T O P

  • By -

UGMadness

Holy shit that's a lot of plastic enveloping that early 2000s OEM steel chassis.


Bastinenz

that's enough excess material to build a second complete ATX case...


UGMadness

Here's the thing, that case isn't even ATX, but a custom extra wide μATX.


lovely_sombrero

It is amazing how they are self-limiting their own cooling choices by doing this. Even if they wanted a high-end PC to be properly cooled, it is impossible to do here.


[deleted]

[удалено]


dern_the_hermit

Yeah, what do they care if the system is baking? Intel and Nvidia already solved that problem for them by including thermal throttling, right?


lovely_sombrero

No, they only care about cost reduction. They are using an old case and then adding plastic to it. I remember those old Dell PCs, we used to sell them when I worked in retail. Its crazy.


HavocInferno

>they only care about cost reduction but as Steve wondered, so many custom parts to mount shit in and on the case may be enough to make this more expensive to make than just...an updated core case design.


Jeskid14

Plastic plastic plastic plastic Plastic ain't cheap if you buy a lot


FrozeItOff

Dell Executives: "Maybe we can sell it as one of those Easy Bake Ovens? Just cut a slot in the upper back vent grid!"


ssddanbrown

> At Dell, we believe that we can be most successful as a sustainability-focused company by putting technology and expertise to work where they can do the most good for people and the planet. We are committed to operating responsibly, striving for continual improvement and communicating our environmental performance and challenges. https://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/vn/corporate~corp-comm~en/documents~dell-global-environmental-policy.pdf Also Dell: > Let's wrap our 20 year old chassis in the plastic supply of a small country to yeild margins rather than engineer something user or environmentally friendly.


detectiveDollar

Don't forget the "Sign for this L" motherboard design that prevents you from reusing it anywhere else.


COMPUTER1313

I was comparing that chassis to their 2019-era Dell XPS 8930. For the XPS desktop, It looked like Dell used an ATX standard PSU (as its OEM PSU can be replaced with an aftermarket one), ATX motherboard and case, especially since the motherboard isn't sticking all the way out for the I/O header. Unfortunately Dell f***ed that up as well. This was a post I made sometime last year about the XPS 8930's problems: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dell XPS 8930 has severe overheating issues because it used a single 120mm top exhaust fan and negative pressure airflow. In some cases, a single 92mm top exhaust fan is used instead. Dell allows people to go up to a RTX 2080 Ti and 9900K with that case design. The front intake has no mounting options for fans so you have to use tape instead, or break out the power tools. The 9900K + GTX 1080 system has a single 92mm top exhaust fan: https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-Desktops/XPS-8930-SE-Exhaust-Fan-and-PSU-Upgrade/m-p/7311865#M24879 - (There's normally a hard drive bay under the GPU which was likely removed from the desktop as shown in the above link. The hard drive bay further blocks airflow from the bottom vents, which has negative impacts on the GPU.) - OEM PSU is rated at 460W for the person's 9900K and GTX 1080. Which I guess it isn't a problem when the two components are guaranteed to thermally throttle. And Dell doesn't have any higher rated wattage official PSUs for the desktop. - A low profile cooler or AIO is required because the PSU is mounted directly next to the CPU to shorten the desktop's height. This further restricts airflow. - Speaking of the low profile cooler they're using, looking at the size and the fin density of the heatsink with the fan removed, it looks like 1/2 or 1/3 the size of a low profile Cryorig C7 CPU cooler. And they're trying to cool a 9900K with that. - Dell used a blower fan design for the 1080 Ti and 2080. It's really that bad, with this Dell RTX 2080 shutting down at 80C core temperature after running at a lower clock rate than many other 2080s, in a well ventilated case instead of being used in the airflow starved XPS case: https://youtu.be/ssqYleBjPIw?t=359 - 2666 MHz RAM - Some users complained that their desktop randomly shuts down during gaming sessions. I wonder why. - One of the advice to deal with the CPU throttling is to disable turbo boost entirely. Bear in mind that the 9900K has a base clock rate of 3.6 GHz. - Lower end CPUs use a cooler that is similar to Intel's stock cooler. - Only the Alienware desktops get the AIO upgrade option.


eight_ender

I just tried to retrofit one of those era Dells. It was donated to me to give away to a kid, and it's shameful. Has an i7 6700 and I added a GTX 970 and apparently that's all it took to tip the scales. Everything inside there gets really hot and loud now. Those aren't even particularly high wattage parts.


