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I bought one yesterday. With what I was going to build myself I saved about $2000, although I was going to liquid cool everything, I'm still happy that your review saw things my way. I ordered it pretty much the same way, i9 12900KF, 3090, 64GB DDR5 Dual Channel, and a 2TB SSD. I did take advantage of the 0% financing if I pay it off in less than one year, which I have the money now so it's no problem. Great review by the way, keep it up!!
I ended up not getting it, they kept delaying the order. I ended up buying a pre-built. I couldn’t built what I bought for the price, so I made my own adjustments and added a little more DDR5
Hey there Justin! So, let's say I'm a noob and possibly an idiot. Will this Alienware Aurora R13 stream TH-cam videos and movies that are available in 4K, in actual 4K? Seamlessly and smooth as butter 4K @ 120Hz, or will it only do 1080p? And will I be able to use it with my HDMI 2.1 on my TV? I don't know if this has an HDMI port for 4K. It doesn't say so on the website. Thank you so much!
Hey Rheana yes it will stream 4K in actual 4k at 120hz as long as you are outputting to a monitor that can handle 4k at 120hz. If your TV is 4K then the HDMI port that it has will be able to display 4k content from your computer. Hope this helps! :)
#4 con: upgradeability, if later down the line you want to upgrade/ replace your PSU using common parts, you can't because it's using a weird Standard and I doubt any PSU we as a consumer can get will fit in there, as well as the motherboard because it isn't standard ATX or E-ATX or Micro-ATX or a Mini-ATX, plus the tiny space, height wise, you have for the GPU will be a chocking hazard especially with newer GPUs going 3 slot.
@@JustinTechTips Hello I’ve been wondering i ordered the r13 with 16 gb of ram. It finally arrived but now im wondering if I can upgrade it to 32 Gb it would be nice if I had an answer to this problem
I would but in canada i already did the estimates and costs and looked for best deals and the pc i'm getting from dell would come over 6+k vs dell charging me 4.2k this how it is thanks to scalpers and miners hording the gpus.Hell the 3080ti in my country would come up over $3k and thats not including taxes and shipping.Building your own was good years ago but now with miners around its fucked it up
Yeah I agree with Johnny, miners have made the build your own market more expensive than the prebuilts. Building your own will most likely have better performance though.
Anyone else expecting their device sometime next week? Only to be told today that due to an unforeseen part shortage, it will only be delivered in February?
Sorry to hear that Eric, that sounds pretty annoying. Yeah a lot of comments on here are saying the same thing. I think the closer they get to the holidays the more trouble they are having.
Yes. I ordered end of Nov and was told Dec 10th delivery. I’m still waiting as of February 12th. I think it’s just the world supply chain. Hope you got it by now!
update on the stolen r13, so i looked on the camera and the ups guy scanned it and then put it back in his truck and drove away, I contacted ups and they said they would find the driver and see what they will do...
Woa! OMG that's crazy! I can't believe he thought he could get away with that! Also pretty annoying of DELL to not have a more discrete packaging so people don't know what it is.
I ordered this the end of Nov. Mine came FEDEX but it was “damaged out” a few miles from my house. I wondered if theft was an issue. Still waiting for the replacement. Fingers crossed. I hope you got yours!
Good review. I got the R13 with a more modest configuration: RTX3080/32GB-RAM/I-7. In addition to the 10% savings by going with Dell Financing, I was also fortunate enough to get an additional 15% back through a Rakuten special. Combined, that was a significant cost savings. Now I just need to find room for this monster!
As an update, still loving the Dell R13, and the Rakuten money finally posted this week as well ($435). As an additional perk, I had $135 in Dell rewards from the purchase, which resulted in a net cost of $27 for a Samsung Gen 4 1TB NVMe.
At the time, I had no idea that some laptops only run off the internal GPU when unplugged, then kick in to the dedicated GPU when plugged in. I called Dell Support and asked why I don't see my graphics card in the Nvidia display options when it is unplugged, and after an hour of troubleshooting, they didn't know why either.
Woa Dell support didn't know that? I'm glad you got that situated though Vincarro! Yeah gaming with the internal GPU is a pretty rough experience for sure
Awesome review - thank you for doing the SSD speed test - was trying to find that somewhere. I agree with all your PRO's n CON's. I normally do custom builds, but went with an R13 because I didn't have much interest in waiting for months to piece something together. The fact that it supports all the next gen stuff was a huge factor as well. *I do find it a little hilarious that the command center desktop graphic doesn't match the case color you ordered. Alot of people hate on Alienware and pre-built anything for that matter - I usually agree with them. But in this market, the OEM prices are fair market value for once.
Yeah it seems like a pretty easy software detail to have it match what I'm actually using but it seems like the Alienware Command Center staff is still on their long vacation still. Yeah OEM prices in an inflated market are much more competitive for sure
@@JustinTechTips Was alos going to mention - just setup my R13 today - that I needed to go an hunt for the latest ethernet drivers. I was only getting 170Mb down when I have 1200Mb internet. Kinda lame I had to fix my own PC day one. But if anyone asks, the drivers fixes the issue.
Alienware should never be purchased. Yes, even during the GPU crisis. Only uninformed people buy Alienware. If you need an all-in-one, get one that doesn't use proprietary parts. Also, Dell is, in general, a terrible company..
@@googlewolly "uninformed"... Alienware isnt an AIO and apart from the MB and PSU, nothing else is proprietary... Im not gonna spend months piecemealing a build together.
Dell just expedited mine, they put it in production, finsihed the same day, and is now shipped, arrives December 24th! Edit: Arrived December 22nd! Glad to have it, and I will set it up and fire it up tonight!
@@JustinTechTips Thanks! My shipping just got made yesterday, how long did it take for you to see it in transit once the label was made and the package was visible?
Thanks for the info! I was wondering what to get for college, and now I can rest easy knowing that I don't have to get something crazy expensive with maxed out specs to game reasonably.
Great videos, you’ve really done all the hard work for me! I was curious if you ever smoke test PCs to visualize the airflow through the chassis? Also, would you be able to elaborate on what would be necessary to add Thunderbolt 3? To my understanding, you would use a PCI card, but there’s no Thunderbolt header on the mobo either. Additionally the other two 4x PCIe slots are Gen3 which would seem a little slow for Thunderbolt 3. Thanks!
Thank you for this video. I just ordered a similar R13 but with a 3080 and 32GB Of DDR5 4400MHz RAM and feel much better about my purchase. Never thought I would purchase anything from Alienware but the current state of things made it the best option for me.
Was thinking about the pros on these machines and I would have to say the #1 pro for me is the support. Dell support reps aren’t always great and it sometimes takes a bit of back and forth to get the right solution from them but in the end they do stand behind the product and the systems I’ve had to replace were always sent to me before I sent in my system. Was never asked to send in mine first (including a monitor) and I’ve never been asked to send out for a factory repair as everything is usually repaired in my home with on site. I don’t know how the others stack up against that but a few years back my asus support required that I send it to them for a reapair that could take 6 week.
I agree David. I've had onsite support from them before and it is was great. That's a huge deal as most people don't have a backup computer when they need to get work done. Weeks without a computer is not doable for most people
Honestly this is why I think I’m going to choose them… I was looking at origin pc, I buy power.. at the end of the day Dells customer service can’t be beaten
Great review like always...I have the same R13 you have and very happy with it, I did change the three fans with Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM chromax Black swap and I notice a big difference in noise and temperature, this weekend I'm also going to repasted the GPU and add Heatsink with RGB on the RAM, plus Heatsink on the M.2 NVME. Keep up with your great work.
Thank you Mario! Yeah I'm really excited to implement the upgrades this next week and squeeze as much performance out of this machine as I can. Wow good job on those other upgrades. You're going all out! It's probably going to help out a good bit though.
I have an R8, fully loaded like yours, and it has been a VERY reliable PC. I have it on the top of my computer desk and can barely hear any noise. Its benchmark scores are not that great. Alienware is very conservative when setting up their PCs to not stress the components. I plan to upgrade to the R13, maxed out, and expect it to be as reliable as my R8. Buying the best is never a terrible decision, especially regarding support and warranty.
Much thanks Justin! After watching your video I decided to fulfill one of my dreams, which is possessing an Alienware R13. I ended up getting 286$ off from total bill using financing and you know what I messed up because I talked to a sales rep and he got me a 8-9% discount deal form the original bill but I said I get a better discount using the financing. I should've taken the discount from the sales rep and apply the financing afterwards...
Oh wow Maxime! I wonder if that would have worked? Such a large discount on top of another discount. You're still way ahead of most everyone else when it comes to discounts with what you got though! 🙂
I know some moan about alienware shipping speed however my son just bought this and it arrived Earlier than expected by a whole WEEK! also in uk right now they have 15% off and a something they don't tell you Dell gives you an extra 10% off if you work for NHS you have to speak to chat agent who will give you link to put your details in to get a code.... but worth the 10 mins it takes
I ordered the r13 the end of November and am still waiting. Was expected with current world supply chains, but am excited to get my hands on it. Ty for the video.
Good video man. I've been purchasing Alienware laptops and PC's since like 06' and I've never had any issues with them. They are great products and are much easier to obtain than building one yourself. I even had a laptop sent to me in Iraq lol
O nice! Yeah I've always had a soft spot for Alienware too. This one seems pretty solid, but I do think there is something holding the performance back from reaching it's full potential.
@@JustinTechTips It's probably the Alienware-specific components. Shaved down GPU, motherboard and off brand ram/ssd's. They gotta cut costs wherever they can.
@@JustMe007 it definitely does matter if we are talking about incredibly cheaply manufactured components. Alienwares have cheap proprietary Mobos, cheap proprietary plastic cases, cheap proprietary PSUs, cheap fans, cheap coolers, and usually cheap ram and storage. My iPhone was made in china, and so are $200 off brand smartphones. It doesn’t make them equal, lol.
Hey Justin. Not sure if you've seen tjfast's videos at all for this machine, but once he reapplied thermal paste and changed out the fans he saw about a 10 degree temp difference. I think with the Aurora 13 3090 config, changing the fans are going to be a requirement.
Hey MrDemeanor, I haven't seen that video yet but I will definitely go check it out! 10 degrees is definitely worth it. I hope it helps with performance but temps didn't really seem to be that close to throttling temps unless there's something deeper within Alienware's software that starts semithrottling at cooler temps
@@JustMe007 it is a common practice. Nvidia does the same thing with cheap thermal pads and intel/amd do the same thing by not using a good liquid metal on the cpu housings to further improve thermals. Companies are designed to make money.
