(14th Gen) Alienware Aurora R16 FULL Review! - 14900KF and 4090

are you ready to see what the new 14th gen Intel I9 CPU can actually do in a pre-built PC we have reviewed a lot of gaming PCs recently but I'm especially excited to share with you our very first PC review with this absolute Beast of a CPU it's said to be capable of speeds of up to 6 GHz with thermal velocity boost if you follow this channel you may have noticed that Alienware PCS always seem to get the most views well a lot has changed this year and in this 100% honest and unbiased review I'm going to share with you everything that you need to know about the latest Alienware Aurora [Music] R16 this configuration that we have here for you includes the latest 14th gen Intel I9 14900 KF CPU and 490 GPU XMP Ram will also be available with this new version of the R16 and it's finally going to be black not that green color that I've always complained about that previous unboxing video that I did that one had the i7 13700 F CPU with with a 4070 GPU but since then thankfully I was able to snag the latest 14th gen Intel version before release as well I also ran all of my tests with my Founders Edition 4080 GPU as well actually three different configurations extensively tested on this PC I'm going to quickly take you through the unboxing and what's included gaming and Creator benchmarks design and build quality the internals thermals fan noise overall ease of use pricing breakdowns and comparing its price to Performance ratios against the competition talk about some of the challenges that I came across with its upgradeability and future improvements and my overall top pros and cons if you decide against this PC after anything that I say in this video just keep watching because I'm also going to be sharing with you some alternative PCS that I recommend for every budget links down below for all the computers that I mentioned I guarantee that by the end of this video you will know if this PC is right for you or not if you watch the whole thing but if you still have any questions after watching this entire video just shoot me a comment and if you're publicly subscribed I guarantee a personal response all all right now let's rewind back into the past real quick and check out the unboxing inside at the top we've just got a warranty and quick guide and then they're actually including some pretty cheap and basic keyboards and mice by default now nothing special but they're free I guess if you want to step it up to something nicer that matches your PC then stay tuned for my ultimate Alienware gaming accessory review coming soon then we've got the thinnest power cable that I think I've ever seen on a pre-built PC only an 18 gauge cord versus the 16 gauge on all the other 1,000 wat power supplies that I've seen then we've got the typical thank you card and Alienware Fanboy [Applause] stickers now when it comes to the design I personally have been getting very tired of the same spaceship design year after year so this change is a breath of fresh air to me the more boxy version with rounded edges of the R16 looks pretty slick if you're like me that can appreciate cleaner and more simplistic designs although it has kind of morphed into something that resembles a large majority of the other pre-builts it still does look like an Alienware PC though with their typical hexagon ventilation and iconic tronar which we've seen pretty consistently with their laptops aside from the tronar though very little to be excited about when it comes to lighting effects the only other illuminated parts are the Alienware power button on the front and this rear exhaust F overall in person the inside just feels very dark compared to other gaming pre-builts as far as functional design while it is an improvement there's still some things that could have been done better we're still using a proprietary motherboard with the front IO built directly into it which means that no other motherboard can work in this case we've only got one intake fan on the front which pulls air in from both sides of this front panel it's not life or death to have only one intake fan for 470 GPU but I definitely think there should be two if you're going to have a 4080 or 4090 the fact that this PC has slimmed down so much though from the previous version kind of highlights how much wasted space there was on the R15 the R16 is only about 8 in wide 18 in deep including that handle on the back and about 16.5 in tall and weighs just under 34 lb to access the internals you first need a screwdriver to unlock it from the back and then pull on this handle to pop off the side glass panel along here is where we've got our 12-phase voltage regulation that essentially funnels down power to a more manageable and consistent level for our CPU this was less than exciting on the original i7 13700 F CPU that I got on my first R16 but it is absolutely essential for this brand new unlocked I9 14900 C CPU then right here for those of you that are new to PC gaming is the CPU Cooler which uses a liquid to transfer the heat that's generated from the CPU up through these tubes into this 240 mm radiator at the top where the heat is then quickly spread out