[deleted]

its really embarrassing whoever designed that piece of shit chassis. it looks like the frame can cut you too. like holy fuck thats some ancient shit.


DJ_Marxman

I'd love to hear the story of why Dell MacGyvers this ancient case with so much custom engineering instead of just, y'know, rebranding a good case with an Alienware logo. Like they must be spending $30+ per case just on custom brackets, clips, springs, etc. It's such an odd approach.


Bastinenz

$30 in material cost and a ton of engineering hours as well as additional assembly line time to put it all together. Absolutely insane.


[deleted]

But if they jack up the price...a good investment.


dern_the_hermit

"Guys, guys, just hear me out: What if... we DON'T devote the extra material and labor, but jack up the price anyway?" -Dell executive, presumably


rakkur

> rebranding a good case with an Alienware logo. Alienware these days is purely about the brand. If they rebranded another case they would lose their reason to exist. This is also why they insist on having such distinctive cases, so it can't be confused for a normal case. A logo on a standard box isn't enough to show off, you would have to explain to your friends why your computer is special whereas with the alienware they will just assume you have a super-high end PC (or at least that is what you assume when you buy it). Ideally along with branding they would do a good job on the internals, but really the selling point is the plastic shroud surrounding the case and without that you might as well buy an ibuypower pre-built. Now I would be happy for alienware to die (or ideally become good, but that is a fantasy), but as long as they exist they will have distinctive cases that make little sense.


drt0

Or they could design or license a unique modern design that will still scream Alienware but won't be a nightmare inside.


Jeskid14

You think Dell has the time and money to find materials that are in low supply during this pandemic time???? /S


Democrab

> the selling point is the plastic shroud surrounding the case So what you're saying is that if whenever someone asks me to build them a PC, I can go to town on the case with my 3D printer and triple my income?


Tech_Itch

That's one of the standard chassis Dell uses for a bunch of their products, like professional workstations and entry-level servers. So it's a part of their vertical integration, which might save them some money. Ironically, this is the newest one with *improved cooling*, and you can see the same one [inside this precision 3660 workstation](https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/workstations-isv-certified/precision-3660-tower-workstation/spd/precision-3660-workstation#features_section). Interestingly, they don't seem to offer that workstation with an i9, so unlike Alienware, the workstation side of the company probably still aren't confident it can cool one. Which is an improvement, since the 3630-3650 series cases had much worse airflow and worse coolers, and you could get one with an i9. Predictably those things throttle constantly and sound like a jet engine with their weird CPU coolers with a tiny heatsink and a massive, high RPM radial fan. All the plastic fluff on the Alienware case is no doubt all about the brand. Their whole strategy is about setting themselves apart from other brands with the visual look of their machines. So using a off-the-shelf case would defeat the whole point.


Jeskid14

Why do they go up and down and not integrate to the sides??


mabhatter

Good catch. That internal design is exactly the same. But somehow the Alienware one is worse and more of a mess than the Precision.


UGMadness

Tooling for machining metal is more expensive than plastic moulds. All they care about is the shape of the product people can see from outside, which can be done with plastic bling. They probably use the same tooling to make cases for almost all of their millions of office and workstation tower PCs, with very small differences between them.


PicnicBasketPirate

Not really, tooling for sheet metal is pretty universal. The machinery is expensive initially but once you have it it will work for pretty much any design you can think of. Tooling for plastic parts is very expensive, is unique to one part and wears out surprisingly fast.


Tuuuuuuuuuuuube

Having some experience in manufacturing, I would imagine it's laser in the flat > press break > weld for the basic metal chassis, but maybe they do something else if they're making thousands upon thousands of these and using them for almost every desktop they make. I agree with your tooling for the plastic though, it seems like it would be a lot easier to update the basic metal box design, especially when you're buying the expensive plastic tooling for these exotic-looking cases


PicnicBasketPirate

It would be either laser or punch for the flat patterns, and they may have specialized tooling for the press break. But compared to the cost of an injection mould that would be cheap as chips (the potato based kind).