Also, those temps are pretty normal, especially for a 3090. The cpu temp is pretty good too for the single cooler AIO. Usually you see a little lower with 240mms. I think performing the fan swaps on the build will be a good change. Im also sure the AIO could be improved by adding a second fan to it. Note, that windows 11 is extremely hindering to gaming atm with the 12 series CPUs. The games don't know how to handle the CPU offload code.
Yeah I wish it was easy to downgrade to Windows 10 with a machine that came with 11 but it seems like its a lot harder than that. I performed an SSD swap with Windows 10 on it and it wouldn't accept it. I do feel that some of the performance issues are probably due to Windows 11 and yeah I wish there was some room to add a second fan to the AIO.
@@JustinTechTips Unfortunately the 12th gen CPUs don't like windows 10. There is a list of games that will crash to desktop with no error, and the list continues to grow. It is mainly ubisoft titles and games that have DRM on it. Yeah I'm just going to add my old SSDs to the bays for storage and suffer the updates of 11, while nuking as much of the bloatware as I can. You could always add a fan to the case and AIO with extended screws from another AIO. But you would just have to wire it to the mobo and set the speed to like 100% to be effective. I'm sure with some upgrades from AWs stock design, the specs will be a beast. And if push comes to shove. At least I have a 3080, a 12900kf, and DDR5 Ram now. Heh. Massive upgrade from my 4790k and ddr3
I am still in the waiting phase of getting a new computer. But I have been really going back and forth with buying a prebuild like this or building one myself. You make a lot of good points and I do like the design of this one. I'll just have to wait and see what is available when I am ready to pull the trigger on a new computer.
@@EndergoNx facts right there. this video here is ignoring all kinds of problems with Alienware. i'm pretty sure this guy got special treatment from Dell, because their customer service is some of the worst in the industry. The gamers nexus video about the R14 and R13 are a much more honest, and realistic review of these proprietary ass pre builts. The terrible proprietary motherboard, powersupply and case makes this computer so much worse of a value proposition than a DIY build. and now that GPU prices have gone down, the value is even worse with these prebuilts. the case of these alienwares really are some of the worst cases ever for thermals and air flow. just looking at it, its obvious how bad the case is. the water cooler radiator is behind the main rear fan too. meaning the air flow inside the case is even worse. dont even get me started on the motherboard and power supply too. those two things alone make these computers a terrible deal.
I have the aurora r8 and looking to upgrade soon - but my machines still a beast. The only issue ive had with my machine was the thermals while gaming, but i replaced the thermal paste and fixed my issue.
1 week after update and installation of a 2tb 980 Pro M.2.: This pc is a beast. I was skeptical about Alienware and the R13 is a HUGE improvement over any AW products to date. My build has 64GB of DDR5, 3080 (Ti performance wasn't worth the 500 dollar increase), 12900KF, 1TB M.2 Boot, improved water cooling, and in white. 1 year of on site support for free as well. Performance: Wow. It is a beast of a machine. My thermals are fantastic on both the CPU and GPU(after installing Afterburner to create fan speed profiles). The machine boots stupid fast and multitasking is an absolute breeze. After clean installing the latest GPU drivers and updating it FULLY, it really makes the difference in its performance. My thermals don't get over 50c on the CPU and the GPU sits around 65-75c depending on the game. Which is impressive. Gaming: A whole new world... I have it connected to a Samsung G7 32" 1440p monitor and wow...after applying my profile for colors, this thing runs everything maxed with absolute no effort. No stuttering, no crashes, no audio crackle(though I use a G6 Soundblaster DAC). I would heavily recommend sticking to 1440p for any computer as it is the current standard and boasts the best performance for GPUs. Siege, Warhammer 2, Witcher 3, FFXIV w/shaders, GTAV, Heavily Modded FO4, And more, all are fantastic with FPS and overall performance. My Recommendations: Change out the thermal paste to a better solution. It will greatly improve the thermals, especially when overclocking. Change out the fans to better performing fans inside the case. Just be aware that the mounting may be a little difficult. Add another M.2 to the machine. Just be aware that a lot of the software like Samsung Magician is not updated to register the firmware on the motherboard just yet. Download MSI Afterburner to create custom fan profiles for the GPU and better control the thermals under load. FULLY UPDATE WINDOWS AND DRIVERS. Other than that, I am VERY happy with my build of the R13. I would have never thought I would have ever purchased an AW machine...but man...is this one worth it. (And yes. Get the R13 NOT the R14)
Very nice, Glad to hear your i9 is running cool. It’s a hotter chip compared to the i7. I saw a chart were the i7 runs almost 30c cooler under a load. I actually returned mine to get the i7 since it wouldn’t benefit my gaming much and wanted something cooler. Will 100% try that thermal paste
only thing thatlets this down is lack of rgb ram ..the plain green stock ram does in my opinion has an impact on what otherwise is a fantastic looking build.
@@JustinTechTips i got hyper x when i ordered my first aurora r7 m8 but cost extra .. cant see the logic tbh lol..sgould give u decent ram from the start for the price we pay everything else is amazing in my opinion buddy just the ram thing gets my goat up lol pet peeve so to speak :)
Great review Justin !!! I loved it. You've inspired me to get back into my old PC building hobby (obsession) I've had for years further fueled by the "Maximum PC" magazine that now comes out of the U.K.... again thank you so much Justin!... I'm so psyched !! I'll be watching your channel weekly and joining too...
Hey Justin, thanks for the review really appreciate the effort you put into this. Also appreciate your honesty. I purchased the exact same system, except in Dark side of the moon. Once thing that would be helpful would be to point out with the temps is how they compare to other systems. Are these temps within the normal range? Should others be worried about those temps, especially the VRAM temps?
Yeah that's a good idea Donedeal. I'll start to implement that more in the future. Especially as I try out more desktops as most of my reviews have just been with laptops so far
Awesome video with alot of great info, thanks. Im thinking of upgrading my old computer and do really like this Alienware. My question is, do I really need this much power for gaming. I enjoy playing XCOM 2 (WOTC) and my computer seems to lag and I cant play it on max settings. Would this be the gaming computer to get or is there a cheaper Alienware computer that would suit my needs. Thanks again for the great video and please help with any advice on my decision on what is best for me version to get.
Just mentioning this because you brought up NZXT as a similar option, there's something you all should know if you're considering NZXT's prebuilts. If they send you a dead-on-arrival (broken/junk) PC, they WILL NOT REFUND YOU ALL of the money. They will keep the $200 for BLITZ assembly, and they will keep the $100 for shipping. You will lose money, and they will profit money, if they send you a broken PC. Just mentioning it since JustIN compared it.
Great video. I had an Aurora R8 from 2019. It was specced with an i7 9700, 32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB RAM, and a 5700XT. It died last month to what I believe was overheating. I was very pissed, buy didn't feel like getting it "fixed" by a pro would be worth the cost in today's market. So I took out the 5700XT and sold it. That's when I came across these new rigs on Alienware. I love the design, so I decided to add the debt, and order one. I ordered the 12700 i7 model as the benchmarks showed me that the i9 doesn't offer any added performance for gaming. I also ordered the 6800XT as I felt it was a better bang for your buck in comparison to the 3080. The RTX 3080 beats it in some games, and in others the 6800XT Performs better (sans Ray tracing). My only mistake was accidentally getting only 8GB of DDR5 RAM. I want RGB RAM, but as you've stated, DDR5 in any form is impossible to find. So now we play the waiting game. Thankfully the 6800XT has 16GB of VRAM.
hmm I wonder if you can chat with Dell support to get some more RAM directly from them. Just doesn't make sense that you can only buy it initially with the computer purchase itself.
@@JustinTechTips Quite possibly. Although historically, Dell RAM has historically been basic and overpriced. I shudder to think how much they'd charge for another 8GB stick. Hopefully RGB RAM from G Skill or Corsair become available in the near future. Thanks for the reply. It may be an option if I'm left with no choice.
I get computer parts being expensive and this being cheaper then doing it urself. however buying a basic prebuilt from a different company that doesn't use such constrictive cases/motherboards and upgrading that. they have a 120m maybe 140m radiator on a cpu that runs incredibly hot under load. The lack of ventilation in general leads to rough temps. even if they aren't considered dangerous or problematic heating up ur room because ur case lacks intake or outtake is just silly for the price
Someone from Dell told me that the cable cover actually helps with thermals. But who knows if that's true. I ordered mine on Halloween and it's been delayed twice now.
@@ariawynn6221 I did get it. It was delivered right before Christmas. However, I ended up returning it because it wouldn't quit crashing and it smelled like burning plastic the second time I booted it up. I ended up buying an Origin pc instead.
IM EXCITED ! My tower should arrive here anyday now i went with a few specs lower but as you state it def. seemed like more bang for my buck go the 7.1 alien ware head set and 25" alien ware monitor ! Ive Enjoyed watching your videos and segment on this specific unit !
Thank you COASTFUSION! I'm really glad you are enjoying them! Really excited about my next video too, with the overclocking, repasting and fan upgrades. Really excited to see how much I can squeeze out of it.
Between the thermals and overall performance. This review really makes me respect how far laptops have come. They are legitimately competitive to mid and upper midrange desktops
Yeah I was thinking the same thing Xeem! The Alienware X series really wasn't too far off from these numbers considering how much smaller and thinner it is!
@@kzpeanut7967 people who don't have or want the space for a full gaming rig. I have always gamed on a laptop and my situation wouldn't be able to accommodate a desktop.
Another great video my man. Appreciate all the work you do and the improvements you make during your videos, it’s really coming together. Prices and demand are crazy right now, so I’m glad you were able to get this machine for a review. Keep up the good work my man.
Thank you SeKaiKage! I am very happy that you are enjoying these as I love making them! They do take a while but it's really worth it seeing that they are helping people 🙂
Will you do some GPU mining on it? Also I came from a comment you left on your last video and I almost couldn't find this one, I'd suggest you put this video at the ens of that one to Garner more traction. Awesome review.
Huge Con: Alienware ships with FedEx which so far has given me three delivery dates. Another one is the Dell support. I asked why my rig was delayed and was told that I bought it from a retailer when I bought it from Dell. At least I was able to escalate the issue and received an apology. Loved your video and one thing that would help those of us with TBI is a guide to initial settings. I’ve seen reports that some drivers need to be updated out of the box and am already a little apprehensive. Thanks for the tips on upgrading the fans. Overall, great video.
