Alienware Aurora R16 Desktop Pros Slick and fairly compact design
Largely quiet even under load
Tool-less access and parts abound
Nice I/O Cons Underwhelming performance for the price
Proprietary as can be
Likely a dust magnet
Alienware has never been known for its value. It has always had more going on with style and performance. The Alienware Aurora R16 desktop fits that mold with a curious design that eschews a lot of typical approaches to PC building in favor of something a bit offbeat. It's not as wild as the Aurora R15 externally, but it's still a curious sight.
As for performance, the Alienware Aurora R16 has plenty. The airflow might be a little confusing, and regular dusting will probably be high on the maintenance list, but the Aurora R16 can deliver where speed is concerned. That said, it's not exactly punching above its weight. That's especially true as configured here for $2,365 with just an RTX 4070 inside. However, that is paired with a monster of an Intel Core i9-14900KF. That's not the most sensible pairing, as it goes a little CPU-heavy. Consider that Lenovo's Tower 7i Gen 8 is only slightly more, at $2,549, with the same CPU, beefier liquid cooling, fewer proprietary parts and most importantly, an RTX 4080 Super. With a choice between the two, I wouldn't even hesitate to opt for Lenovo's far more value-minded option.
Alienware Aurora R16 Specs Price as reviewed $2,365 Size 38-liter custom (16.5 x 7.8 x 18.1 in/418 x 197 x 458 mm) Motherboard Alienware 0RF96M Z690 custom CPU 3.2GHz Intel Core i9-14900KF Memory 32GB DDR5-5600 Graphics NVIDIA RTX 4070 Storage 1TB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSD (boot) (SK Hynix PC801) Networking GbE, Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1675x 802.11AX, Bluetooth 5.3 Connections USB 2.0 (x2 rear), USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (x3 front, x2 rear), USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (x1 front, x1 rear), USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C (x1 rear), 3.5mm audio connector (x1 front, x6 rear), Optical SPDIF, Coaxial SPDIF, Gigabit Ethernet, Antenna x2, HDMI (x1 on GPU), DisplayPort (x3 on GPU) Operating system Windows 11 Pro
The Alienware Aurora R16 starts at $1,344. This gets you an air-cooled Intel Core i7-14700F, Nvidia RTX 4060, 16GB of DDR5-5600 memory, 1TB of NVMe storage, a 500-watt 80 Plus Platinum power supply, Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 and no peripherals. From there, Alienware offers a ton of upgrade options. Before we get into that, however, it's worth noting that as of this writing, Nvidia's new 50-series cards are available and should find their way into the Aurora soon enough. The exact build of our test PC might not be available. So the pricing below, accurate as of this writing, will likely be different by the time you read this. It should give you a general idea about the R16's value and other upgrade options, though.
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