and then blown out of the case next to that are two sticks of ddr5 ram at 5600 MHz still no RGB or heat sinks on the ram we do finally get XMP Ram options though and that Ram is finally black not that ugly green color unfortunately it wasn't yet available when Alienware sent me this review unit but I am glad that's finally an option and next to that also without heat sinks are two m.2 ssds these are both one terab but it will work with up to 4 terabytes for a Max total of 8 terabytes and I'll show you the speeds that those tested that here in a sec next to that are killer Wi-Fi 6E wireless card and then right underneath our CPU the most important and most expensive part of our PC Dell's version of the 490 GPU it's a fairly light and basic looking GPU not very big for a 4090 as you can see compared to my 480 and especially compared to my MSI gaming Trio 490 we've got about 25 mm of clearance with Dell's 490 and 22 mm with Dell's 470 which both are less than ideal and then I tested my much thicker Founders Edition 480 which if you don't know is the exact same size as a Founders Edition 490 and it gave us even less clearance with only about a 16 mm Gap underneath that's not very good for air flow and you're going to see how that affected thermals here in a sec I also tried to fit in my MSI gaming Trio 490 but but that one did not fit we've got two pcie expansion card slots but none of them are actually accessible with a GPU installed not even the smallest GPU so kind of pointless then in the bottom right corner we've got a bracket for one 3 and 1/2 in mechanical hard drive then lastly on the bottom another proprietary component our 1,000 wat 80 plus Platinum power supply even if you get a less powerful configuration than we got I highly recommend you select a 1,000 W power supply if you ever plan on upgrading your CPU or GPU in the future it's only $50 more than the 500 W and it's something that you cannot swap out in the future because the connector is not standard and then swinging around to the back nothing very interesting here just a little bit of pretty basic cable management usually on the back of PC cases we'll have a couple extra 2 and 1/2 in SSD bays and a couple brackets at the bottom for even more 3 and 1 12 in mechanical hard drives for the ports on the front we've got a headphone and microphone combo Jack three USB 3.2 gen 1es the bottom one with Power share and a twice as fast USBC 3.2 Gen 2 also with Power share on the back we've got a very generous amount of highquality audio ports and then we've got eight more USBS six of them USB as's and two of them Ultra fast USB C's and then we've got an ethernet port two connectors for your Wi-Fi antennas and then on the back of our GPU three display ports and one HDMI port for the software you can see with this new build we've got access to the brand new Alienware command center right here is where you can fine-tune your performance profiles based on whether you prefer quiet fans and lower performance or louder fans with the ultimate performance or you can go to custom and fine-tune your fans individually if you want to in the alien effects tab you can set a bunch of different custom colors and animations for your three RGB zones it's honestly a little annoying though that the command Setter sets all these effects for each game automatically for you though meaning that you have to go back into the preset for each game and change it manually just to keep the computer from changing colors at all and this will all sync well with Alienware keyboards and mice as well and other accessories and unfortunately if you're one of those that likes to Tinker with the BIOS to customize and squeeze just a little bit more performance out of your machine you're kind of out of luck with this one as there's very few options within the BIOS compared to what I'm used to with other pre-builts if you do get an unlocked K version of an Intel CPU like our new 14900 k then you'll also have an option here for overclocking with very basic options as well in my experience it really didn't change performance that much and we're going to get to that here in a sec when it came to the fan noise these were our results after testing each of the main fan profiles in quiet mode it was just a little under 41 DB getting as low as 40.7 as you can see this was just barely the quietest quiet mode out of all the PCS that I've ever tested and then when moving up to Performance mode it only brought the fan noise up to about 41.6 DB and again the quietest performance mode that I've ever seen you can see the progress throughout the years with the r13 having the loudest fans ever in performance mode improving a little bit with the R15 and now with the R16 having the largest acoustic Improvement that we've seen yet but then when going into custom settings and brute forcing all the fans to full speed at 100% that brought it up pretty high to about 68 DB which is honestly kind of pointless because it did not improve performance at all by maxing them out like that and it only brought average temperatures down by about 5° it's honestly just best to stick with Alienware profiles here for The Thermals in our thermal imaging