Alienware has revealed its upcoming flagship desktop, the revamped Aurora R15, designed to pack powerful hardware – just be prepared to pay an arm and a leg for it.
The company is quite vague in revealing what kind of graphics card will be in the Aurora R15. According to the ad (opens in new tab), the Aurora R15 is designed to support GPUs from NVIDIA’s recently announced GeForce RTX 40 series. Alienware even drops the name 4090 model GPU. The company also mentions support for graphics cards belonging to the AMD Radeon RX 6000 series and GeForce RTX 30-Series. Given the wording, this leads us to believe that the Aurora R15 could have different models based on different graphics cards. We’ve reached out to Alienware for clarification. This story will be updated if we hear back.
Alienware also announced its new 34-inch curved gaming monitor and Tenkeyless gaming keyboard to create a complete PC setup. All three devices will be released in the US and Canada later this year. The exact date has not yet been revealed.
Aurora R15
Aside from the mystery GPUs, Alienware has revealed some specific details. The desktop will contain the latest “13th generation Intel Core K-series” processors formerly known by their code name Raptor Lake. Like the graphics card, the exact processor model is unknown, but we can at least expect good performance. Even the slowest of the Raptor Lake processors has a maximum turbo frequency of 5.1 GHz. For memory, it will be DDR5 4800MHz RAM of an as yet unspecified size.
For cooling, the Aurora R15 has multiple solutions. It is equipped with a 240mm liquid cooling system and five different 120mm fans. The chassis will have two exhaust fans at the top, one at the back and two intake fans at the front. There are hexagonal vents on the side for additional cooling. And if that’s not too much, the computer motherboard will have its own “voltage regulator radiators”.
All this hardware, as you can imagine, will require a lot of power. Feeding this beast will be a 1350W power supply, which is apparently designed to support the aforementioned RTX 4090 GPU, according to Alienware. The price of the Aurora R15 has not been revealed. Considering the fact that the desktop will have some powerful technologies, it’s safe to say that it won’t be cheap. To give you an idea of what it could be, the currently available Aurora Ryzen Edition R14 desktop starts at $1,299.99 and uses NVIDIA’s legacy 30-series GPUs.
Monitor and keyboard
With a PC this powerful, you’re going to need a proper monitor, and the Gaming Monitor ($1,099.99) seems to be up to the task. The QD-OLED (Quantum Dot) display is displayed with a resolution of 3440×1440 pixels and has a response time of 0.1 ms, which is vital for moments of intense gaming. There’s nothing worse than losing a game because your monitor can’t handle it. Other features include a 165Hz refresh rate along with Quantum Dot technology for deep blacks plus wider color coverage. For those long gaming sessions, the monitor is TUV-certified for ComfortView Plus to reduce blue light and protect against eye strain.
The Tenkeyless Keyboard ($129.99) looks like a regular gaming keyboard, complete with the typical RGB lights, but underneath the surface is a pretty solid device. Its name is a reference to the fact that it lacks a numeric keypad, allowing it to be more compact. The keycaps themselves are coated with two layers of plastic called PBT (polybutylene terephthalate) for increased durability. Inside the caps are a series of CHERRY MX Red switches that have a gold layer for easier cleaning and corrosion protection.
Pretty strong performance for a flagship PC. We can’t wait to see this thing in action.
If you are interested in a gaming PC, be sure to check out our recently updated list consisting of cheap and more powerful options.
https://www.techradar.com/news/alienware-reveals-potentially-powerful-and-expensive-desktop-the-aurora-r15/
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