@@JustinTechTips well an update. It arrived in a damaged box but the computer seemed fine until we turned it on. Most horrifying sounds from the fans. Well we were replacing them anyway. That didn’t solve it. Turns out the last quality control checker ran it with the cover off and then shoved the cabling between the power supply and GPU. That caused the GPU Fan to impact that your edge of a zip tie. Moved the cables over and issue solved.
My thought for this unit, there are two major cons, 1. as you mentioned they still stick with 120mm aio 2. the power supply, 750w supply does not enough to feed this beast. Thus, in my opinion, for this R13 the specs should not go over i5+ 3080 or r7 5800x +3080 for R14. Anyways thanks for your review.
That "I will reply faster to subscribers' questions" thing was a great marketing idea. Dell should hire ya. Clicked the button instantly, in case I have a question in the future. My R13 will arrive in 4 days so I'm watching to figure out if there are any mods I should be thinking about, or any software/hardware anything that a techier person would know to do but I wouldn't...
Awesome! I'm glad that new tactic is encouraging people to hit that glorious red button 🙂! Hopefully my upgrades and overclocking video will be complete this next week and it will help you squeeze the max performance out of yours. Thanks for the sub Noah!
Great review and very helpful! I'm also about to purchase my own r13 really soon. Your videos are being very handy in order to have a glimse of how the machine works. Unfortunately there are not many reviews done yet about this model. Any thoughts on the difference in performance, temperature and noise between going for an i7 or an i9 processor? I'm planning to use this computer almost just for gaming(probably some light music production but I already have a Mac for that matter), with a 3080 and 2TB SSD. I can't really justify choosing the i9 other than for 'future proofing' my set up. When it comes strictly to gaming, what is the i9 offering that cannot be done by an i7? I would also like to ask if both of the empty hard drive slots available(top and bottom) can house an SSD drive for storage. Mostly asking about the top one as it seems bigger. Thank you in advace for any answer, it's much appreciated. And thank you again for the content you make, it's really helpful and well made!
Great questions Toni! Sorry for the late reply! A little backed up with comments at the moment. For just gaming I wouldn't say the i9 would be worth it for you. 3080 with an i7 is a really solid choice for what you need. Yes both hard drive slots can house an SSD. I'm glad these videos are helping you!
It is true each DDR5 stick is dual channel, however, channel width in DDR5 is only 40bit each (32bit data +8 bit ECC). For DDR4, each stick is only one channel, with 72bit channel width (64bit data + 8bit ECC). In another word, at the same frequency, say 4400 MHz, single channel DDR4 has the same theoretical bandwidth compared to dual channel DDR5. So you still need two DDR5 sticks to get the full bandwidth at "Quad channel" (128bit) configuration. Just thought this might be helpful :)
Thank you Zhu Qing. From my understanding, to me it sounded as though that is still faster because it allows the CPU to simultaneously access the same stick of RAM more than once. There's definitely some potential of these sticks left on the table since there hasn't been much time yet for necessary optimizations in both hardware and software to use these sticks to the best of their abilities.
@@JustinTechTips Hi JustIN, I believe what you are referring to is memory interleaving. It is available for single stick dual bank memories. Interleaving is not new to DDR5 though, dual bank sticks from DDR1 to DDR5 all support interleaving. If your memory stick is single bank, interleaving will be available if you insert 4 sticks. I remember linus tech tips has a video about this in the past.
Great review...I have been chewing on the idea of picking up the Ryzen R14 but it's been hard to find a deep dive into these PC's. You have covered them very well and given me lots to think about before buying. Keep it up man...New Sub here
this seems like a great pc i had an aurora for 6 years and the case was so small i couldnt fit a new gpu if i wanted too. this seems more upgradeable loved the review !
Glad you enjoyed it Ayah! Yes there is plenty of room in there for a larger GPU now. It will be big enough for even the 4000 series GPUs when they come out
Hello I’ve been wondering i ordered the r13 with 16 gb of ram. It finally arrived but now im wondering if I can upgrade it to 32 Gb it would be nice if I had an answer to this problem
I have the r10 and im still happy with it. Im happy to c Alienware going in the right direction. Last gen was good build quality but nothing close to this one.
@Gerardo Gonzalez idk man... i got good benchmark with it, good fps in game, no bottle neck, do the job. And the pc cost me 90$ more then i have build it myself. I got my r10 for almost a year now and no trouble with it. Do i did the deal of the year buying that? No... but it do the job i was expected very well.
I've bought alienware for years, before Dell bought them. I've never bad any issues. I did get the R14 Ryzen edition with the Radeon 6900 X. I saved $1,300, I've built PCs in the past, but I don't see an issue buying one especially if you can find a deal.
This seems like a great pc! Do you know any information about it being able to run on a virtual reality headset? I have an Oculus Quest 2 and I was wondering if I could get a link cable from the Oculus website and connect it to the pc, and how good it would be.
Hey gryxies, sorry for the late reply! Oh yes this machine would have a great VR experience connecting it to the Oculus Quest 2. I recommend you get at least a 3070 or 3080 GPU though.
Yo!!! Loved the lightsaber opening. Great looking machine. Just got my X17 R1 3070 165Hz. Was trying to test it side by side with my MSI GE76 Raider 3060 144Hz and wasn’t seeing a ton of difference between a brighter/crisper screen. Was getting about the same thermals and fps as far as I could see, but I haven’t messed with the X17 settings much. Not sure if I can justify the $847 price difference. :-( X17 is so pretty though. What would you do if you had the choice? 😂
hmm that's a tough one. If the best deals for both really are a $847 difference, I would say the beautiful X17 and amazing keyboard aren't worth the price jump if the thermals and fps are about the same
Great review, I’ve been waiting for this for a while. I’ve an R7 so I contemplated getting the R13 but the increase in price for the case alone makes this a challenge to consider. I did have an R10 on order but cancelled it due to concerns with thermals… After seeing this review it all feels a bit “meh”.. so might go down the build your own and I haven’t done that for 27 years!
@@JustinTechTips true but not by much 😁 cooling is a bigger deal now! And I think the failure rate for parts is much lower - used to be quite infuriating at times 🤣
When I was a very young kid and was just getting into appreciating computers and Technology Alienware was one of those dreams I had that if I ever acquire enough money that I would buy myself something from Alienware. I got really close and then I found out that Dell got involved with Alienware and if I'm correct bought out Alienware. And everything that Alienware stood for and everything that it was basically got pooped on. But I will say that no matter what I am still an Alienware fanboy and I will continue being an Alienware fanboy. The logo and the name and everything that it stood for at one point is why I will continue loving and supporting Alienware.
I watched all the video, I have an Alienware R7 and I'm often, recently thinking about upgrading I'm not sure the latest thing is the best option to go for perhaps something more prior to the latest I know the R7 is about 4 years old now and I suppose I just want something that's very up-to-date right now that I can work and upgrade with as I go on, ultimately I'm trying to figure out is it worth upgrading what I've got or entirely upgrading to something new.
@JustIn Tech Tips this is a follow up comment and this needs to be brought to light and made public badly The R13 and the XPS 8950 which seem to share a motherboard but not the same BIOS (which is dell being very odd). Have a major Design Flaw were very few PCIe x4 cards will work in those expansion ports. Case in point the Elgato 4k60 expansion card will not work with these systems currently. Though Dell branded cards seem to work without issue. So if you want to use these 12th gen systems for Live streaming your limited to the usb only option.
I just prefer to build my own. Even with GPU prices the way they are I can build for a better price than this and even if I couldn't, I'd prefer not to be stuck with a proprietary motherboard and such.
Thank you Mike! Technically I think they did compromise a little bit. This 3090 was fast but didn't perform as fast as a full sized 3090. Thermals weren't bad but it could have been a little faster
Sorry for the late reply Infer. The fastest one is definitely this one but I actually like the X series laptops a little better because they cost less and are more portable
Design is the no. 1 pro. Which also makes it the no.1 con for me because the mobo and psu are so un upgradable . It will never out perform a custom build PC. And a 3090 for 3300$, you can get them on amazon tomorrow for about 2700$. I spent 1600$ on my msi 3090 and have been able to buy 2 3090s on the Newegg shuffle.
Hey Jonathan how did you get lucky enough to get in on a Newegg shuffle product like that twice? Everything I've seen has said it's a lot harder than that to actually get a product like this one on Newegg Shuffle
@@petersonfamily6223 9700k OC to 5.1 GHz 32gb ram 3600mhz MSI Ventus 3090 OC And with that I'm using the AW3420DW which is a ultrawide 3440x1440p at 120hz Why do you need help with anything PC related?
That's a great idea Rokket! It's a green screen with a BG from Envato. Just go here 1.envato.market/vnDArv and type "hexagon glow" for the same video wall I usually use
It is not possible to upgrade anything almost on this proprietary dell/Alienware pc. The case is a 20 year old case, covered up with plastic panels to hide the fact. The motherboard is proprietary af, can not be replaced so you can not upgrade to newer cpu when you want to, and motherboard is terribly cheap built at that. The ram is cheapest green non heatsink ram I have seen. Gpu seems fine. Psu proprietary once again. Dell has created a good looking, poor quality, not upgradable, proprietary, overpriced pice of ****. And worst of all, it will all be e-waist in a few years cuz you can not replace old or broken parts after lets say 5 years. Don’t buy. Also watch gamersnexus video about it if you want a honest review.
@@nattenaniel Yes, I have given up on Dell many years ago. The last prebuilt I bought was an HP Omen which at least wasn't all proprietary and had parts you could replace and reuse elsewhere. Now I just build my own.
@@Wigglythegreat2 Good idea, makes me so sad/angry to watch the review wich mentions nothing about the longgevity of the parts and product, and read comments on this video saying they are gona get it cuz it looks cool or so and so. I have built my own pc's for many years now, like you. So we know what is acceptable. But this behavure by Dell to screw people ower and create e-waist whilst doing so makes me so angry.
I’m pretty new to computer gaming so a couple years ago I went to Best Buy and bought an expensive Alienware laptop and I’ve always had good luck with dell I just wonder why anybody that I talk to you that is a computer person says you shouldn’t buy Alienware because you’re paying for the name and so on but I think they look awesome
The laptops have a great reputation of being super powerful and fast but up until recently they also had a reputation of being too hot. Unfortunately there are other prebuilds that perform a little better than this desktop.