time lapse from the moment the computer is turned on to when it was fully engaged in gaming you can see that heat is accumulating on the glass right next to the GPU and opening up the glass panel reveals just a little bit more of what's going on here as the side of the 4090 GPU does generate quite a bit of heat fortunately a lot of that heat does successfully Escape at the back and top exhaust fans though the side exhaust ventilation was pretty key in keeping these temperatures lower as well the majority of my testing was spent in actual gameplay though these were our CPU temps for several different games at 1080p with each version of the R16 that we tested quite a bit of an improvement over the R15 except for Witcher 3 for some reason and then as expected much cooler temperatures with the i7 480 and 470 versions comparing it to the other I9 4090 PCS though revealed it to still be on the hotter end compared to most and then averaging all of these gaming temperatures together we get an even better broad perspective on how it holds up against the most recent PCS that we've tested still near the top for CPU temperatures but not within throttling limits that's not to say that the CPU wasn't limited though and we'll get to that here in a sec I actually pulled this new 14th gen CPU and put it in the sky Tech Eclipse that I still have in the studio and surprisingly that was the coolest I9 CPU that I've ever seen that just goes to show you how much better liquid cooling with 3 140 mm fans are versus alienware's 2 120 mm fans when it came to the GPU temperatures I sorted this chart by the GPU at 4K since high resolution gaming is very heavy on the GPU and less on the CPU and the R16 was kind of in the middle of the pack here which honestly is better than being the absolute hottest 490 GPU like the last R15 was all right performance and gaming benchmarks the second most important part of this review the most important part is the price to perform performance and we're going to get to that here in a sec for cine R23 which simulates its 3D rendering power we got a multi-course score of 35,2 110 and a single core score of 2263 I am a little surprised that it actually did slightly worse than the 13th gen I9 and the R15 here the same thing happened when we put this 14th gen CPU in the sky Tech eclipse and as you can see the more budget friendly versions of the R16 scored pretty low compared to the rest as well those have the less powerful F versions of the CPU though stay with me though because the price to Performance ratios or really matter and we're going to get to that here in a sec another very helpful test for you 3D renderers is The vray Benchmark and these were our Cuda RTX and overall VR performance scores you can see that it's just barely below average with the GPU scoring here it's got the same GPU as the R5 but it's in a more efficient case so it was able to perform a little bit better for the vray performance which is another CPU rendering test you can see that it just barely outperformed the R15 which was the weakest K variant I9 CPU out of all the pre-builts that we've tested this this year while technically the CPU itself wasn't weaker it's just that unfortunately its full power and potential is not realized in Alienware desktops and all of these tests reveal this to be a similar situation with the 14th gen9 you can see that putting this CPU in the sky Tech Eclipse resulted in the best VR performance score that we've ever seen and for those of you who use blender we got a GPU score of 13,112 score of 501 you can see from the charts for the GPU that this was about average the two lower-end configurations that we t tested ranked also about where I expected them to again for the CPU score though it seemed to underperform in each configuration category and the last benchmarks for creatives before we get into gaming are the pugent benchmarks if you're an editor and da Vinci then you'll be pleased to know that the 14th gen I9 version of the R16 had the highest score that I've ever seen and the other two configurations also top the charts in their categories as well things were a bit different in Adobe Premiere though with it just barely coming in third place but not by much still I had hoped for it to be the best with a 14th gen I9 if you're wondering why there's a lot less PCS on this chart that's because a recent update on the pugent benchmarks for Adobe Premiere drastically changed how that Benchmark works for Photoshop the R16 ranked slightly below average again but not by much and then surprisingly just barely the lowest score for an I 9490 when it came to after effects for the ssds the main drives that we stored everything on we got speeds of over 7100 megabytes per second read and 6,500 megabytes per second right this is super fast but it's about what we've seen on other pre-builts as well except for that Sky Tech Eclipse that one was about half the speeds not really sure why they used such a low-end drive on that one for 3D Mark which is a great Benchmark used to predict a computer's overall game ability we got an overall score of 32727 a graphic score of 36726 and a CPU score of 20,240 this overall score is pretty much