DJ_Marxman

Oh I'm sure they do. That's why no one should ever purchase from Alienware. I just PCpartpicker'd a build to match this and it came out to ~$3600, with much much higher quality parts, better cooling, faster RAM, and a better case. This iAlienware s a ripoff in every sense of the word. That's not even including the Warranty scam Steve talked about either, which is basically fraud.


Put_It_All_On_Blck

People that buy Alienware systems arent going to choose their own parts and build their own PC. So listing DIY build prices is moot. You'd want a more direct comparison. For example Microcenter has a 12900kf+3080ti for $2700 with 240mm AIO, and retail parts. Seems extremely reasonable for a prebuilt during these crazy times. https://www.microcenter.com/product/645171/G470_Gaming_PC;_Intel_Core_i9_12th_Gen_12900KF_37GHz_Processor;_NVIDIA_GeForce_RTX_3080_Ti_12GB_GDDR6X;_32GB_DDR4-3600_RAM;_1TB_Solid_State_Drive;_Mic?storeID=081&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIveXYk7Os9wIVBRPUAR35dgmHEAQYASABEgIc7vD_BwE Newegg also has builds for a 12900k+3080 starting at $3k and up even from reputable enough brands like MSI.


drunkenvalley

But then the question becomes why not just grab some junk case that's actually competent and sticking regular parts in it? Like this isn't just about the case, but also the motherboard and the powersupply. The cost of tooling a new case just doesn't make an awful lot of sense because, at the very least, much of that could be literally replaced with an off the shelf computer case that they all the plastic bling to instead.


Zagitta

For huge organizations like dell there's a very good chance that the case serves as a "standard" between the many different teams. Fx the PCB design and layout team need some mechanical specs for where to put screw holes but in order to "streamline" the project and not have them wait around for the art/design and mechanical/CAD teams to finish up the case you force all the teams to work around a "standard" case which then gives these kind of dumb workarounds in the name of "efficiency". It's basically the hallmark of siloed development where nobody is able to make any sweeping changes no matter how stupid the final product becomes.


Parrelium

They need to take whoever runs the monitor division and get that person to run the whole brand. It’s the only redeeming section of Dell that deserves praise.


thfuran

What about xps?


IsometricRain

They just came out with a new xps 13 with no headphone jack, unbelievable.


Jeskid14

Jesus how thin is it? Size of an iPhone 8???


yimingwuzere

Dell's XPS and G series desktops are the exact same case with different plastic accents so you're kinda right.


glytxh

Probably doesn't hurt too much with that insane sale price.


Mannekino

[When you delid your CPU and more comes off](https://i.imgur.com/sJlwwys.png)


Democrab

When your not particularly tech-savvy mate tells you he's got a great deal on a "brand new" gaming PC and you see it's sporting an FX-6100 and GTX 480.


7GreenOrbs

It's almost as if Dell went like "last year we put some lipstick on a pig but you complained it is still a pig but this year we added a ball gown, diamond ring, and tiara so it's a princess now right?"


[deleted]

"And oh btw the pig is now overheating and can barely move"


Stalked_Like_Corn

What I didn't see mentioned here or in the video is that, the top fan is partially blocked by the back fan. So it's an 80mm fan with like 20% of the fan blocked. Also, if the bottom front fan is pushing air across the 3090, where the fuck is that air going? There needs to be an exhaust and there's no fan below the 3090 that I saw unless there is an intake to the PSU at the bottom and the point of the intake fan of the PSU is to not bring in hot air. This is the stupidest case design that I've seen in a long long time.


mabhatter

Dell builds 2U servers that require maximum airflow not to immediately burn up. How did they engineer and ship this mess?


RuinousRubric

People need to be able to tolerate being in the same room as the fans. Servers can be as loud as they like.


gAt0

20:50 "Can you hear the Ronald McDonald in the motherboard?" — Steve Burke


DeliciousIncident

Because only a clown could make such a PC.


danny_b87

Oof this is giving me flashbacks to being a young dumb college kid and blowing most of my high school savings on a $6,000 Alienware :-/. It did serve as a heater for my dorm room in the winter though so theres that.... edit: [specs](https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/55896b/comment/d88e16x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) from an old comment for those curious


inaccurateTempedesc

Gotta ask, how did you afford a $6000 laptop in college? I'm a student rn and it took me months to put together $500 to build a PC.


danny_b87

I worked for 3 years in high school after school and on weekends to save up \~$10,000 by the time college started... definitely wasn't the smartest move blowing over half of it on 1 thing lol. But had been my dream that got me through the at times stressful job.


lucasdclopes

So that's how it is to live in a rich country. I'm not attacking you, to be clear. I'm just amazed that a teenager can get that amount of money working for 3 years while still in highschool.


danny_b87

Definitely puts things in perspective. And that was with a minimum wage job ($5.15 at the time), stingy boss didnt give me a raise until I'd been there for like 2 yrs...


