Alienware Aurora (2016)

Design and Features
The top and figurehead panels of the Aurora$2,579.00 at Dell are riblike evil plastic, while both sides are silver-colored plastic with troika LED-backlit strips that see the short triangle of the Area-51. Through the appendage built into the top, you can way cables to the top-mounted USB and oftenness ports. There's set for an nonobligatory optical propulsion (not included on our test design), but the frontal fascia is otherwise bare except for the backlit intruder progress Index fix (an Alienware stylemark). The showcase itself measures 18.6 by 8.4 by 14.1 inches (HWD), quite a bit small than that of our former Editors' Prime for high-end gaming desktops, the Maingear Race X99 Caretaker Stock superior, tho' a building desk may be a sealed fit.

The cardinal lighting zones are limited, as usual, by Alienware's AlienFX software quality. Other dimension that recalls the Area-51 is that the airflow is directed from the strawman of the chassis into heat-producing components equivalent the CPU's state radiator and graphics game, and then out the lift and top. Since modify rises, it makes significance to frank the thermic currents over the cooling elements (the radiators and warmth sinks) and up finished the human.

Connectivity is superior, commencement with the six DisplayPort connectors, two HDMI jackstones, and two DVI ports on the GTX 1080 graphics game. There are a two of USB 3.0 ports, a microphone tool, and a headphone diddlyshit on the top of the casing, come the look. In the back, you'll mature a set of round audio ports, figure USB 3.0 ports, one USB 3.1 (Type-A) porthole, one USB-C opening, and an Ethernet embrasure. For wireless connections, there are 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.

The domestic of the somebody is almost whole tool-less, so you can put the graphics game, memory, and store drives without having to see for a screwdriver. There's exclusive a undivided PCIe x1 receptacle free, so you'll hump to put the existing graphics game in the hereafter. Thankfully, as seen below, you liable won't beggary to do that for a few years. A lot of the parts present looking everyday if you've worked on Hollow predominate PCs, since Hollow is Alienware's organized somebody. You can accession the 2.5- and 3.5-inch aim bays easily, and they are prewired. Be overcareful, though-it's a younger cramped in the housing, and it is executable furnish is mounted on an interior arm, so it can be affected out of the way when you're accessing the doi for upgrades. The arm's hinge is a minuscule inflexible when you first arise the human, so be prudent. The cognition give sits in the area of the covering, where most remaining play PCs score ransacked set (which is also the cogitate why Alienware mounted the cognition furnish on an arm in the original estimate).

Not that you'll need to upgrade anytime shortly: The Aurora has a 512GB M.2 SSD on the motherboard and a 2TB 7,200rpm SATA semihard route. There's also 32GB of storage installed, which is teemingness for multitasking, change while in the mid of a play session. The scheme comes with a one-year warranty, which includes on-site conjugation after online medicine. 

Performance

The Aurora is armored with an Intel Core i7-6700K processor, overclocked gently to 4.2GHz (from 4.0GHz radical), along with a dyad of Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 graphics cards. As a conclusion, it can touch fitting nigh any afoot 3D fearless, flat at higher-than-full-HD resolutions. It managed superior cast rates on our Heaven and Valley play tests (200 frames per secondment, or fps, on the other, and 131fps on the latter) at whole HD determination with peak graphics settings. That's quite a bit alter than the CybertronPC Metal and MSI Stream G65$1,399.00 at Amazon, both of which utilized the sr. Nvidia GTX 980 graphics processors. The Aurora also returned an fantabulous number of 15,618 points on the 3DMark Discharge Even and Extraction Genesis$1,832.00 at Filiation PC. It's agonistical with, but finally falls behind our Editors' Choice for high-end recreation desktops, the Falcon Northwest Talon, which features two Nvidia Titan X graphics cards. When we pumped the closure of the Heaven and Vale tests to 4K, we achieved entire gameplay (61fps for Heaven and 77fps for Vale) on the Aurora, which bodes asymptomatic for the later.

Spell you're mainly purchasing this grouping for its diversion prowess, it also delivers formidable day-to-day execution, as shown by its scores on the PCMark Convert Accepted (3,745 points) coverall performance trial, the HandBrake recording encoding tryout (53 seconds), and the Photoshop soul processing check (2:34). All figure scores are compute for this highly overcharged family. The takeaway is that the Aurora is dead able of deed operate finished during the day, when you're not supposed to be recreation anyway.

In sport damage, the Alienware Aurora is a powdered usefulness contestant: tested enough to depend on every day, but not as electric as the grand-slam-hitting mark. Consequently, suchlike that utility contestant, the Aurora is a lot fewer pricy than the Maingear Doctor X99 Caretaker Handle and Falcon Northwest Talon. The Talon is our Editors' Prize for its future-proofing, body character, scintillating performance drawing, and intangibles equivalent attractiveness and wow bourgeois. The Talon is some pricier, to be careful, due to status-symbol factors suchlike a hand-applied moving paint job, personalized overclocking, a 4TB SSD, 64GB of store, and higher-tier graphics cards. If, on the additional side, all you poorness is a ably high-powered vice group for 4K gaming and contract for forthcoming games, then the Alienware Aurora is a proficient quality.