Aurora R15, questions on motherboard, memory and hard drive

z690

it only has two memory slots so you can't add more sticks.

Oh, they cut it down to 2 memory slots? That's new and not exactly promising. 2 memory slots is typically reserved for Micro ATX or very budget oriented boards.

Motherboard is OEM and will be "custom" for sure.

Unknown but apparently it is XMP this time around.

Usually whatever brand they have available at the time they assemble it. Pretty sure it varies, and it will be another OEM drive, not a retail drive.

Two slots instead of four helps with getting better clocks, better timing, less stress on the IMC.  You'll see that even on some high end o/c boards.

I ordered yesterday, website said Dec 30th delivery but that changed to January 22nd when checking out.

Alienware Aurora R15 210-BFRK
13th Gen Intel® Core™ i9 13900KF (24-Core, 68MB Cache, 3.0GHz
to 5.8GHz P-Core Thermal Velocity)
338-CGVO
Windows 11 Pro, English 619-APTO
NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4090 24GB GDDR6X 490-BIGG
No Upper Fan included 321-BHCL
Documentation, English/French 340-AGIK
64 GB, 2 X 32 GB, DDR5, 5200 MHz, XMP 370-AHKL
4TB NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD (Boot) + 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s
(Storage)
400-BOOL
Lunar Light 1350W PSU, Alienware Cryo-tech ™ Edition CPU Liquid
Cooling & Clear Side Panel
321-BIHO
Dell Multimedia Keyboard-KB216 Black (English) 580-AILI
Wired Mouse, Black MS 116 570-AATH
Intel® Killer Wi-Fi 6E (6 where 6E unavailable) AX 1675, 2x2,
802.11ax, MU-MIMO, Bluetooth 5.2
555-BGST
Lunar Light Rear Cable Cover 320-BENR
Intel® Core™ i9 Processor Label 389-DYKH
No FGA 817-BBBB
Lunar Light 320-BCXS
Shipping Material 328-BFGO
Regulatory Label 389-EFID
Additional Software 658-BCUO
Additional Software 658-BFQH
Dell.com Order 332-1530
Driver Software 555-BIFC
3 Years Premium Support 801-1493
3 Years Premium Support 803-2399
3 Years Premium Support 803-2401
3 Years Premium Support 803-2413
3 Years Premium Support 975-3461
US Power Cord 450-AMMR
No Microsoft Office Included 658-BCSB
No anti-virus software 630-AAVB

Does not sound promising to me. Waiting on user reviews, but not holding my breath...

I just assumed it had 4 slots. Good to know. 

I'll probably try 2x64GB if they ever release it.

You would think for what likely is +$5,000, they would include an upper fan at no extra charge...

No Upper Fan included 321-BHCL

Oddly enough, I don't see an option to add the upper fan. 

There's no upper fan because of the 240mm AIO that is on the top now.

I don't see any mention of that 16A PDU . . . did we ever determine if that came included with the R15?

Apparently it does come with a power cable that will plug into a regular 120 VAC outlet.

Still curious to see if someone has benchmarks for the NVME drive. I did find some for the XPS 8950, so I'm assuming it should be equal or better to that. Am I better off going with the 1TB drive and swapping for something like a Samsung 990 pro?

It's a little disappointing that the system only has one gen 4 2280 slot. It would have been nice if it had a gen 5 slot for future upgrades or even a secondary gen 4 slot.

Same for pcie slots. The expansion 4x slots are pcie gen 3. 

The uptake on R15's seem to be very slow...   I'm guessing the fan base has dropped off.  Also using a Z690 board is again not providing cutting edge bang for your buck....  Ugh

I am thinking that the economic pressure is causing spending habits to shift.

I don't see too many people plunking down 5K on a gaming PC that is likely going to be "outdated" in a year or so.

A few K maybe, but 5K?