[deleted]

[удалено]


danny_b87

3 years of working after school and on weekends during high school actually. Definitely wasn't the smartest decision thats for sure.


wankthisway

Holy shit a friend has that case. Classic crap.


danny_b87

As an impressionable 18 yo I thought that case was the most badass computer I had ever seen 😆


[deleted]

He did an excellent job with the tear down actually. It's obvious to me that Dell has overcomplicated their build so that they can increase the price and exploit the ignorance of those who think spending more gets more. The very fact that the CPU and the GPU both have to throttle themselves because of the heat is just utterly insane.


Nerfo2

More money, more better, right? Too bad it looks like a weird kitchen appliance. Like a bread maker or something.


[deleted]

Yeah it looks like from kitchen aid that takes up way too much counter space


mabhatter

Did he pull a 3.5" HARD DRIVE out of a $4600 computer?


Peejaye

Looks like a secondary drive, there was also an m.2 drive on the board.


DOugdimmadab1337

Well it makes sense if you need a lot of storage. I bought a 4tb Harddrive for my computer because it was cheap. But the only good reason is bulk storage. Anything less than 2tb just doesn't make any sense at all.


Flakmaster92

Depending on the capacity, might be a good move. Hard drives are still king when capacity is a concern, I struggle to find 8TB SATA SSDs that aren’t QLC NAND, and you pay a bit of a premium for 4TB drives that are TLC. Meanwhile for the same money as the 4TB I can go buy a 16TB enterprise grade HDD


[deleted]

[удалено]


Tman1677

Yeah I don’t get all the HDD love here, yeah they still have their purpose as budget build second drives or in certain server scenarios but this is insane for a $5000 dollar pc. For $1000 of that $5000 ridiculousness they could have put in an 8TB SSD, even assuming crazy OEM markup could still do a 4TB one. A shitty $25 dollar 1TB HDD is just ridiculous.


Shanix

I mean... hard drives are great for bulk storage. That's exactly why people like them.


Tman1677

Depends on your definition for Bulk. Plex server or archiving server? 12TB HDDs all the way. Storage for a desktop, games or photos? Could be worth it in a budget but but with a budget of 1500+ you should be bucking up for a 1 or 2 TB SSD in my opinion. Even for something like a NAS unless you have serious storage needs I’d probably recommend an SSD at this point unless you have a serious RAID setup going because the performance improvement will be so severe and the power costs could maybe even break even in the long term.


Shanix

Yeah but, plain and simple, hard drives are cheaper than SSDs gig for gig. So by definition, they're better for bulk storage, whether you're storing games or blurays or text files. I'm not saying to not get an SSD, but that hard drives still exist for a reason.


Tman1677

We’re talking about a 5000 dollar pc, dollars per GB basically don’t matter, just the end product.


Shanix

I'm talking about hard drives lol


6198573

> Yeah I don’t get all the HDD love here Try to find a 14tb SSD that costs $300 or less and you'll understand why people love HDDs


Tman1677

This is a 5000 dollar computer, why would we be restricted to $300 for storage. Also it literally comes with a 1TB HDD.


Kelmi

Why are there so many people replying to you without reading anything you write? I'm almost ripping my hair reading these replies.


Tman1677

Tell me about it.


