Alienware Can't Get It Right - R15 2023 Pre-Built Gaming PC Review
video description
Date: 2023-07-23
Related videos
Comments and reviews: 20
GJ
So on your past reviews of AW I am not sure I said this, so forgive me for repeating, but I had an Alienware back around 2003. And the way they did things then was just shoddy. Everything from poor cable management to the cpu cooling solution that opted to cool a Pentium D with a heatsink that sat inside of a short curved tunnel with a fan on the end of it that ejected air out that way. The thing always pumped out heat. The airflow throughout the case was paltry at best. It did have green cold cathode lighting, tho. I mean Pentium D was a hot chip, but it never felt like it was adequately cooled. That said, it used off the shelf parts (this was just before the Dell takeover of AW), which was nice.
I will always kind of still love the thing, but I have never, ever, purchased another one, which is sad because they do make some interesting products, but their desktops and lack of commitment toward excellence continues to fail them. Everything you are pointing out that is wrong is based on bean-counting decision making. Yes, you have to be cautious where you spend money, and at the end of the day you must move units, but they could do a better job by coming up with a new case with better airflow and take a chance on using off the shelf products again.
reply
So on your past reviews of AW I am not sure I said this, so forgive me for repeating, but I had an Alienware back around 2003. And the way they did things then was just shoddy. Everything from poor cable management to the cpu cooling solution that opted to cool a Pentium D with a heatsink that sat inside of a short curved tunnel with a fan on the end of it that ejected air out that way. The thing always pumped out heat. The airflow throughout the case was paltry at best. It did have green cold cathode lighting, tho. I mean Pentium D was a hot chip, but it never felt like it was adequately cooled. That said, it used off the shelf parts (this was just before the Dell takeover of AW), which was nice.
I will always kind of still love the thing, but I have never, ever, purchased another one, which is sad because they do make some interesting products, but their desktops and lack of commitment toward excellence continues to fail them. Everything you are pointing out that is wrong is based on bean-counting decision making. Yes, you have to be cautious where you spend money, and at the end of the day you must move units, but they could do a better job by coming up with a new case with better airflow and take a chance on using off the shelf products again.
reply
COCOniTOOOOOO
The last workstation version of this prebuild, the precision 3660, have finally gotten a new chassis. It's actually competently designed. There's hope that the next alienware could get it too since for several years precision small desktop tower have used a variation of the same chassis that is used by alienware for its desktop.
Got a few precision 3650 that use that same chassis with top spec I9 and 4090 (I have no choice but to buy from dell due to procurement issue) and it was as bad as expected. Most users complained about the noise and heat and was able to verify that they do perform as well as they should. When I try to make dell pro support correct this, the only answer I get is that this is how it supposed to work.
What is more problematic is that most of these were delivered without any heat sink on the the VRM. Curiously sometimes when I open a ticket for one of them support will dispatch a technician and while swapping the failed part he or she will also mount two heat sink on the VRMs. And sometimes they do not. And if i try to actually asks them to add the heat sink they tell that they have no idea what I'm talking about.
reply
The last workstation version of this prebuild, the precision 3660, have finally gotten a new chassis. It's actually competently designed. There's hope that the next alienware could get it too since for several years precision small desktop tower have used a variation of the same chassis that is used by alienware for its desktop.
Got a few precision 3650 that use that same chassis with top spec I9 and 4090 (I have no choice but to buy from dell due to procurement issue) and it was as bad as expected. Most users complained about the noise and heat and was able to verify that they do perform as well as they should. When I try to make dell pro support correct this, the only answer I get is that this is how it supposed to work.
What is more problematic is that most of these were delivered without any heat sink on the the VRM. Curiously sometimes when I open a ticket for one of them support will dispatch a technician and while swapping the failed part he or she will also mount two heat sink on the VRMs. And sometimes they do not. And if i try to actually asks them to add the heat sink they tell that they have no idea what I'm talking about.
reply
Elinzar
about the temperature thing, while you are technically right, i think having to use Kelvin to base the percentages off is really not representative of the temperature range a normal computer is used and to actually use the 0 Celcius as the compairson point is way more representative
10 degrees celsius reduction in pc cooling is Massive, like is a real archievement, and a 20% represents that way more accurately of its effects than just 3%
altough in any case i have to say that using percentages in pretty much anything without backign it up with the real numbers is the real scummy marketing tactic and should be illegal marketing
but anyway stuff like this makes me think that Craft Computing is about right, too much negativity in this industry that is starting to be a little gatekeeping, like Cmon having to use the Kelvin 0 point for temperature compairsons isnt it a bit too much? its outright impractical for Pcs and even you guys do not use it in your Components and Cases Temperature testing at all either in percentages or Temperature numbers so???
