New Alienware desktop appears ready to run the powerful GeForce RTX 4090
>
Alienware has unveiled its upcoming flagship prebuilt desktop, the revamped Aurora R15, designed to house powerful hardware – be prepared to pay an arm and a leg for it.
The company is rather vague in revealing what kind of graphics card will be in the Aurora R15. According to the announcement (opens in new tab), the Aurora R15 is designed to support a GPU from NVIDIA’s recently announced GeForce RTX 40 series. Alienware even drops the name 4090 model GPU. The company also mentions support for graphics cards belonging to the AMD Radeon RX 6000 series and GeForce RTX 30 series. Given the wording, this leads us to believe that the Aurora R15 could have different models based on different graphics cards. We’ve asked Alienware for clarification. This story will be updated if we hear anything.
Alienware also announced its new 34-inch curved gaming monitor and a Tenkeyless gaming keyboard to form a complete computing setup. All three devices will launch in the United States and Canada later this year. The exact date is not yet known.
The Aurora R15
Aside from mysterious GPUs, Alienware revealed some concrete details. The desktop contains the latest “13th Gen Intel Core K Seriesprocessors, formerly known by their codename Raptor Lake. Like the graphics card, the exact CPU model is unknown, but at least we can expect good performance. Even the slowest of the Raptor Lake processors have a maximum turbo frequency from 5.1 GHz. For memory it will be a DDR5 4800MHz RAM of a size yet to be determined.
For cooling, the Aurora R15 has several solutions. It is equipped with a 240mm liquid cooling system and five different 120mm fans. Across the chassis, there are two exhaust fans on top, one at the rear and two intake fans at the front. On the side are hexagonal vents for extra cooling. And if that’s not an exaggeration, the computer motherboard has its own “voltage regulator heatsinks.”
All this hardware, as you can imagine, will require a lot of power. Powering this beast will be a 1350W power supply, which Alienware says is apparently designed to support the aforementioned RTX 4090 GPU. The price tag for the Aurora R15 has not been disclosed. Considering that the desktop will have some powerful tech, it’s safe to say it won’t come cheap. To give you an idea of what it could be, the currently available Aurora Ryzen Edition R14 desktop starts at $1,299.99 and uses NVIDIA’s old 30-series GPUs.
Monitor and keyboard
With a computer this strong, you need a monitor that’s right for you, and it seems like the Gaming Monitor ($1,099.99) is up to the task. The QD-OLED (Quantum Dot) screen has a resolution of 3440×1440 pixels and a response of 0.1 ms, essential for intense gaming moments. There’s nothing worse than losing a game because your monitor couldn’t keep up. Other features include a 165Hz refresh rate alongside Quantum Dot technology for deep blacks and wider color coverage. For those long gaming sessions, the monitor is TUV certified for ComfortView Plus to reduce blue light and protect against eye strain.
The Tenkeyless Keyboard ($129.99) appears to be a regular gaming keyboard, complete with the typical RGB lighting, but beneath the surface is a pretty rugged device. The name is a reference to the fact that it lacks a numeric keypad which makes it more compact. The keycaps themselves are covered with two layers of plastic called PBT (polybutylene terephthalate) for increased durability. Inside the keycaps is a series of CHERRY MX Red switches that are gold coated for easier cleaning and protection against corrosion.
Pretty strong performance for a flagship computer. We can’t wait to see this thing in action.
If you are interested in a gaming PC, be sure to check out our recently updated list consisting of both cheap and more powerful options.