I’ve been recently building a new Intel PC for myself and I’ve been flabbergasted at the cost of some of these new components. Right now, Intel and NVIDIA hold the titles for the best gaming CPU and GPU on the market, but sourcing their products can be a nightmare. We should all know by now how hard it is to get hold of an RTX 30 series video card at retail price. It’s practically impossible to get online. On eBay, an RTX 3080 video sells for over $1600 (if you’ve forgotten, the MSRP of an RTX 3080 starts at $700). Your best bet would be to walk into a local Best Buy and hope that your trip wasn’t just a waste of time.
Alienware Aurora R13 Intel Core i7-12700K RTX 3080 Gaming PC with 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD
That’s not even the end of it. Intel released its new 12th generation Alder Lake processors, and they’ve proven to outperform the AMD Ryzen 7 and 9. The processors are readily available, but the costs of Z690 motherboards and DDR5 RAM are utterly ridiculous. DDR5, in particular, is impossible to find anywhere except on eBay. 32GB of RAM there costs… and I’m not joking… $900. The best option is to stick with DDR4, but there aren’t nearly as many DDR4 boards available, and you’ll still have to pay over $200. The last nitpick is cooler compatibility. The vast majority of existing coolers, both air and AIO, do not come with LGA 1700 mounting. You’ll have to email your cooler manufacturer and request one. For many of these manufacturers, there is a shortage of LGA 1700 mounting brackets, and again, that will delay your build. Time is money.
Enter the Alienware Aurora R13 Gaming PC
That makes these newly released Alienware Aurora R13 gaming PCs from Dell all the more tempting. Unceremoniously dubbed the “R13”, Dell’s new flagship gaming PC sports a number of aesthetic, quality of life, and performance improvements over its predecessors. In terms of future proofing, the Alienware Aurora R13 is the first Alienware PC to come equipped with the newest 12th gen Intel Alder Lake processors. That’s paired with a Z690 based motherboard that accepts DDR5 RAM. This proves that DDR5 RAM actually exists in the wild. Your video card options are great as well; pick your choice of RTX 30 series video card, from the RTX 3060 Ti all the way to the RTX 3090, at your expense of course. Perhaps the best news? According to Dell’s website, these configs ship out in mid December.
Alienware Aurora R13 Intel Core i5-12600KF RTX 3060 Ti PC with 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD
Alienware Aurora R13 Intel Core i7-12700KF RTX 3060 Ti PC with 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD
Alienware Aurora R13 Intel Core i5-12600KF RTX 3070 PC with 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD
Alienware Aurora R13 Intel Core i7-12700KF RTX 3070 PC with 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD
Alienware Aurora R13 Intel Core i5-12600KF RTX 3080 PC with 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD
Alienware Aurora R13 Intel Core i7-12700KF RTX 3080 PC with 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD
Normally there’d be naysayers claiming that you could build the same quality rig for a cheaper price. Provided you know how to find deals, that certainly isn’t far from the truth. But we’re living in a whole different world right know where supply and demand has killed off price sensibility. And we have to factor time in as well. Technology moves so quickly that the value of our PC components depreciate at a frightening pace. Waiting a few months for a current gen piece isn’t necessarily the best option, especially if that “few months” could extend to several months. In these circumstances, Dell offers an incredibly powerful and slick looking gaming rig with all the impossible-to-get components you could hope for, at a reasonable price and time frame. The only other sensible option is to go AMD.