reply
about the temperature thing, while you are technically right, i think having to use Kelvin to base the percentages off is really not representative of the temperature range a normal computer is used and to actually use the 0 Celcius as the compairson point is way more representative
10 degrees celsius reduction in pc cooling is Massive, like is a real archievement, and a 20% represents that way more accurately of its effects than just 3%
altough in any case i have to say that using percentages in pretty much anything without backign it up with the real numbers is the real scummy marketing tactic and should be illegal marketing
but anyway stuff like this makes me think that Craft Computing is about right, too much negativity in this industry that is starting to be a little gatekeeping, like Cmon having to use the Kelvin 0 point for temperature compairsons isnt it a bit too much? its outright impractical for Pcs and even you guys do not use it in your Components and Cases Temperature testing at all either in percentages or Temperature numbers so???
reply
Free
I haven't watched the video yet, but I take apart probably between 30-60 old Dell prebuilts per day as part of my e-scrap job, so I would love to see if Dell is still doing weird, cheap stuff in what should be their high end consumer products. Edit: As far as the physical build construction goes, this is pretty impressive compared to their older desktops. Btw, those blue tabs are EVERYWHERE in every dell system I've ever torn down, they've probably been doing that for two decades. Servers too. Everything besides laptops is filled with blue plastic, and after a decade and a half or so those tabs become about as strong as a graham cracker. As far as the GPU dust goes, I really hope that is just from extended internal testing, because if they are putting used parts in a system and selling it as new for 4000+, that is a massive ethical problem.
reply
I haven't watched the video yet, but I take apart probably between 30-60 old Dell prebuilts per day as part of my e-scrap job, so I would love to see if Dell is still doing weird, cheap stuff in what should be their high end consumer products. Edit: As far as the physical build construction goes, this is pretty impressive compared to their older desktops. Btw, those blue tabs are EVERYWHERE in every dell system I've ever torn down, they've probably been doing that for two decades. Servers too. Everything besides laptops is filled with blue plastic, and after a decade and a half or so those tabs become about as strong as a graham cracker. As far as the GPU dust goes, I really hope that is just from extended internal testing, because if they are putting used parts in a system and selling it as new for 4000+, that is a massive ethical problem.
reply
Randarr
Cool thanks for not going too hard on dell's GPU cooler design, if they don't fix it I can maybe still get cheap dell GPUs for a year or so after they've been on the market and the paste has gone hard... My broken 3080 that was shutting down after prolonged periods at max temp when I bought it is a pretty nice upgrade over the Vega 64 I had prior. IIRC the common problem with their 30 series design was memory temps, with the pads on the VRAM going to a front plate with no thermal attachment to the fin stack. (If anyone out there has one with diminished performance and doesn't know about the issue, the fix is easy, take the GPU cooler off and apply thermal paste between the front plate and the cooler, so your memory can take advantage of the actually pretty okay cooler as well)
reply
Cool thanks for not going too hard on dell's GPU cooler design, if they don't fix it I can maybe still get cheap dell GPUs for a year or so after they've been on the market and the paste has gone hard... My broken 3080 that was shutting down after prolonged periods at max temp when I bought it is a pretty nice upgrade over the Vega 64 I had prior. IIRC the common problem with their 30 series design was memory temps, with the pads on the VRAM going to a front plate with no thermal attachment to the fin stack. (If anyone out there has one with diminished performance and doesn't know about the issue, the fix is easy, take the GPU cooler off and apply thermal paste between the front plate and the cooler, so your memory can take advantage of the actually pretty okay cooler as well)
reply
o0Silverwolf0o
I don't see any scenario where you should see dust on a system that expensive. If its pre-built and stored it should be bagged and even if its not no running fans should mean no dust pulling into the case let alone the gfx card.
If its built on order, the parts should be stored bagged and boxed until assembly.
That leaves only testing and setup where the system would be running to pull in dust, and if the work area is this dusty thats a massive concern, not just that they have poor housekeeping. But possibly bad filtering on this overpriced system.
That leaves the third scenario, used parts or system, not acceptable when selling at new prices and not listing it as used.