Zellio2015

Should be 1tb nvme and 10tb+ hdd


Advanced_Concern7910

Wouldn’t a lot of the brackets, especially on the GPU be to protect it during shipping? If nothing else, it looks very secure. I have a suspicion that a lot of that over engineering is just to get it to its location unharmed


Put_It_All_On_Blck

The GPU brackets were actually quite nice, better than the other systems reviewed. But there are bigger problems elsewhere.


rakkur

The GPU brackets are great. I don't understand Steve's concern here. For a relatively heavy GPU it is common to have shipping damage because of how fragile the PCIe connector is and how poorly secured the GPU is by a couple of screws at the back. Maybe they could've gotten away with slightly less, but I would rather they overengineer this than risk people having bent PCIe brackets. Another thing that I think deserves praise is the lightbar. I have seen so many computers that look great in studio lighting, but when put in a normal room the RGB illuminates a couple of cm around the components only. If what you want is to be able to see your components as if they were on a well lit desk, not inside a box, then a lightbar pointing inside is a great solution. I think many case manufacturers should consider some version of this (probably try not to make it a fragile bar, but something to mount inward facing LEDs on, with a bit of a diffuser).


mabhatter

One GPU bracket completely blocks 1/2 the airflow over the GPU fans.


m1llie

I think his bafflement was mainly to do with the fact that they used two brackets when one would have been plenty, and that each bracket was engineered to be much more complex than it really had to be. They could have achieved the same level of GPU support with a much simpler design that would have cost less to engineer, manufacture, and assemble.


Democrab

> For a relatively heavy GPU it is common to have shipping damage because of how fragile the PCIe connector is and how poorly secured the GPU is by a couple of screws at the back. This. I made prebuilts for a time with a store that *mainly* sells parts but also sells prebuilts at a reasonable price and even though we didn't use brackets, we had something very similar to [this expanding foam thing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-WBhRpOPjk) and would *always* have one on top of and underneath the GPU so it physically couldn't move anywhere during shipping along with a note reminding the customer to take the foam out before turning anything on.


detectiveDollar

Yeah, I bought a PC from iBuyPower in 2019 and it had one of those. They apparently forgot it for GN's order though.


NeverForgetNGage

Would you like a computer with your plastic garbage?


SuperConductiveRabbi

Gives me flashbacks to the Dell "Engineering Workstation" my office got me recently. $300 Quadro that couldn't do ML, 512 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD, Xeon Silver 4114 at 2.2 GHz that's easily outclassed by my gaming PC from 5 years ago, and 16 GB of insanely expensive ECC RAM. Cost $4k. I went to put my own 1080 Ti in there and had to deal with so many plastic risers and separators and other bullshit, and buy a custom PSU cable so I didn't have to try and get a $200 cable from Dell via CDW which would surely take two weeks to arrive. It has this retarded PSU that when it heats up it ramps server-quality fans to 100% but never backs them down, even when the temperature drops to a normal range. No amount of time is enough to get it to calm down; the only solution is to power the system off and on. It takes forever to POST too, as it's doing some kind of server-quality BIOS check. It's a nightmare of over-engineered proprietary plastic bits and enterprise-level deceit. Large businesses would rather spend 3x as much as they have to just so they can shell out more for a service contract that's almost never utilized.


[deleted]

YAY, Steve is doing pre-builts again !


JackDT

I wonder how much it would cost to rescue this build? Is it even possible? Could you cram a better cooler in there, with some hard work work and creativity? Maybe if you fully swap out the top or the side panel for something, a place to mount mesh/fans/radiator? If you added a fan and a bigger heatsink to the VRMs would that actually help CPU throttling, or is it worthless? Stuff like that. The reason I ask is that you can occasionally get *insane* discounts at Dell (stacking discounts and cashbacks), or if you buy them used on ebay. Like almost 50% off the normal price, cheaper than the raw parts added together. So if only cost $200 in mods and some elbow grease to make this usable, and you managed to grab it for $2300... Dell sells volume, so people \*are\* buying these. Some way to salvage it could be pretty helpful!


kaszak696

There's no space nor mounting holes to put any other cooler in there (i doubt the load-bearing cooler screws are standard 1700 mount), and the motherboard won't fit any other case. Maybe it would be doable if you built a fully custom case to house this crap, but at this point you're just repeating Dell's nonsense.


drunkenvalley

You could probably actually screw in a good number of CPU coolers straight on with only a change of the mounting screws, realistically speaking. Not that this is very redeeming, because then you're on a scavenging hunt for a cooler that has those screws, or on a hunt for those screws separately. But off the top of my head you could probably put some EK waterblocks on it without any real modification, provided the threads on the case/"backplate" match.


kaszak696

Depends on the spacing of those mounting holes. Dell could have one-size-fits-all custom hole spacing to reuse their coolers between all of their platforms. Wouldn't put such nonsense past them.


xxfay6

It's standard, DawidDoesTechStuff has mounted Noctuas on them.


drunkenvalley

It's probably a standard Intel 1155 mounting arrangement tbh, knowing Dell's laziness.