@@JustinTechTipsI spent the last week watching videos one after another every single night for a week because I wanted to try something different than Alienware and I got to the point where my head just freaking hurt and I circle back to this one mainly because it had the DDR5 ram that is supposedly eventually going to be 50% faster, It was available, I didn’t have to wait a month and it’s just looks so damn cool. Any tips on switching to keyboard I’ve been mouse and controllering in my left hand for like a year and I just cannot wrap my head around the keyboard I know I just got to keep practicing but it sucks to suck lol
I can’t stop looking at this thing!! It’s so damn beautiful!!!! I know the slightly downgraded version is probably better and more reasonable for my use but the longer I look at it the more I just want it with everything in it!!!
Haha yeah it is a beauty for sure Vaughan! Especially when I turn all the lights off at night! But then my wife asks me to turn it off becaus it's "hard to sleep" with it on.. Women..
Mine was supposed to be shipped December 9th on December 11th I got a message saying that its Now shipping hopefully January 12th graphics card delay apparently so what do you do from dying a little bit everyday Until the computer is delivered?
Great review! I really like the design and it's about time they moved away from the stupid power supply swing thing. Also nice that the board has an extra m.2 slot for added capacity.
Agreed i have replaced my R7 with this R13 and am stoked. The R7 always struggled to stay cool, no surprise when you put a brick on an arm between the intake and exhaust fan. Still say one of Dells major conjuring tricks was to persuade people to buy a non liquid cooled version of the R7. It was very loud lol.
Great review. I just ordered mine today with the rtx3080 and the i7 processor since this seemed like the best value for the money. However I ordered one with the base streetfighter cooling system (not the cryotech one) since I found the price increase a bit steep. I just hope it can handle the temperatures of the i7, we will see. :) Anyway so hyped for the pc to come! Keep up the great reviews!
Thank you Dr. Heisenberg! Congrats on the new machine! With that configuration, I do think that you will benefit from upgrading 3 of the 4 fans. Keep an eye out for my video about those and the GPU repasting
I enjoyed watching your video; however, you stated that the R13 would need an adapter for a Thunderbolt capability. The R13 cannot receive any adapter for Thunderbolt as the R13 doesn't have Thunderbolt header on the motherboard. Moving this forward for those who want an equivalent Thunderbolt capability R13 (like myself) we will have to wait for USB4 PCIe card releases with PCIe 5.0 on the R13 motherboard. Thank you
Great video!!! I think that the average consumer will get between a 3060 and 3080 as you stated. That should be more than enough for the average consumer. This was like that special kinda review for a select few people that will actually need, can afford, or just want for the hell of it all of that compute power. Most people would kill to have Red Dead Redemption run at 70fps at 4k. 😆. Nonetheless, still great to see how big of a leap Dell has made from it's last generation to this one in aesthetics and performance.
Yeah it's hard for me to complain about such high numbers as I'm used to laptop reviews but I do have to compare it other desktops with the same specs and some of them are getting a bit higher results.
Hey Justin. I'm thinking of ordering mine with 3080 + i7 + 16gb rab + cryotech cooling. Do those specs sound fine or should I be upgrading some of these? I will only use it for gaming. Great review btw!
You rock Justin, I keep waiting for your videos to drop. I am curious though, when you open up the machine to show us the internals, does it void the warranty or support agreement? or how does that work?
Hey shoeson333 on a Dell support forum, one of the Admins that work for Dell said this.. "The act of disassembling, cleaning thermal paste, applying new thermal paste, reassembly in itself does not void the warranty. If you break any components WHILE doing the work, that would void the warranty." So basically it doesn't void it, but if you break something, they aren't responsible for that broken component
I can't wait for mine, I just ordered one with: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 ,NVIDIA(R) GeForce RTX(TM) 3070 8GB GDDR6 LHR, 16GB Dual Channel DDR5 at 4400MHz; up to 128GB, 512GB NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD (Boot) + 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s
I have the R13 with 12700k and 3080ti and your thermals and accoustics are way better than mine. Under load my fans are in the 60-70db (going to replace fans with Noctuas). GPU temp is 78-81degrees in games, which was higher than I was hoping for. There is also some weird behaviour with GPU when trying to undervolt, where power draw and temps don't drop despite reducing voltage to 0.850v, but boost clocks jump up noticeably.
Hey Chris, I wonder if you are actually getting better performance out of your GPU and CPU than I am and that's why you're resulting in higher temps and louder fans. What are your fan RPMs and do you have any game benchmarks or 3D Mark results you can share?
@@JustinTechTips I don't think I am. Running stock this setup seems to hit some bios gpu thermal limit ( 80ish degree) and then scale back performance, clocks drop from 1850-1920MHz down to 1725-1755MHz. TimeSpy score running stock settings is 17907 (GPU 18608 CPU 14760) which is way below where a system with these specs should be. Using AWCC performance default fans seem to only ramp up to about 35-40% under load but they are very loud fans. Worth noting ambient temperatures here, I'm in Australia(Summer) with about 25degree ambient, guessing thats a bit warmer than where you are. Undervolting GPU to 0.850v/1845MHz improves performance noticeably, TimeSpy 1855 (GPU 19432 CPU 14738)
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No, i don't have enough money, even i don't have money 😅😅😅
You mean you don't just have $4000+ laying around Flang? 🤑
@@JustinTechTips wtf, are you kidding, i don't have money, 😂
jk lol, yeah it is a lot of money. I don't have enough for it either. I have to send it back soon
@@JustinTechTips means this was for review only 😂
I bought one yesterday. With what I was going to build myself I saved about $2000, although I was going to liquid cool everything, I'm still happy that your review saw things my way. I ordered it pretty much the same way, i9 12900KF, 3090, 64GB DDR5 Dual Channel, and a 2TB SSD. I did take advantage of the 0% financing if I pay it off in less than one year, which I have the money now so it's no problem. Great review by the way, keep it up!!
Thank you Jeffrey! I'm glad this video helped you!
Wait until you check temps 🤣
I ended up not getting it, they kept delaying the order. I ended up buying a pre-built. I couldn’t built what I bought for the price, so I made my own adjustments and added a little more DDR5
Appreciated 👏🏾 I’m just getting in gaming pc’s and always heard a lot of good things about Alienware nice to hear some good constructive criticism
Hey there Justin! So, let's say I'm a noob and possibly an idiot. Will this Alienware Aurora R13 stream TH-cam videos and movies that are available in 4K, in actual 4K? Seamlessly and smooth as butter 4K @ 120Hz, or will it only do 1080p?
And will I be able to use it with my HDMI 2.1 on my TV? I don't know if this has an HDMI port for 4K. It doesn't say so on the website. Thank you so much!
Hey Rheana yes it will stream 4K in actual 4k at 120hz as long as you are outputting to a monitor that can handle 4k at 120hz. If your TV is 4K then the HDMI port that it has will be able to display 4k content from your computer. Hope this helps! :)
#4 con: upgradeability, if later down the line you want to upgrade/ replace your PSU using common parts, you can't because it's using a weird Standard and I doubt any PSU we as a consumer can get will fit in there, as well as the motherboard because it isn't standard ATX or E-ATX or Micro-ATX or a Mini-ATX, plus the tiny space, height wise, you have for the GPU will be a chocking hazard especially with newer GPUs going 3 slot.
Yeah ɥnɹq you have a good point there. I've seen some adapters for this type of GPU that look like they could work but it seems a little risky.
@@JustinTechTips Hello I’ve been wondering i ordered the r13 with 16 gb of ram. It finally arrived but now im wondering if I can upgrade it to 32 Gb it would be nice if I had an answer to this problem
Pc’s like this confirm the fact that in this price range you should be building your own rig.
I would but in canada i already did the estimates and costs and looked for best deals and the pc i'm getting from dell would come over 6+k vs dell charging me 4.2k this how it is thanks to scalpers and miners hording the gpus.Hell the 3080ti in my country would come up over $3k and thats not including taxes and shipping.Building your own was good years ago but now with miners around its fucked it up
Yeah I agree with Johnny, miners have made the build your own market more expensive than the prebuilts. Building your own will most likely have better performance though.
Is it not great pc Or what??
Good thing bitminers finally screwed off, GPUs are going down significantly.
Not everyone cares to build their own. Jesus there always the "build your own" guy.
Anyone else expecting their device sometime next week? Only to be told today that due to an unforeseen part shortage, it will only be delivered in February?
Sorry to hear that Eric, that sounds pretty annoying. Yeah a lot of comments on here are saying the same thing. I think the closer they get to the holidays the more trouble they are having.
Yes. I ordered end of Nov and was told Dec 10th delivery. I’m still waiting as of February 12th. I think it’s just the world supply chain. Hope you got it by now!
update on the stolen r13, so i looked on the camera and the ups guy scanned it and then put it back in his truck and drove away, I contacted ups and they said they would find the driver and see what they will do...
Woa! OMG that's crazy! I can't believe he thought he could get away with that! Also pretty annoying of DELL to not have a more discrete packaging so people don't know what it is.
This was my worry as Dell has missed my ship date. Who knows when it will arrive.
damn thats pretty wack. hope it sorted out well in the end
So how did that turn out?
I ordered this the end of Nov. Mine came FEDEX but it was “damaged out” a few miles from my house. I wondered if theft was an issue. Still waiting for the replacement. Fingers crossed. I hope you got yours!
Good review. I got the R13 with a more modest configuration: RTX3080/32GB-RAM/I-7. In addition to the 10% savings by going with Dell Financing, I was also fortunate enough to get an additional 15% back through a Rakuten special. Combined, that was a significant cost savings. Now I just need to find room for this monster!
Woa what Rakueten special was that! Can you send a link? That's awesome David! Thank you for sharing
@@JustinTechTips Regretfully, it was a Black Friday special. I was super fortunate enough to run across it in Reddit.
As an update, still loving the Dell R13, and the Rakuten money finally posted this week as well ($435). As an additional perk, I had $135 in Dell rewards from the purchase, which resulted in a net cost of $27 for a Samsung Gen 4 1TB NVMe.
At the time, I had no idea that some laptops only run off the internal GPU when unplugged, then kick in to the dedicated GPU when plugged in. I called Dell Support and asked why I don't see my graphics card in the Nvidia display options when it is unplugged, and after an hour of troubleshooting, they didn't know why either.