I used to think alienware was so cool back in the day, until Dell bought the company.
reply
I don't see any scenario where you should see dust on a system that expensive. If its pre-built and stored it should be bagged and even if its not no running fans should mean no dust pulling into the case let alone the gfx card.
If its built on order, the parts should be stored bagged and boxed until assembly.
That leaves only testing and setup where the system would be running to pull in dust, and if the work area is this dusty thats a massive concern, not just that they have poor housekeeping. But possibly bad filtering on this overpriced system.
That leaves the third scenario, used parts or system, not acceptable when selling at new prices and not listing it as used.
I used to think alienware was so cool back in the day, until Dell bought the company.
reply
BiG
I truly wanna know who the hell buys Alienware PC's these days, and why? They are horrifically designed, with crap components, and little you can reuse for a future system, or a swap. All for more money than it would cost from most other pre-build companies. That's on top of actually nerfed performance out of the box, with no way of fixing it. Honestly it can't be any worse. Even a bad system from most other pre-builds is at least fixable with some minor tweeks, cause they use standard PC components. This is just horrific...I feel bad for any buyer of this system if they paid anything close to full price for it...the design looks cheap and outdated, the performance is nerfed, and you can't even swap it to another case, or fix the performance issues. Dell needs to get sued...
reply
I truly wanna know who the hell buys Alienware PC's these days, and why? They are horrifically designed, with crap components, and little you can reuse for a future system, or a swap. All for more money than it would cost from most other pre-build companies. That's on top of actually nerfed performance out of the box, with no way of fixing it. Honestly it can't be any worse. Even a bad system from most other pre-builds is at least fixable with some minor tweeks, cause they use standard PC components. This is just horrific...I feel bad for any buyer of this system if they paid anything close to full price for it...the design looks cheap and outdated, the performance is nerfed, and you can't even swap it to another case, or fix the performance issues. Dell needs to get sued...
reply
BigHeadClan
God the cutaways in this video are absolute gold.
As for the critical BIOS updates that's pretty typical with most Dell, HP and Lenovo systems now they have signed drivers they send to Microsoft. For an Enterprise environment I'm a pretty big fan (no pun intended) of the process as it reduces the time I need to spend hunting down drivers or firmware for a system rebuild as well as to easily patch critical security vulnerabilities using most RMM tools.
For an end user environment? I'm a bit on the fence on because its not like they have an IT department on standby if something goes wrong, it usually means a pricey trip to the local computer repair shop.
reply
God the cutaways in this video are absolute gold.
As for the critical BIOS updates that's pretty typical with most Dell, HP and Lenovo systems now they have signed drivers they send to Microsoft. For an Enterprise environment I'm a pretty big fan (no pun intended) of the process as it reduces the time I need to spend hunting down drivers or firmware for a system rebuild as well as to easily patch critical security vulnerabilities using most RMM tools.
For an end user environment? I'm a bit on the fence on because its not like they have an IT department on standby if something goes wrong, it usually means a pricey trip to the local computer repair shop.
reply
shep
pc have come down in price - you should not spend more than 3k to have top shelf, heck you can build a terrific pc for half that price - gpu prices are the big outlier - all other parts are totally reasonable, gpu will drop in price in 3-5 years but short term outlook shows no relief, the mkt sentiment right now is shit and we are going into a recession; sentiment will likely get worse and pc sales are going no where fast - savvy buyers will save a bunch by building their own - it takes less than an hour generally speaking - look at it as someone paying you 200-500 an hour since that is what the margin and profit most of these builders are looking to reap
reply
pc have come down in price - you should not spend more than 3k to have top shelf, heck you can build a terrific pc for half that price - gpu prices are the big outlier - all other parts are totally reasonable, gpu will drop in price in 3-5 years but short term outlook shows no relief, the mkt sentiment right now is shit and we are going into a recession; sentiment will likely get worse and pc sales are going no where fast - savvy buyers will save a bunch by building their own - it takes less than an hour generally speaking - look at it as someone paying you 200-500 an hour since that is what the margin and profit most of these builders are looking to reap
reply
John
I worked on some pre-Dell Alienware PCs, they were truly well engineered and special creations, the case designs were groundbreaking. Once they became just an upscale badge for Dell, they use the same generic box as bland box Dells - just with some gamer plastic cladding. I don't see that changing anytime soon - if ever.