tied with the 14th gen Sky Tech Eclipse machine the other two variants were on the lower end in their categories Act ual gaming benchmarks are probably what you guys care the most about though and these were our average FPS results we got for several games at their highest preset settings at 1080p here this R16 with a 14th gen I9 performed more like a 13th gen I9 slightly better overall than the Aurora R15 though then averaging all of these gaming FPS together and zooming out to compare it against everything that we've tested recently you can see how it Stacks up overall coming in around fifth place with the other two configurations on the lower end in their categories as well we also got similar results in our 1440p chart as you can see here but then when moving up to 4K the R16 with the best specs on paper finally performed the best overall the i7 480 version about average and then the i7 470 version about where it expected to be okay so this is how everything ranks when comparing raw performance but let's check out what changes when we factor in the pricing right now at the time of this recording the lower spec model that we tested with an i7 and 470 is priced at $1700 the mid-range i7 480 version that we tested about $2,300 and the maxed out version with the latest 14th gen I9 and $490 $3500 which is actually less than most pre-builts right now with 13th gen i9s the similar spec HP Omen 45 L that we also reviewed though is actually about $300 less than this and performed pretty well the previous Alienware Aurora R15 is about $200 more than this R16 with similar specs at about $3,700 the Corsair Vengeance I 400 about $300 more Corsair Vengeance PCS are a little bit more reliable though and they come with a 2-year warranty versus the oneyear from most other prebuilts Sky Tech Eclipse also $300 more the legion Tower 7i gen 8 $500 less if it was still in stock that one had an insane deal about a week ago but it conveniently went out of stock after I brought more attention to it and my absolute favorite If Money Was No Object the Decked Out Corsair Vengeance I 8100 at a whopping $800 more at $4,300 and this leads me to the most important part of this review the price to Performance ratios as you can see here at 1080p gaming the lower spec 470 and 4080 versions of the R16 have the lowest dollar per FPS ratios out of all the 40 series pre-builts that we've tested so far except for the sky Tech azuro 2 which is currently still the value Champion overall finally we can consider Alienware desktops to be a good deal you can see that the I9 490 version has the second best ratio for PCs with i9s and 490s as well similar results with 1440p gaming but with the i7 480 version looking like an even better value with the third lowest price to Performance ratio and then when stepping it up to 4K gaming the 4080 version now with the second best dollar per FPS ratio out of all the gaming PCs that I've ever tested in 4k technically first place if you factor in PCS that are actually in stock no word yet on when the legion 7 I gen 8 is actually going to be in stock with an I9 and 490 if the R16 has been less than convincing in this this review these are my recommendations for every budget I'll have updated links in the comments and description for all the computers that I mentioned for under $2,500 I would go with this i7 480 version of the Cyber power PC Gamer Supreme for just over $2,300 basically the same specs as the less expensive version of this i7 400 that we tested but quite a bit cheaper although I prefer the Corsair version this one is a good option if you can't afford corsairs in my experience though cyber power PCS do tend to get a little hotter than most so just keep that in mind if $2,300 is still too much for those with a budget under $22,000 the sky Tech is your that I recently reviewed is what I recommend for around $1,500 I would go with the new Cyber power PC Gamer Supreme with a 13th gen i7 and 460 TI closer to$ 1,000 and I'd get its little brother the Cyber power PC Gamer extreme with a 13th gen i5 and 4060 GPU for under 1,000 at only $800 I recommend the vicus by HP with a new 13th gen i5 and then make sure to to select at least a 1660 super GPU before checkout this is the bare minimum that I would recommend for semi-decent gaming though that is not a PC for people that like to crank up graphic settings if you want a decent frame rate and responsiveness if you're coming from a console like PS5 or the Xbox series X and you want the graphics to at least match that then you're going to want to select the 4060 GPU option before checkout I've also done quite a few monitor reviews lately so make sure to subscribe and check those out or if you just want to save some time and take my word for it my absolute favorite so far was the Corsair Xenon Flex OLED which is a massive 45 in Ultra wide that you can use flat or bend it for a very steep 800 R curve that one is $1,500 though my second favorite which actually has the best picture was the slightly smaller Alienware aw 3423 DWF 34in curved OLED gaming monitor at $900 a budget closer to $400 I'd go with the Samsung Odyssey G5 Ultra wide curved if you just want something decent to