Woa Dell support didn't know that? I'm glad you got that situated though Vincarro! Yeah gaming with the internal GPU is a pretty rough experience for sure
Awesome review - thank you for doing the SSD speed test - was trying to find that somewhere. I agree with all your PRO's n CON's. I normally do custom builds, but went with an R13 because I didn't have much interest in waiting for months to piece something together. The fact that it supports all the next gen stuff was a huge factor as well. *I do find it a little hilarious that the command center desktop graphic doesn't match the case color you ordered.
Alot of people hate on Alienware and pre-built anything for that matter - I usually agree with them. But in this market, the OEM prices are fair market value for once.
Yeah it seems like a pretty easy software detail to have it match what I'm actually using but it seems like the Alienware Command Center staff is still on their long vacation still. Yeah OEM prices in an inflated market are much more competitive for sure
@@JustinTechTips Was alos going to mention - just setup my R13 today - that I needed to go an hunt for the latest ethernet drivers. I was only getting 170Mb down when I have 1200Mb internet. Kinda lame I had to fix my own PC day one. But if anyone asks, the drivers fixes the issue.
Alienware should never be purchased. Yes, even during the GPU crisis. Only uninformed people buy Alienware. If you need an all-in-one, get one that doesn't use proprietary parts. Also, Dell is, in general, a terrible company..
@@googlewolly "uninformed"... Alienware isnt an AIO and apart from the MB and PSU, nothing else is proprietary... Im not gonna spend months piecemealing a build together.
@@samadkins8101 Yes, uninformed. You further prove this by incorrectly implying that it takes months to build a PC.
Dell just expedited mine, they put it in production, finsihed the same day, and is now shipped, arrives December 24th!
Edit: Arrived December 22nd! Glad to have it, and I will set it up and fire it up tonight!
Nice Lua! A nice little Christmas gift to yourself!
@@JustinTechTips Thanks! My shipping just got made yesterday, how long did it take for you to see it in transit once the label was made and the package was visible?
Thanks for the info! I was wondering what to get for college, and now I can rest easy knowing that I don't have to get something crazy expensive with maxed out specs to game reasonably.
Glad I could help with your decision Samir!
No problem Samir! I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
Great videos, you’ve really done all the hard work for me! I was curious if you ever smoke test PCs to visualize the airflow through the chassis? Also, would you be able to elaborate on what would be necessary to add Thunderbolt 3? To my understanding, you would use a PCI card, but there’s no Thunderbolt header on the mobo either. Additionally the other two 4x PCIe slots are Gen3 which would seem a little slow for Thunderbolt 3. Thanks!
Hey Kevin sorry I misspoke. I thought there was a way to do it with this machine but I was wrong
Thank you for this video. I just ordered a similar R13 but with a 3080 and 32GB Of DDR5 4400MHz RAM and feel much better about my purchase. Never thought I would purchase anything from Alienware but the current state of things made it the best option for me.
Thank you Rob! I'm glad it was helpful for you!
What was the name of the pre-built you bought?
@@Dread7404 Aurora R13, but you can pick and choose what goes in it.
Was thinking about the pros on these machines and I would have to say the #1 pro for me is the support. Dell support reps aren’t always great and it sometimes takes a bit of back and forth to get the right solution from them but in the end they do stand behind the product and the systems I’ve had to replace were always sent to me before I sent in my system. Was never asked to send in mine first (including a monitor) and I’ve never been asked to send out for a factory repair as everything is usually repaired in my home with on site. I don’t know how the others stack up against that but a few years back my asus support required that I send it to them for a reapair that could take 6 week.
I agree David. I've had onsite support from them before and it is was great. That's a huge deal as most people don't have a backup computer when they need to get work done. Weeks without a computer is not doable for most people
It's amazing, mine arrived with a problem, they did remote support, and then came in and fixed it in person!
Honestly this is why I think I’m going to choose them… I was looking at origin pc, I buy power.. at the end of the day Dells customer service can’t be beaten
Great review like always...I have the same R13 you have and very happy with it, I did change the three fans with Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM chromax Black swap and I notice a big difference in noise and temperature, this weekend I'm also going to repasted the GPU and add Heatsink with RGB on the RAM, plus Heatsink on the M.2 NVME. Keep up with your great work.
Thank you Mario! Yeah I'm really excited to implement the upgrades this next week and squeeze as much performance out of this machine as I can. Wow good job on those other upgrades. You're going all out! It's probably going to help out a good bit though.
What is your job?
I have an R8, fully loaded like yours, and it has been a VERY reliable PC. I have it on the top of my computer desk and can barely hear any noise. Its benchmark scores are not that great. Alienware is very conservative when setting up their PCs to not stress the components. I plan to upgrade to the R13, maxed out, and expect it to be as reliable as my R8. Buying the best is never a terrible decision, especially regarding support and warranty.
Hey Outlet , what kind of scores do you get on the R8?
Much thanks Justin! After watching your video I decided to fulfill one of my dreams, which is possessing an Alienware R13. I ended up getting 286$ off from total bill using financing and you know what I messed up because I talked to a sales rep and he got me a 8-9% discount deal form the original bill but I said I get a better discount using the financing. I should've taken the discount from the sales rep and apply the financing afterwards...
Oh wow Maxime! I wonder if that would have worked? Such a large discount on top of another discount. You're still way ahead of most everyone else when it comes to discounts with what you got though! 🙂
I know some moan about alienware shipping speed however my son just bought this and it arrived Earlier than expected by a whole WEEK! also in uk right now they have 15% off and a something they don't tell you Dell gives you an extra 10% off if you work for NHS you have to speak to chat agent who will give you link to put your details in to get a code.... but worth the 10 mins it takes
I really expected better performance. Thanks for the invite in depth review!
Yeah me too.. Hopefully some optimizing this next week with repasting and upgrading the fans will help
I ordered the r13 the end of November and am still waiting. Was expected with current world supply chains, but am excited to get my hands on it. Ty for the video.
No problem Aria Wynn! Glad I could help!
Good video man. I've been purchasing Alienware laptops and PC's since like 06' and I've never had any issues with them. They are great products and are much easier to obtain than building one yourself. I even had a laptop sent to me in Iraq lol
O nice! Yeah I've always had a soft spot for Alienware too. This one seems pretty solid, but I do think there is something holding the performance back from reaching it's full potential.
@@JustinTechTips It's probably the Alienware-specific components. Shaved down GPU, motherboard and off brand ram/ssd's. They gotta cut costs wherever they can.
@@goodcitizen7064 It's all made in China/Asia 🇨🇳 no matter the brand so does brand matter Sir? Thanks for your service 🙏 👏🏻👍🏻🇺🇸😇👮🏻♂️
@@JustMe007 it definitely does matter if we are talking about incredibly cheaply manufactured components. Alienwares have cheap proprietary Mobos, cheap proprietary plastic cases, cheap proprietary PSUs, cheap fans, cheap coolers, and usually cheap ram and storage.
My iPhone was made in china, and so are $200 off brand smartphones. It doesn’t make them equal, lol.
This makes me excited to get my pc i just ordered the ailenware r13 from dell's website i am excited for it to come in a few days
Hey Justin. Not sure if you've seen tjfast's videos at all for this machine, but once he reapplied thermal paste and changed out the fans he saw about a 10 degree temp difference. I think with the Aurora 13 3090 config, changing the fans are going to be a requirement.
Hey MrDemeanor, I haven't seen that video yet but I will definitely go check it out! 10 degrees is definitely worth it. I hope it helps with performance but temps didn't really seem to be that close to throttling temps unless there's something deeper within Alienware's software that starts semithrottling at cooler temps
Isn't Dell supposed to pay for that?
@@JustMe007 dell pays for repairs. Not upgrading thermal paste and replacing fans with other than stock fans
@@Nubsauce OK but these brand new expensive products shouldn't need homemade work. 🤓🖖🏻
@@JustMe007 it is a common practice. Nvidia does the same thing with cheap thermal pads and intel/amd do the same thing by not using a good liquid metal on the cpu housings to further improve thermals. Companies are designed to make money.
Also, those temps are pretty normal, especially for a 3090. The cpu temp is pretty good too for the single cooler AIO. Usually you see a little lower with 240mms.
I think performing the fan swaps on the build will be a good change.
Im also sure the AIO could be improved by adding a second fan to it.
Note, that windows 11 is extremely hindering to gaming atm with the 12 series CPUs. The games don't know how to handle the CPU offload code.
🙊
@@pasanwijerathna2329 Hm?
Yeah I wish it was easy to downgrade to Windows 10 with a machine that came with 11 but it seems like its a lot harder than that. I performed an SSD swap with Windows 10 on it and it wouldn't accept it. I do feel that some of the performance issues are probably due to Windows 11 and yeah I wish there was some room to add a second fan to the AIO.
@@JustinTechTips Unfortunately the 12th gen CPUs don't like windows 10. There is a list of games that will crash to desktop with no error, and the list continues to grow. It is mainly ubisoft titles and games that have DRM on it.
Yeah I'm just going to add my old SSDs to the bays for storage and suffer the updates of 11, while nuking as much of the bloatware as I can.
You could always add a fan to the case and AIO with extended screws from another AIO. But you would just have to wire it to the mobo and set the speed to like 100% to be effective.
I'm sure with some upgrades from AWs stock design, the specs will be a beast. And if push comes to shove. At least I have a 3080, a 12900kf, and DDR5 Ram now. Heh. Massive upgrade from my 4790k and ddr3
I am still in the waiting phase of getting a new computer. But I have been really going back and forth with buying a prebuild like this or building one myself. You make a lot of good points and I do like the design of this one. I'll just have to wait and see what is available when I am ready to pull the trigger on a new computer.
Glad these videos are helping you Michael! I do plan to do a 4000 series GPU video the moment it's released so keep an eye out for that
Build one yourself, pre builts isnt worth it
@@EndergoNx facts right there. this video here is ignoring all kinds of problems with Alienware. i'm pretty sure this guy got special treatment from Dell, because their customer service is some of the worst in the industry. The gamers nexus video about the R14 and R13 are a much more honest, and realistic review of these proprietary ass pre builts.
The terrible proprietary motherboard, powersupply and case makes this computer so much worse of a value proposition than a DIY build. and now that GPU prices have gone down, the value is even worse with these prebuilts.
the case of these alienwares really are some of the worst cases ever for thermals and air flow. just looking at it, its obvious how bad the case is. the water cooler radiator is behind the main rear fan too. meaning the air flow inside the case is even worse.
dont even get me started on the motherboard and power supply too. those two things alone make these computers a terrible deal.