Regarding Dell and BIOS updates, in my time in IT, I worked in several Dell only shops, the value for money and warranty service for their business lines is pretty good. However, when calling support, Dell's techs would refuse to troubleshoot unless the PC was on the latest BIOS version - with the exception of a clear hardware issue.
reply
I worked on some pre-Dell Alienware PCs, they were truly well engineered and special creations, the case designs were groundbreaking. Once they became just an upscale badge for Dell, they use the same generic box as bland box Dells - just with some gamer plastic cladding. I don't see that changing anytime soon - if ever.
Regarding Dell and BIOS updates, in my time in IT, I worked in several Dell only shops, the value for money and warranty service for their business lines is pretty good. However, when calling support, Dell's techs would refuse to troubleshoot unless the PC was on the latest BIOS version - with the exception of a clear hardware issue.
reply
Tom
Not sure if anyone at GN have ever used one of these systems, but this case do look deja vu to an old Dell Precision workstation that I repurposed for gaming for a while (the same case is also shared by some of their lower-end PowerEdge tower servers), and some other elements seem to be derived from Optiplex systems. My hunch is that Dell is trying to re-use as much as possible from their business machine line-up, and add gamer appeal on top of these business-oriented cases. Those tool-less mounting designs are also something that enterprise IT will love, and Dell probably did not want to re-engineer as set of mounting options just for Alienware.
reply
Not sure if anyone at GN have ever used one of these systems, but this case do look deja vu to an old Dell Precision workstation that I repurposed for gaming for a while (the same case is also shared by some of their lower-end PowerEdge tower servers), and some other elements seem to be derived from Optiplex systems. My hunch is that Dell is trying to re-use as much as possible from their business machine line-up, and add gamer appeal on top of these business-oriented cases. Those tool-less mounting designs are also something that enterprise IT will love, and Dell probably did not want to re-engineer as set of mounting options just for Alienware.
reply
Anthony
Dell.... why can't they pull their heads out of their rear ends? This has been an issue with me for ALL Dell builds. They continue to over-engineer their cases and end up shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to performance....OPTIPLEX , INSPIRON and what ever else they try to push onto their customers. Not only do they manage to screw up their system cases but they insist on using proprietary parts. When I heard they bought up AlienWare many moons ago, I thought to myself, Dell's going to find a way to screw up that brand as well. I hate to say it but I was right....
reply
Dell.... why can't they pull their heads out of their rear ends? This has been an issue with me for ALL Dell builds. They continue to over-engineer their cases and end up shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to performance....OPTIPLEX , INSPIRON and what ever else they try to push onto their customers. Not only do they manage to screw up their system cases but they insist on using proprietary parts. When I heard they bought up AlienWare many moons ago, I thought to myself, Dell's going to find a way to screw up that brand as well. I hate to say it but I was right....
reply
The
Here we go again with the Kelvin thing. In no situation are you ever going to be in a room where the ambient temperature is 0 kelvin. It's not even theoretically possible, there's nowhere on the planet where you're going to get a 0 Kelvin ambient. It's completely valid to use 0 degrees Celsius as your base line, because it's actually possible to be in a room with a 0 degree ambient (bring a jacket!).
It sounds clever and smart, but it's both pedantic and ridiculous. People are not going to adopt a Kelvin comparison system for computer thermals.
reply
Here we go again with the Kelvin thing. In no situation are you ever going to be in a room where the ambient temperature is 0 kelvin. It's not even theoretically possible, there's nowhere on the planet where you're going to get a 0 Kelvin ambient. It's completely valid to use 0 degrees Celsius as your base line, because it's actually possible to be in a room with a 0 degree ambient (bring a jacket!).
It sounds clever and smart, but it's both pedantic and ridiculous. People are not going to adopt a Kelvin comparison system for computer thermals.
reply
Drew
Why does anybody give dell any credit for these systems. Trying is great and all but these problems shouldn t exist in the first place. Dell has been in the game for decades. Hell my 14 year old niece has built her own pc with better cooling than anything Alienware has ever produced. They should know how to build better than these half assed hot boxes.
Not to mention these systems are still crazy overpriced, and use proprietary components. People need to completely stop buying these junky pre builds .period.
reply
Why does anybody give dell any credit for these systems. Trying is great and all but these problems shouldn t exist in the first place. Dell has been in the game for decades. Hell my 14 year old niece has built her own pc with better cooling than anything Alienware has ever produced. They should know how to build better than these half assed hot boxes.
