at higher power levels, the Core i9-13900KF will use as much thermal headroom as possible to maximize performance. Meanwhile, NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090 sits at a cool and quiet 69ºC, which is, in a word, excellent.
Dell and Alienware finally nailed the thermal solution with the Aurora R15, and this gaming PC is up to virtually any gaming or content creation workload you can throw at it, which it will handle with well-mannered grace.
Alienware Aurora R15 Review Conclusions:
The Alienware Aurora R15 is a force to be reckoned with among high-volume, pre-built gaming PC offerings. It's redesigned thermal solution supports great performance for the new Intel 13th Gen processor platform and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs that power it. There are, however, some caveats that most gaming and PC enthusiasts will want to take into consideration versus more standard competitive boutique gaming PC options on the market, like Maingear's MG-1, for example.
First and foremost, Dell powers the Aurora R15 with proprietary motherboard and power supply designs. Though the rest of the system is built with off-the-shelf components for things like CPU, GPU, RAM and even the combo Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth M.2 radio module, these aforementioned primary subsystems will need to be replaced with Dell-Alienware parts exclusively, should one ever fail. This may be a deal-breaker for some enthusiasts, but for the mainstream consumer, this is likely not much of a concern.
That said, Alienware's mostly tool-less design makes this gaming PC a breeze to work on, even if you're a novice, with a quick access guide printed right on the bottom, once you pull its vented side panel. The system layout is also meticulous and Alienware's new 240mm heat exchanger does its job well, with well-mannered acoustics and very reasonable system temps, even under heavy gaming or content creation workloads. Not to mention, if you like Alienware's Legend 2.0 design language, this machine looks futuristically-cool. We really like the design of Alienware's Aurora R15, and it's not just form over function either with this rig, as its thermals and serviceability are solid as well.
From a cost standpoint, the Aurora R15 configuration we tested retails for $4,588 currently, though Dell may have some coupon deals in the works. Though this price is steep, the GeForce RTX 4090 on board alone is at least a $1,700 cost adder, and Alienware's entry level pricing is just $1399. In other words, this is a competitively priced machine as well, that you can configure according to your personal taste and budget.
We have no problem recommending the Alienware Aurora R15, as long as folks know what they're getting into. This is a well-designed, well-behaved gaming PC that is built on the latest and greatest platform technologies on the market today. The Aurora R15 puts up great gaming and content creation performance and looks great doing it.