@@skahg4771 what do you do if you're a kid and nobody in your family knows how to build a PC
I have the aurora r8 and looking to upgrade soon - but my machines still a beast. The only issue ive had with my machine was the thermals while gaming, but i replaced the thermal paste and fixed my issue.
1 week after update and installation of a 2tb 980 Pro M.2.:
This pc is a beast. I was skeptical about Alienware and the R13 is a HUGE improvement over any AW products to date. My build has 64GB of DDR5, 3080 (Ti performance wasn't worth the 500 dollar increase), 12900KF, 1TB M.2 Boot, improved water cooling, and in white. 1 year of on site support for free as well.
Performance:
Wow. It is a beast of a machine. My thermals are fantastic on both the CPU and GPU(after installing Afterburner to create fan speed profiles). The machine boots stupid fast and multitasking is an absolute breeze. After clean installing the latest GPU drivers and updating it FULLY, it really makes the difference in its performance. My thermals don't get over 50c on the CPU and the GPU sits around 65-75c depending on the game. Which is impressive.
Gaming:
A whole new world... I have it connected to a Samsung G7 32" 1440p monitor and wow...after applying my profile for colors, this thing runs everything maxed with absolute no effort. No stuttering, no crashes, no audio crackle(though I use a G6 Soundblaster DAC). I would heavily recommend sticking to 1440p for any computer as it is the current standard and boasts the best performance for GPUs. Siege, Warhammer 2, Witcher 3, FFXIV w/shaders, GTAV, Heavily Modded FO4, And more, all are fantastic with FPS and overall performance.
My Recommendations:
Change out the thermal paste to a better solution. It will greatly improve the thermals, especially when overclocking.
Change out the fans to better performing fans inside the case. Just be aware that the mounting may be a little difficult.
Add another M.2 to the machine. Just be aware that a lot of the software like Samsung Magician is not updated to register the firmware on the motherboard just yet.
Download MSI Afterburner to create custom fan profiles for the GPU and better control the thermals under load.
FULLY UPDATE WINDOWS AND DRIVERS.
Other than that, I am VERY happy with my build of the R13. I would have never thought I would have ever purchased an AW machine...but man...is this one worth it. (And yes. Get the R13 NOT the R14)
Did you go for the i7 or i9?
@@mattfleig2621 i9 12900kf. Purchased Thermal Grizzy Kryonaut to put on with the new replacement cooler
Congrats Eddie! How big of a difference did the Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut make with the temps
@@JustinTechTips went from 90-100c down to 63 max with cpu intensive games. With a custom static clock at 5.1
Very nice, Glad to hear your i9 is running cool. It’s a hotter chip compared to the i7. I saw a chart were the i7 runs almost 30c cooler under a load. I actually returned mine to get the i7 since it wouldn’t benefit my gaming much and wanted something cooler. Will 100% try that thermal paste
only thing thatlets this down is lack of rgb ram ..the plain green stock ram does in my opinion has an impact on what otherwise is a fantastic looking build.
Yeah I agree kayak. The RAM just looks gross compared to everything else
@@JustinTechTips i got hyper x when i ordered my first aurora r7 m8 but cost extra .. cant see the logic tbh lol..sgould give u decent ram from the start for the price we pay everything else is amazing in my opinion buddy just the ram thing gets my goat up lol pet peeve so to speak :)
Great review Justin !!! I loved it. You've inspired me to get back into my old PC building hobby (obsession) I've had for years further fueled by the "Maximum PC" magazine that now comes out of the U.K.... again thank you so much Justin!... I'm so psyched !! I'll be watching your channel weekly and joining too...
Thank you so much for joining Jim! I'm glad you are enjoying my videos! Much greater things planned for 2022!
This video helped me a lot I’ve been looking at the unit for about a month now thank you
Glad I could help Gage Palmateer! Much more even better content coming soon! 🙂
Hey Justin, thanks for the review really appreciate the effort you put into this. Also appreciate your honesty. I purchased the exact same system, except in Dark side of the moon. Once thing that would be helpful would be to point out with the temps is how they compare to other systems. Are these temps within the normal range? Should others be worried about those temps, especially the VRAM temps?
Yeah that's a good idea Donedeal. I'll start to implement that more in the future. Especially as I try out more desktops as most of my reviews have just been with laptops so far
I cant unhear you sounding exactly like merkmusic with a more serious voice.
Awesome video with alot of great info, thanks. Im thinking of upgrading my old computer and do really like this Alienware. My question is, do I really need this much power for gaming. I enjoy playing XCOM 2 (WOTC) and my computer seems to lag and I cant play it on max settings. Would this be the gaming computer to get or is there a cheaper Alienware computer that would suit my needs. Thanks again for the great video and please help with any advice on my decision on what is best for me version to get.
Hey Blitz, honestly I think if you are just playing that game you should be fine with a 3070 or even a 3060 with an i7 processor.
Just mentioning this because you brought up NZXT as a similar option, there's something you all should know if you're considering NZXT's prebuilts.
If they send you a dead-on-arrival (broken/junk) PC, they WILL NOT REFUND YOU ALL of the money. They will keep the $200 for BLITZ assembly, and they will keep the $100 for shipping. You will lose money, and they will profit money, if they send you a broken PC.
Just mentioning it since JustIN compared it.
What?! I did not know that. That’s ridiculous. Thank you for mentioning it Captainlonate
Great video. I had an Aurora R8 from 2019. It was specced with an i7 9700, 32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB RAM, and a 5700XT. It died last month to what I believe was overheating. I was very pissed, buy didn't feel like getting it "fixed" by a pro would be worth the cost in today's market. So I took out the 5700XT and sold it.
That's when I came across these new rigs on Alienware. I love the design, so I decided to add the debt, and order one. I ordered the 12700 i7 model as the benchmarks showed me that the i9 doesn't offer any added performance for gaming. I also ordered the 6800XT as I felt it was a better bang for your buck in comparison to the 3080. The RTX 3080 beats it in some games, and in others the 6800XT Performs better (sans Ray tracing).
My only mistake was accidentally getting only 8GB of DDR5 RAM. I want RGB RAM, but as you've stated, DDR5 in any form is impossible to find. So now we play the waiting game. Thankfully the 6800XT has 16GB of VRAM.
hmm I wonder if you can chat with Dell support to get some more RAM directly from them. Just doesn't make sense that you can only buy it initially with the computer purchase itself.
@@JustinTechTips Quite possibly. Although historically, Dell RAM has historically been basic and overpriced. I shudder to think how much they'd charge for another 8GB stick. Hopefully RGB RAM from G Skill or Corsair become available in the near future. Thanks for the reply. It may be an option if I'm left with no choice.
bro ur greenscreen work is crazy good
Thank you John! I really appreciate that!
Amazing review Justin! Your videos are just getting better and better 👍
Thank you David! I hope Dell can get their act together soon and finally send you yours
I get computer parts being expensive and this being cheaper then doing it urself. however buying a basic prebuilt from a different company that doesn't use such constrictive cases/motherboards and upgrading that. they have a 120m maybe 140m radiator on a cpu that runs incredibly hot under load. The lack of ventilation in general leads to rough temps. even if they aren't considered dangerous or problematic heating up ur room because ur case lacks intake or outtake is just silly for the price
Someone from Dell told me that the cable cover actually helps with thermals. But who knows if that's true. I ordered mine on Halloween and it's been delayed twice now.
Yeah I just don't see how that can be true. I should have just got one to do a comparison.
Did you get yours ok?
@@ariawynn6221 I did get it. It was delivered right before Christmas. However, I ended up returning it because it wouldn't quit crashing and it smelled like burning plastic the second time I booted it up. I ended up buying an Origin pc instead.
@@bobbrock4221 tysm!
IM EXCITED ! My tower should arrive here anyday now i went with a few specs lower but as you state it def. seemed like more bang for my buck go the 7.1 alien ware head set and 25" alien ware monitor ! Ive Enjoyed watching your videos and segment on this specific unit !
Thank you COASTFUSION! I'm really glad you are enjoying them! Really excited about my next video too, with the overclocking, repasting and fan upgrades. Really excited to see how much I can squeeze out of it.
Between the thermals and overall performance. This review really makes me respect how far laptops have come. They are legitimately competitive to mid and upper midrange desktops
Yeah I was thinking the same thing Xeem! The Alienware X series really wasn't too far off from these numbers considering how much smaller and thinner it is!
Who play games on laptop jeesh
@@kzpeanut7967 people who don't have or want the space for a full gaming rig. I have always gamed on a laptop and my situation wouldn't be able to accommodate a desktop.
Had two gaming laptops in 4 years.. They’re garbage.
@@Niels_f2704 that's a pretty blanket statement... I guess to each their own. I've always had laptops and been pretty happy with them...
Awesome review. My rig just shipped and it's on its way home. i9/128GB/3090/2T SSID, sweet!
Congrats Milton! Can you post your benchmarks once you get it? Trying to get this thing to the FPS it claims it can achieve
Another great video my man. Appreciate all the work you do and the improvements you make during your videos, it’s really coming together. Prices and demand are crazy right now, so I’m glad you were able to get this machine for a review. Keep up the good work my man.
Thank you SeKaiKage! I am very happy that you are enjoying these as I love making them! They do take a while but it's really worth it seeing that they are helping people 🙂
Will you do some GPU mining on it? Also I came from a comment you left on your last video and I almost couldn't find this one, I'd suggest you put this video at the ens of that one to Garner more traction. Awesome review.
Thanks Michael Ndudim! 🙂
Question: does having a plastic frame instead of a metal one helps with internal cooling?
I'm guessing yes
Yeah Moustache Boy, I don't think the i9 is worth it
Huge Con: Alienware ships with FedEx which so far has given me three delivery dates. Another one is the Dell support. I asked why my rig was delayed and was told that I bought it from a retailer when I bought it from Dell. At least I was able to escalate the issue and received an apology.
Loved your video and one thing that would help those of us with TBI is a guide to initial settings. I’ve seen reports that some drivers need to be updated out of the box and am already a little apprehensive. Thanks for the tips on upgrading the fans. Overall, great video.