Not to mention these systems are still crazy overpriced, and use proprietary components. People need to completely stop buying these junky pre builds .period.
reply
Morgan
i understand there are plenty of people out there who can't build a diy...but man am i glad i do. I havent seen the previous videos of this pc, but 4.5k for this?? 4,500 and you get that plain/barebones green looking memory? I can understand on budget builds, but this is almost 5 grand and you slap that shit in there? I mostly say this because they spent so much time/energy/money on making the rest of the case look nice, but then you have this ugly stick of memory in the middle for all to see...
reply
i understand there are plenty of people out there who can't build a diy...but man am i glad i do. I havent seen the previous videos of this pc, but 4.5k for this?? 4,500 and you get that plain/barebones green looking memory? I can understand on budget builds, but this is almost 5 grand and you slap that shit in there? I mostly say this because they spent so much time/energy/money on making the rest of the case look nice, but then you have this ugly stick of memory in the middle for all to see...
reply
Alex
It's a real shame that the world of prebuilt computers is so grossly incompetent.
Not all gaming enthusiasts are pc enthusiasts, some of them it's just the means to an end and they will pay these prices for such questionably designed machines.
It's too bad the only companies making good ones have to focus on top end rigs to make the economics work and the only mid performance prebuilts for average gamers have to come from these lazy companies.
reply
It's a real shame that the world of prebuilt computers is so grossly incompetent.
Not all gaming enthusiasts are pc enthusiasts, some of them it's just the means to an end and they will pay these prices for such questionably designed machines.
It's too bad the only companies making good ones have to focus on top end rigs to make the economics work and the only mid performance prebuilts for average gamers have to come from these lazy companies.
reply
Austin
Since the thermals leave so much headroom, and it has a 1350w power supply, can the power limits not be raised in any way?
I bought one of these because dell is one of our vendors and I had a big line of credit with them because of it. It does feel like the CPU is weaker than it should be but trying to 'overclock it' doesnt do anyhting meaningful since I can only bump it by 100mhz.
reply
Since the thermals leave so much headroom, and it has a 1350w power supply, can the power limits not be raised in any way?
I bought one of these because dell is one of our vendors and I had a big line of credit with them because of it. It does feel like the CPU is weaker than it should be but trying to 'overclock it' doesnt do anyhting meaningful since I can only bump it by 100mhz.
reply
Gal
Alienware is like that kid who tries to look really cool, acts like it and tells everybody about it because it wants to fit in, only that kid is an adult trying to apply for a job and doesn't really listen when people around it talk about what companies are actually looking for. Or maybe the did start listening a bit now. They have more power so you can reach your max potential .
reply
Alienware is like that kid who tries to look really cool, acts like it and tells everybody about it because it wants to fit in, only that kid is an adult trying to apply for a job and doesn't really listen when people around it talk about what companies are actually looking for. Or maybe the did start listening a bit now. They have more power so you can reach your max potential .
reply
Ryan
I just don't get it, how do they not understand that the case they use is so ugly and complete crap, the only people who buy it are people who have no idea what to buy or rich kids who think it's cool. It honestly makes me wonder who's in charge and if they have any knowledge at all on what they are doing? I don't know one person that has bought one of these since 2000.
reply
I just don't get it, how do they not understand that the case they use is so ugly and complete crap, the only people who buy it are people who have no idea what to buy or rich kids who think it's cool. It honestly makes me wonder who's in charge and if they have any knowledge at all on what they are doing? I don't know one person that has bought one of these since 2000.
reply
Lukas
I just made a quick price comparison with a PC configurator. There I could get a 13900KF with 240 aio, RTX 4090, 32GB DDR5 6000 36, ASRock Taichi, Dark Base 900, Dark Power 1000W, 2TB NVMe, all extremely expensive parts, for around 4000 Euros, completely including assembly and Windows. So cheaper than this one but with really good parts and upgradable in the future.
reply
I just made a quick price comparison with a PC configurator. There I could get a 13900KF with 240 aio, RTX 4090, 32GB DDR5 6000 36, ASRock Taichi, Dark Base 900, Dark Power 1000W, 2TB NVMe, all extremely expensive parts, for around 4000 Euros, completely including assembly and Windows. So cheaper than this one but with really good parts and upgradable in the future.
reply
Add a review, comment
Other channel videos
