Are you considering purchasing a new pre-built desktop gaming PC? You might want to take a look at Dell’s new Alienware Aurora R9 and Dell G5 Desktop, which start at $970 and $630, respectively, this week.
A desktop computer will always be a box at its foundation — and a few years ago, Dell’s gaming division built a really good box for the Alienware Aurora and Alienware Aurora Pro XPS Tower, one where you could press a button to swing the entire chassis out, power supply and all, for virtually seamless tool-free upgrades.
That’s why I’m going to say something I can’t believe I’m saying: I’m overjoyed that the new Aurora R9 is effectively a re-shell. It offers the same tool-free interior chassis and configuration possibilities as the Area-51m gaming laptop, including up to a water-cooled Intel Core i9-9900K processor, 64GB of HyperX RAM, and 4TB of storage of solid-state and magnetic storage, as well as up to dual Nvidia RTX 2080 GPUs or a single 2080 Ti, but now with Alienware’s slick new “Legend” design language.
I imagine one of Alienware’s new notebooks slipping straight into a space station, ala 2001: A Space Odyssey. And, according to Dell, the new design improves airflow, with ambient temperatures dropping by 4% on average. It will begin with a somewhat modest configuration when it launches tomorrow for $970: a Core i5 with 8GB of RAM, a 1TB magnetic hard drive, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650, which is fairly inexpensive in terms of gaming GPUs.
If you don’t need liquid cooling, a sophisticated PSU swingarm, or space for two graphics cards, you can have much of the same components in a smaller, less expensive package: the new Dell G5 Desktop. With up to an i9-9900K, RTX 2080, 64GB of RAM, and 3TB of combined solid state and magnetic storage, it’s a compact tower with a big punch.
The Dell G5 Desktop starts at $630 today, but if you want it in the configuration I’d buy (i5-9600K, RTX 2070, 16GB RAM, 256GB NVMe SSD + 1TB HDD, 460W PSU), Dell claims you’ll pay around $1,380.
At this year’s Gamescom, Alienware will also unveil a new line of gaming mice and keyboards. Alienware claims to have inserted a lithium-ion battery in their AW610M wired/wireless gaming mouse that will last 350 hours on a charge, which I believe has only ever been seen in wireless-only mice that utilise a pair of AA batteries. (Specifically, Logitech claims 500 hours from the G603, while Razer claims 350 hours from the Razer Atheris.) Even when unplugged, it has a 1,000Hz polling rate, which is often a hint that a wireless mouse will operate as swiftly as a cable mouse.
Furthermore, both the AW610M and its wired RGB-lit sibling, the AW510M, have a dual-mode scroll wheel that can switch between 12 and 24 ratchets per spin; dual-mode scrolling is uncommon outside of Logitech’s proprietary free-spinning dual-mode wheels. (Having a gaming mouse that can also quickly browse through webpages and papers comes in useful when it’s time to work.) In case you’re wondering, these mouse employ a 16,000 DPI PixArt sensor.
The AW610M and AW510M will cost $100 and $75, respectively, when they go on sale tomorrow, August 20th, with a wireless-only AW310M — which touts 300 hours of battery life — also available from a single AA — starting at $63. Below are two Alienware mechanical keyboards, the $100 AW310K and the $160 AW510K, with the latter adding RGB lighting and low-profile Cherry MX Red switches and keys to justify its higher price.