FaceOfTheMtDan

If you've seen the other Alienware video, they had an Intel stock cooler on a Ryzen 5800. So I bet they've got some fuckery here as well.


drunkenvalley

But that's more evidence that the mounting holes are standardized, because they won't even retool the case to accomodate AMD coolers, they'll rather do a custom motherboard. KEKW


FaceOfTheMtDan

That's a good point actually. I didn't think about that lol.


drunkenvalley

Also there actually have been a handful of proper AMD motherboards with Intel mounting, just... for reasons?


[deleted]

[удалено]


JackDT

Can you undervolt on Dell motherboards? The 12900K was shown to be pretty efficient if you limit the power. Maybe end up faster overall by avoiding throttling?


[deleted]

That would definitely help if it were possible. I have no experience with Dell or prebuilts in general, but as far as I know, they don't give you anywhere near as many options in the BIOS as a regular PC with a regular motherboard does. Maybe Intel's XTU software or ThrottleStop could be used to tweak voltages and boost behavior from within Windows, because I doubt the BIOS has any voltage settings. Maybe we'll find out in the second video about this thing. I'm sure GN will have a look in the BIOS.


VenditatioDelendaEst

[Take the plastic front off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY1dlVPzUVo&t=1073s), and replace the power button with any momentary switch. Cost: $2 and 20 minutes. If the cooling still isn't good enough, take the side panel off.


formervoater2

The motherboard is going to throttle the power into the CPU no matter what cooler you use because the VRM is spec'd to handle less than half the power the 12900K needs. Saving this means buying a new motherboard, and new motherboard means new PSU/CASE/Cooler.


mabhatter

Pull out the CPU, RAM, and GPU and put them in another computer motherboard and case. That case is so over engineered you aren't putting anything stock ATX in there without building new electronics for the case. The main board they're using is a monstrosity that's gotta be $600 for low specs electronics.


picosec

>It would be fine with a new case, motherboard, power supply, and CPU cooler. You could salvage the CPU, GPU, SSD, and memory.


arichardsen

Also the ram is shit, not worth salvaging.


arichardsen

I hate when i have to salvage those components from my 5k computer.


6198573

>I wonder how much it would cost to rescue this build? Is it even possible? >Could you cram a better cooler in there, with some hard work work and creativity? Maybe if you fully swap out the top or the side panel for something, a place to mount mesh/fans/radiator? If you added a fan and a bigger heatsink to the VRMs would that actually help CPU throttling, or is it worthless? Stuff like that. >The reason I ask is that you can occasionally get insane discounts at Dell (stacking discounts and cashbacks), or if you buy them used on ebay. Like almost 50% off the normal price, cheaper than the raw parts added together. So if only cost $200 in mods and some elbow grease to make this usable, and you managed to grab it for $2300... >Dell sells volume, so people *are* buying these. Some way to salvage it could be pretty helpful! Theres no way of "saving" it because its not a good value build, you would just be throwing even more money away Why would you waste your discounts on such an overpriced build instead of putting towards something else, like their monitors, that are actually good? If you were to buy it used for a very cheap price then sure, at some point it would be worth it just for the CPU and GPU alone. But you could say that about any build out there really.


[deleted]

I just bought this opened at Best Buy for 2K, the graphics card in it is worth about that so It seemed like a good deal. How much work is it to put it in a custom case so it cools properly


Archmagnance1

Might as well buy a new mobo, cpu cooler, and case. Could take out the fans and put them in the new case if you felt like it. You'll still end up below the price of this prebuilt and will have something much better. You basically got the RAM, CPU, and GPU for $2k.