Thank you Mark! Yeah I always recommend updating drivers with new computers before doing anything else
@@JustinTechTips well an update. It arrived in a damaged box but the computer seemed fine until we turned it on. Most horrifying sounds from the fans. Well we were replacing them anyway. That didn’t solve it. Turns out the last quality control checker ran it with the cover off and then shoved the cabling between the power supply and GPU. That caused the GPU Fan to impact that your edge of a zip tie. Moved the cables over and issue solved.
My thought for this unit, there are two major cons, 1. as you mentioned they still stick with 120mm aio 2. the power supply, 750w supply does not enough to feed this beast. Thus, in my opinion, for this R13 the specs should not go over i5+ 3080 or r7 5800x +3080 for R14. Anyways thanks for your review.
Glad you liked it YXDDDY! Yeah i9 and R9 probably not necessary with these
I just ordered the R14 with r7 5800x + 3080. Waiting anxiously, currently gaming on xbox series x.
That "I will reply faster to subscribers' questions" thing was a great marketing idea. Dell should hire ya. Clicked the button instantly, in case I have a question in the future. My R13 will arrive in 4 days so I'm watching to figure out if there are any mods I should be thinking about, or any software/hardware anything that a techier person would know to do but I wouldn't...
OK unpausing now... lol
Awesome! I'm glad that new tactic is encouraging people to hit that glorious red button 🙂! Hopefully my upgrades and overclocking video will be complete this next week and it will help you squeeze the max performance out of yours. Thanks for the sub Noah!
Great review and very helpful!
I'm also about to purchase my own r13 really soon. Your videos are being very handy in order to have a glimse of how the machine works. Unfortunately there are not many reviews done yet about this model.
Any thoughts on the difference in performance, temperature and noise between going for an i7 or an i9 processor? I'm planning to use this computer almost just for gaming(probably some light music production but I already have a Mac for that matter), with a 3080 and 2TB SSD. I can't really justify choosing the i9 other than for 'future proofing' my set up.
When it comes strictly to gaming, what is the i9 offering that cannot be done by an i7?
I would also like to ask if both of the empty hard drive slots available(top and bottom) can house an SSD drive for storage. Mostly asking about the top one as it seems bigger.
Thank you in advace for any answer, it's much appreciated. And thank you again for the content you make, it's really helpful and well made!
Great questions Toni! Sorry for the late reply! A little backed up with comments at the moment. For just gaming I wouldn't say the i9 would be worth it for you. 3080 with an i7 is a really solid choice for what you need. Yes both hard drive slots can house an SSD. I'm glad these videos are helping you!
Mom, i need this for my school ppt presentation
😂 Tell her it's the only way that you can get an A
Fair enough review and about what I expected from Dell. Good job.
Thank you Nicholas! I'm glad you liked it!
It is true each DDR5 stick is dual channel, however, channel width in DDR5 is only 40bit each (32bit data +8 bit ECC). For DDR4, each stick is only one channel, with 72bit channel width (64bit data + 8bit ECC). In another word, at the same frequency, say 4400 MHz, single channel DDR4 has the same theoretical bandwidth compared to dual channel DDR5. So you still need two DDR5 sticks to get the full bandwidth at "Quad channel" (128bit) configuration. Just thought this might be helpful :)
Thank you Zhu Qing. From my understanding, to me it sounded as though that is still faster because it allows the CPU to simultaneously access the same stick of RAM more than once. There's definitely some potential of these sticks left on the table since there hasn't been much time yet for necessary optimizations in both hardware and software to use these sticks to the best of their abilities.
@@JustinTechTips Hi JustIN, I believe what you are referring to is memory interleaving. It is available for single stick dual bank memories. Interleaving is not new to DDR5 though, dual bank sticks from DDR1 to DDR5 all support interleaving. If your memory stick is single bank, interleaving will be available if you insert 4 sticks. I remember linus tech tips has a video about this in the past.
Great review...I have been chewing on the idea of picking up the Ryzen R14 but it's been hard to find a deep dive into these PC's. You have covered them very well and given me lots to think about before buying. Keep it up man...New Sub here
Thank you for the sub Mr. Papagorgio! I'm glad the video helped you!
This was really helpful in looking for prebuilts, thanks.
Glad I could help Rhys Van Baalen! Much more even better content coming soon! 🙂
this seems like a great pc i had an aurora for 6 years and the case was so small i couldnt fit a new gpu if i wanted too. this seems more upgradeable loved the review !
Glad you enjoyed it Ayah! Yes there is plenty of room in there for a larger GPU now. It will be big enough for even the 4000 series GPUs when they come out
Hello I’ve been wondering i ordered the r13 with 16 gb of ram. It finally arrived but now im wondering if I can upgrade it to 32 Gb it would be nice if I had an answer to this problem
Great video! Mine just shipped today, can't wait to get any longer!
Congrats Leo! What configuration did you end up going with?
@@JustinTechTips I got the i9, RTX 3080, 16GB RAM, Cryotech Cooler, Lunar White. It got delivered today! This thing is a beast!
I already have mine and I'm happy. It is a beautiful machine.
Congrats Doug! Which configuration did you end up going with?
@@JustinTechTips the more value oriented 12700k with the 3080. Had some awcc issues but got it sorted and I'm happy
Really liked it - thanks the review, as I am considering getting this soon.
Glad you liked the video pgaska88!
I have the r10 and im still happy with it. Im happy to c Alienware going in the right direction. Last gen was good build quality but nothing close to this one.
Yeah D - Rob they definitely upped their game with this one
@Gerardo Gonzalez idk man... i got good benchmark with it, good fps in game, no bottle neck, do the job. And the pc cost me 90$ more then i have build it myself. I got my r10 for almost a year now and no trouble with it. Do i did the deal of the year buying that? No... but it do the job i was expected very well.
I've bought alienware for years, before Dell bought them. I've never bad any issues. I did get the R14 Ryzen edition with the Radeon 6900 X. I saved $1,300, I've built PCs in the past, but I don't see an issue buying one especially if you can find a deal.
This seems like a great pc! Do you know any information about it being able to run on a virtual reality headset? I have an Oculus Quest 2 and I was wondering if I could get a link cable from the Oculus website and connect it to the pc, and how good it would be.
Hey gryxies, sorry for the late reply! Oh yes this machine would have a great VR experience connecting it to the Oculus Quest 2. I recommend you get at least a 3070 or 3080 GPU though.
Thank you for the thourough review, you did help me to balance the purchase decision and not overlook comparing the r13 with r14, cheers!
Glad I could help DOM!
Yo!!! Loved the lightsaber opening. Great looking machine. Just got my X17 R1 3070 165Hz. Was trying to test it side by side with my MSI GE76 Raider 3060 144Hz and wasn’t seeing a ton of difference between a brighter/crisper screen. Was getting about the same thermals and fps as far as I could see, but I haven’t messed with the X17 settings much. Not sure if I can justify the $847 price difference. :-( X17 is so pretty though. What would you do if you had the choice? 😂
hmm that's a tough one. If the best deals for both really are a $847 difference, I would say the beautiful X17 and amazing keyboard aren't worth the price jump if the thermals and fps are about the same
Thank you for the review. This was really helpful for me. I ordered mine about a week ago and hoping to see it ship soon.
No problem! Glad it helped you Ron Ohl
Dell had $500 (13%) off i9 plus 3080 Ti version Monday. Throw on email sign-up 10% off and can get for ~$3200 with tax. Pretty decent deal.
O wow! Yeah that's a great deal CSkard
Great review, I’ve been waiting for this for a while. I’ve an R7 so I contemplated getting the R13 but the increase in price for the case alone makes this a challenge to consider.
I did have an R10 on order but cancelled it due to concerns with thermals…
After seeing this review it all feels a bit “meh”.. so might go down the build your own and I haven’t done that for 27 years!
Thank you Alan! I'm glad the video has helped you decide! Woa 27 years? Yeah computers have changed a bit since then 🙂
@@JustinTechTips true but not by much 😁 cooling is a bigger deal now! And I think the failure rate for parts is much lower - used to be quite infuriating at times 🤣
@@cheekymonkat piece of cake bro.
When I was a very young kid and was just getting into appreciating computers and Technology Alienware was one of those dreams I had that if I ever acquire enough money that I would buy myself something from Alienware.
I got really close and then I found out that Dell got involved with Alienware and if I'm correct bought out Alienware.
And everything that Alienware stood for and everything that it was basically got pooped on.
But I will say that no matter what I am still an Alienware fanboy and I will continue being an Alienware fanboy.
The logo and the name and everything that it stood for at one point is why I will continue loving and supporting Alienware.
I watched all the video, I have an Alienware R7 and I'm often, recently thinking about upgrading I'm not sure the latest thing is the best option to go for perhaps something more prior to the latest I know the R7 is about 4 years old now and I suppose I just want something that's very up-to-date right now that I can work and upgrade with as I go on, ultimately I'm trying to figure out is it worth upgrading what I've got or entirely upgrading to something new.
Well right now is better to buy a pc then buy parts!
Hey 🎮 GAME SURFING 🏄, I'm currently working on a review video for the HP Omen 45L. Spoiler alert. That one performs better. bit.ly/HP-Omen-45L
true
@@JustinTechTips looks nice
@JustIn Tech Tips this is a follow up comment and this needs to be brought to light and made public badly The R13 and the XPS 8950 which seem to share a motherboard but not the same BIOS (which is dell being very odd). Have a major Design Flaw were very few PCIe x4 cards will work in those expansion ports. Case in point the Elgato 4k60 expansion card will not work with these systems currently. Though Dell branded cards seem to work without issue. So if you want to use these 12th gen systems for Live streaming your limited to the usb only option.
wow that is insane! That feels a bit dishonest on Dell's part
I just prefer to build my own. Even with GPU prices the way they are I can build for a better price than this and even if I couldn't, I'd prefer not to be stuck with a proprietary motherboard and such.
Yeah that's understandable Ryan
How did they shrink the 3090 down without compromising? Great video btw.
Wondering the same thing. I would rather they used stock components for fewer issues with upgrades.
Thank you Mike! Technically I think they did compromise a little bit. This 3090 was fast but didn't perform as fast as a full sized 3090. Thermals weren't bad but it could have been a little faster
@@JustinTechTips I just ordered a r13 with a 3080 so I’m assuming it’s a shrunk down card as well
A 3090 IS NOT WORTH $3200
This was during Covid when Chip shortages were huge
Its dream to get this PC but it's expensive AF here in Malaysia haha. Thank you for the in depth review tho.
Yeah Harshan that's unfortunate.. How much does it cost in Malaysia?
which alienware is the best to get because im gonna ask for one for christmas.
