It was right around this time last year when we posted our
Alienware Aurora R16 review, which we dubbed a "civil redesign" and an overall "solid option, in terms of mid-range pre-built gaming PCs." That's not to say it is without flaws (more on those in a moment). However, it's a surprisingly decent value for the Alienware brand, and even more so with an upgraded configuration getting a timely discount.
We say "timely" because tomorrow (Tuesday) kicks off Amazon's two-day 'Prime Big Deal Deals' event. Bargains are already beginning to appear, including some discounts on PlayStation 5 Slim consoles, PS5 games, and LG's C4 OLED TVs that we
rounded up earlier today.
The deals aren't only appearing at Amazon. In this case, the
Alienware Aurora R16 gaming desktop that's on sale can be had for
$1,499.99 direct from Dell (save $600). That's a big discount, and it's not a fake one, either. In fact, this is the least expensive configuration we could find that touts an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super graphics card inside.
The GPU is the star of the show here and is an excellent candidate for 1440p gaming. It can also muster gaming at 4K, depending on the title, especially when taking advantage of DLSS. See our
GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super review for a bunch of benchmarks and analysis.
Outside of the burly GPU, this discounted Alienware desktop is rocking an Intel Core i7-14700F processor (20C/28T, up to 5.4GHz, 33MB L3 cache), 16GB (2x8GB) of DDR5-5600 RAM, a 1TB M.2 solid state drive (SSD), and a 1000W 80 Plus Platinum power supply. It also sports a 240mm liquid cooler and a clear side panel to see the system's guts.
The caveats here are that the Aurora R16 leverages a proprietary motherboard and PSU design, and offers up just modest internal expansion options. That's something to take into account, though at the current sale price, it's a little easier to overlook its limitations.
If you just can't get past the proprietary design, however, then the next least expensive pre-built with the same class GPU is this
MSI Aegis gaming desktop that's on sale for
$1,699.99 at Best Buy (save $400). It features the same CPU (Core i7-14700F) and GPU (GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super) combination, and a lower wattage 750W 80 Plus Gold PSU for $200 more than the Alienware Aurora R16, though it comes with twice as much RAM (32GB DDR5-5600) and storage (2TB).
While we have not tested MSI's desktop, it looks like cooing is probably a little better as well, with three RGB fans adorning the front. The motherboard, meanwhile, is an off-the-shelf MSI Pro B760-VC WiFi with Wi-Fi 7 support, a 2.5Gbps LAN port, and other bells and whistles. It also comes with a keyboard and mouse.
Here are a few other gaming desktop deals...
- Acer Nitro 70 (Ryzen 9 7900, RTX 4070, 32GB/1TB): $1,789.90 (save $210.09)
- iBuyPower Y40 (i7-14700F, RTX 4070, 32GB/1TB): $1,449.99 (save $150)
- CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme (i7-14700F, RTX 4060 Ti, 8GB/2TB): $1,189.99 (save $60)
- Lenovo LOQ Tower (i5-14400F, RTX 3050, 16GB/512GB): $599.99 (save $300)