get by then the Samsung Odyssey g51 C 32 in for only $250 is what I would get but back to the R6 I also tried out quite a few upgrades I added a second RGB intake fan on the front a Corsair IQ h100i Elite AO liquid cooling system with a really cool looking screen two sticks of Kingston Fury Beast RGB XMP RAM and heat sinks on my ssds links down below for all of these as well these two replacement fans and one extra fan connected to a hub which normally put on the back of a PC case except this back panel had these weird ridges that prevented it from closing so you're going to have to put that somewhere inside the case most likely near the bottom next to that hard drive bracket another frustrating thing is that there's absolutely no USB headers on the motherboard most have at least two so I actually had to run converter cables from two rear ports back into the case in order for me to be able to control the LCD screen and RGB on these new fans on top of this you get a pretty annoying CPU fan detect warning every time you boot up everything did work fine though the aftermarket XMP Ram also worked in this PC at base speeds but alienware's bios would not let me enable XMP speeds for it I reached out to Alienware and they told me that thirdparty XMP profiles will not be enabled by the BIOS and then the new heat sinks that I put on the ssds not only does it look a lot nicer it was also about 40° cooler with them on the extra intake fan I'd say is only worth it for looks as it only really resulted in a few degrees lower temperatures for the GPU on average pros and cons my number one con is upgradeability one of the biggest gripes of Alienware desktops is their use of proprietary Parts neither the motherboard or the power supply can be upgraded or replaced so when the next round of CPUs or gpus are released there's a chance they're not going to work in this PC PCS like this are best for those that are getting the lower end configurations of current gen CPUs and gpus that way in the future they can still upgrade when top tier current gen drops in price when next gen gets released my number two con is the CPU power limiting you can see from the tests and comparing to the sky skytech Eclipse also with a 14th gen I9 that the CPU was not performing to its full potential in an Alienware desktop this was more apparent in some tests than others but it was noticeable in the CPU tests like the blender and vray performance tests My overall top Pros for this PC number one is that price to Performance ratio this PC is very very fast and because Alienware has priced it so fairly all the configurations of this PC had some of the best price to Performance ratios out of all the PCS that I've ever tested at every resolution and number two was the fan noise especially considering how loud the r13 was a couple years ago I was very impressed to see the Improvement here with the quietest fans out of all the gaming PCs that I've ever tested overall I can understand why some PC gaming enthusiasts are still going to frown upon Alienware because of their use of proprietary Parts this PC is more for the PC Gamer that only cares about the price to Performance ratios and sees future motherboard upgrading as more of a chore than something to enjoy honestly most people that are buying pre-built PCS are not going to want to go through the hassle of replacing the most difficult part of your PC to remove gpus and not even CPUs are that timec consuming to upgrade but the time that it takes to disconnect your motherboard and all the cables in order to make your PC compatible with the latest CPU or GPU is time that many on team pre-built are not going to want to spend on later I do think that Alienware is only hurting themselves though by not bending to the will of the masses and making their PCS compatible with standard motherboards and power supplies yes some people don't care and by the time they buy a new pc they want to just replace the entire thing but they are losing a lot of wouldbe customers by not making that change now if you do decide to purchase this PC or any of the others that I mentioned then please remember to use my affiliate links in the comments and description below as I get a small commission at no cost to you for every single purchase made and it's actually a major factor in keeping this channel going and getting better and better for you I'd also like to personally thank all of my members for their monthly support of this channel I really appreciate you guys every little bit helps also make sure to like comment and subscribe with notifications turned on to stay up to date with all of my latest tech and gaming PCs thanks for watching guys I love you guys God bless

Channel: Just!N Tech

Views: 65,270

Keywords: new alienware, alienware aurora, alienware, Justin Tech Tips, Justin Tech, Just!N Tech, Just n tech, alienware aurora r16 gaming desktop, alienware aurora r16 unboxing, Alienware Aurora R16 Desktop, Budget Gaming PC, 14th Gen Intel, Intel i9 14900KF, 4090, Alienware Aurora R16 Review, Best Gaming PC 2023, Alienware Aurora R16 Upgrades

Id: 27ifmv-PYqY

Length: 23min 10sec (1390 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 17 2023