Sorry for the late reply Infer. The fastest one is definitely this one but I actually like the X series laptops a little better because they cost less and are more portable
Do you still use this machine? and if so how does it hold up?
Thanks for the straight forward review!
Crazy to know in a few years we we look back and say its very underpowered !
LOL yeah even next year probably with all these new GPUs being released!
Design is the no. 1 pro. Which also makes it the no.1 con for me because the mobo and psu are so un upgradable . It will never out perform a custom build PC. And a 3090 for 3300$, you can get them on amazon tomorrow for about 2700$. I spent 1600$ on my msi 3090 and have been able to buy 2 3090s on the Newegg shuffle.
Hey Jonathan how did you get lucky enough to get in on a Newegg shuffle product like that twice? Everything I've seen has said it's a lot harder than that to actually get a product like this one on Newegg Shuffle
Curious what you build is?
@@petersonfamily6223
9700k OC to 5.1 GHz
32gb ram 3600mhz
MSI Ventus 3090 OC
And with that I'm using the AW3420DW which is a ultrawide 3440x1440p at 120hz
Why do you need help with anything PC related?
The big question is…WHY THE F*** WOULD I BUY THIS?
basically comes down to how expensive it is to build your own right now and many people not wanting to have to think about building from scratch
@@JustinTechTips yes!
Thanks for the video! Thinking about buying one of these.
Glad you enjoyed the video jacob! Did you make a decision yet?
Hey uh, you should really make a video on your wall. I'm hella interested and I think the video would do well
That's a great idea Rokket! It's a green screen with a BG from Envato. Just go here 1.envato.market/vnDArv and type "hexagon glow" for the same video wall I usually use
I just ordered an R13 with the i9 12900KF, RTX 3090 64GB of DDR5 RAM.
Congrats George! Have you received it yet?
While this is an improvement, it still needs more airflow and room for a larger AIO. I'd much rather have a high airflow case then the rgb egg design.
Yeah Wiggly, I do agree that it should still be bigger and not as rounded or angled to give it the ability to breath more
It is not possible to upgrade anything almost on this proprietary dell/Alienware pc.
The case is a 20 year old case, covered up with plastic panels to hide the fact.
The motherboard is proprietary af, can not be replaced so you can not upgrade to newer cpu when you want to, and motherboard is terribly cheap built at that.
The ram is cheapest green non heatsink ram I have seen.
Gpu seems fine.
Psu proprietary once again.
Dell has created a good looking, poor quality, not upgradable, proprietary, overpriced pice of ****.
And worst of all, it will all be e-waist in a few years cuz you can not replace old or broken parts after lets say 5 years.
Don’t buy.
Also watch gamersnexus video about it if you want a honest review.
@@nattenaniel Yes, I have given up on Dell many years ago. The last prebuilt I bought was an HP Omen which at least wasn't all proprietary and had parts you could replace and reuse elsewhere. Now I just build my own.
@@Wigglythegreat2 Good idea, makes me so sad/angry to watch the review wich mentions nothing about the longgevity of the parts and product, and read comments on this video saying they are gona get it cuz it looks cool or so and so.
I have built my own pc's for many years now, like you. So we know what is acceptable.
But this behavure by Dell to screw people ower and create e-waist whilst doing so makes me so angry.
I’m pretty new to computer gaming so a couple years ago I went to Best Buy and bought an expensive Alienware laptop and I’ve always had good luck with dell I just wonder why anybody that I talk to you that is a computer person says you shouldn’t buy Alienware because you’re paying for the name and so on but I think they look awesome
The laptops have a great reputation of being super powerful and fast but up until recently they also had a reputation of being too hot. Unfortunately there are other prebuilds that perform a little better than this desktop.
@@JustinTechTipsI spent the last week watching videos one after another every single night for a week because I wanted to try something different than Alienware and I got to the point where my head just freaking hurt and I circle back to this one mainly because it had the DDR5 ram that is supposedly eventually going to be 50% faster, It was available, I didn’t have to wait a month and it’s just looks so damn cool. Any tips on switching to keyboard I’ve been mouse and controllering in my left hand for like a year and I just cannot wrap my head around the keyboard I know I just got to keep practicing but it sucks to suck lol
I can’t stop looking at this thing!! It’s so damn beautiful!!!! I know the slightly downgraded version is probably better and more reasonable for my use but the longer I look at it the more I just want it with everything in it!!!
Haha yeah it is a beauty for sure Vaughan! Especially when I turn all the lights off at night! But then my wife asks me to turn it off becaus it's "hard to sleep" with it on.. Women..
Mine was supposed to be shipped December 9th on December 11th I got a message saying that its Now shipping hopefully January 12th graphics card delay apparently so what do you do from dying a little bit everyday Until the computer is delivered?
Geez that sounds really annoying. The best way to not die a little every day is to watch my videos over and over again 😉
@@JustinTechTips Ha! Totally agree! I'm on it!
Great review! I really like the design and it's about time they moved away from the stupid power supply swing thing. Also nice that the board has an extra m.2 slot for added capacity.
Agreed i have replaced my R7 with this R13 and am stoked. The R7 always struggled to stay cool, no surprise when you put a brick on an arm between the intake and exhaust fan. Still say one of Dells major conjuring tricks was to persuade people to buy a non liquid cooled version of the R7. It was very loud lol.
Thank you Overbuilt Gaming! Yeah I agree that was a very weird and counterintuitive design.
Mine keeps crashing with Video TDR Errors. After Tech Support wasn't able to fix it, I have decided to exchange it. i7, 3080
That sounds pretty frustrating Raul. What configuration did you have before the exchange?
@@JustinTechTips it's the i7 12700kf with an rtx 3080, 32gb ram. Yea it's frustrating. Can't play any games at the moment.
I wish more companies made pc’s like Alienware they just look so good.
Good info for thing I've searching for a quite a bit of time. That was a good explanation 👍🏻
Great review. I just ordered mine today with the rtx3080 and the i7 processor since this seemed like the best value for the money. However I ordered one with the base streetfighter cooling system (not the cryotech one) since I found the price increase a bit steep. I just hope it can handle the temperatures of the i7, we will see. :) Anyway so hyped for the pc to come! Keep up the great reviews!
Thank you Dr. Heisenberg! Congrats on the new machine! With that configuration, I do think that you will benefit from upgrading 3 of the 4 fans. Keep an eye out for my video about those and the GPU repasting
man do not buy from dell plz look up gamer nexus videos for good pre builds
i dont know you justin sorry if that came off rude
How is it?
I enjoyed watching your video; however, you stated that the R13 would need an adapter for a Thunderbolt capability. The R13 cannot receive any adapter for Thunderbolt as the R13 doesn't have Thunderbolt header on the motherboard. Moving this forward for those who want an equivalent Thunderbolt capability R13 (like myself) we will have to wait for USB4 PCIe card releases with PCIe 5.0 on the R13 motherboard. Thank you
Sorry about that LC. My mistake. Thank you for the info!
Great video!!! I think that the average consumer will get between a 3060 and 3080 as you stated. That should be more than enough for the average consumer. This was like that special kinda review for a select few people that will actually need, can afford, or just want for the hell of it all of that compute power. Most people would kill to have Red Dead Redemption run at 70fps at 4k. 😆. Nonetheless, still great to see how big of a leap Dell has made from it's last generation to this one in aesthetics and performance.
Yeah it's hard for me to complain about such high numbers as I'm used to laptop reviews but I do have to compare it other desktops with the same specs and some of them are getting a bit higher results.
Hey Justin. I'm thinking of ordering mine with 3080 + i7 + 16gb rab + cryotech cooling. Do those specs sound fine or should I be upgrading some of these? I will only use it for gaming. Great review btw!
Thank you Hiyori! Those specs will treat you very nicely! A better deal than the one I got too.
You rock Justin, I keep waiting for your videos to drop. I am curious though, when you open up the machine to show us the internals, does it void the warranty or support agreement? or how does that work?
Hey shoeson333 on a Dell support forum, one of the Admins that work for Dell said this..
"The act of disassembling, cleaning thermal paste, applying new thermal paste, reassembly in itself does not void the warranty. If you break any components WHILE doing the work, that would void the warranty."
So basically it doesn't void it, but if you break something, they aren't responsible for that broken component
I can't wait for mine, I just ordered one with:
12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 ,NVIDIA(R) GeForce RTX(TM) 3070 8GB GDDR6 LHR, 16GB Dual Channel DDR5 at 4400MHz; up to 128GB, 512GB NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD (Boot) + 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s
Hey Lisa, sorry for the late reply. Congrats on your new setup! How much longer until it says you get it?
@@JustinTechTips should be here January 18th! Ekkk! It's been too long lol 😆
Nice review man. Been thinking about picking one of these up lately. Keep up the great work.
Thank you Ryan! Glad I could help!
Thank you for the tips, i'm waiting to deliver my with 3080 and i7 with 32 gb of ram. Awesome videos!
Thank you Gioele! I'm glad the tips are helping you!
I have the R13 with 12700k and 3080ti and your thermals and accoustics are way better than mine. Under load my fans are in the 60-70db (going to replace fans with Noctuas). GPU temp is 78-81degrees in games, which was higher than I was hoping for. There is also some weird behaviour with GPU when trying to undervolt, where power draw and temps don't drop despite reducing voltage to 0.850v, but boost clocks jump up noticeably.
Hey Chris, I wonder if you are actually getting better performance out of your GPU and CPU than I am and that's why you're resulting in higher temps and louder fans. What are your fan RPMs and do you have any game benchmarks or 3D Mark results you can share?
@@JustinTechTips I don't think I am. Running stock this setup seems to hit some bios gpu thermal limit ( 80ish degree) and then scale back performance, clocks drop from 1850-1920MHz down to 1725-1755MHz. TimeSpy score running stock settings is 17907 (GPU 18608 CPU 14760) which is way below where a system with these specs should be. Using AWCC performance default fans seem to only ramp up to about 35-40% under load but they are very loud fans. Worth noting ambient temperatures here, I'm in Australia(Summer) with about 25degree ambient, guessing thats a bit warmer than where you are. Undervolting GPU to 0.850v/1845MHz improves performance noticeably, TimeSpy 1855 (GPU 19432 CPU 14738)
I really like you background! I might buy this PC, I have been looking for a good 2000 dollar gaming pc. this might be one.
I'm glad you liked it JacyGamePlay!