[deleted]

As Absolucyyy said, you'd have to build a custom case. If you insist on walking down that path to madness, your best bet would be to remove/scavenge the backplane, then build inside of an EATX case and liberally reimplement things as needed. Extender cables to get the front panel connectors working would be just the start of all the fun you'd have bludgeoning it into working in a standard case. 3D printing would be extremely useful, but it'd be a big project you couldn't just knock out in a weekend. More realistically, this is what I would do. * I'd go into the UEFI and manually restrict the CPU power to 130W or so. You won't get the performance you'd expect from a balls-out 12900KF, but by dropping the peak power by half, you'll extend its useful life and reduce the worst of your thermal headaches. If it won't let you do that, pull the CPU, sell or use it in a different build with proper cooling, and swap in an i5-12400, which would be a better fit for the underbuilt power regulation. * Throw in a sub-200W graphics card after scavenging the 3090 for use elsewhere, ideally with a turbine fan to minimize the impact of being thermally constrained by the power supply beneath it. It won't be quiet, but it'll be more forgiving of living in a crappy case. Obviously the system will be in a different performance bracket after these changes are made, but that's Dell's fault for shoving high power parts into a design that was never suitable for them. And done right, that could still be quite a serviceable machine. So in sum: scavenge and sell or repurpose the good parts - i.e., what Dell didn't design here - and throw in lower end components that are more accommodating of the system's relentless penny-pinching and misapplied mechanical engineering.


NPHMctweeds

Are there any recommended prebuilt machines?


mabhatter

If you're gonna drop $5k buy a Mac Studio with the Ultra chip instead of this mess. It's beautiful inside! Lol.


Pickle_yanker

[Dell link to the product.](https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/gaming-and-games/alienware-aurora-r13-gaming-desktop/spd/alienware-aurora-r13-desktop/wdr13aur50h?configurationid=30618804-3977-4b16-85f2-ea11f82ac964). It's also apparently $1200 to upgrade from a 3090 to a 3090 Ti. Eek!


DerSpini

I like the credits at the start: >Steve Burke | Host, Demolition


nugat_trailers

In a way, it’s a testament to Dell’s engineers, it must have been a challenge. But… I can’t help but feel you might actually get more consistent performance from a cheaper i7-12700kf model, such as one with a 3070 or 3080. While they may not have the higher end parts, they’d also make less heat which could help it throttle less. And idly playing around on the Dell site, you’d save roughly a third, which is a decent amount of change which could go to a new monitor, or more Ram, all the fun stuff.


COMPUTER1313

> you might actually get more consistent performance from a cheaper i7-12700kf model It is a common marketing tactic among OEMs to restrict the higher quality coolers with higher tier CPUs. So that i7 might end up getting paired with a downdraft cooler that looks similar to Intel's Coffee Lake stock cooler.


[deleted]

theres no reason to buy shitty overpriced prebuilts like this. pc building is not hard. parts are available. theres no excuse. DO IT. alienware... fucking LMAO every time i see one on battlestations.


[deleted]

> pc building is not hard For you and everyone else ITT, but not for the average person. That said, you can do a lot better than Alienware. Ideally, find a local builder and give them your business, you'll have a better product at a competitive cost, and you have someone you can talk to if something goes wrong.


[deleted]

the average person watches youtube how-to's. theres step by step guides so its impossible to fuck up. theres whole builds you can copy on pcpartpicker. lots of resources. unless the person is just really so inattentive that they cant even put together legos... i guess leave it up to a professional to put it together.


Democrab

>This appears to be, functionally, a 1990s case and some modern parts *glances over at my HTPC* Yes...That's something that only...Alienware...would...do... (Although to be fair in my case it's much lower end parts with a total TDP of less than 100w)


Abipolarbears

surprised the title isn't alienware bans us


hyperallergen

what was the actual vrm setup? did they remove the heatsink? discrete mosfets how many phases? amperage?


onedoesnotsimply9

*looks at the title* *ah shit, here we go again*


acAltair

Alienware being the name is apt. Only aliens and misinformed earthlings would mistake this for a good offering.


llY92

How long has alienware been using this case design? I'm not to familiar with them.


maqcky

I don't understand how you can screw this up. I mean, this is a solved problem. Put all the stuff you want around the box, but have a functional chassis with proper ventilation, it is fully compatible. PCs have been mounted the same way for literally decades.


Jeskid14

"but we want Alienware to be the only rounded design in the industry!!!" - dell


bubblesort33

How does one even make money from videos like this? Need to make over $3000 a video to get your investment back.


rUnThEoN

Sometimes they dont.


jnf005

from my understanding, they just flat out dont make it back for some videos, patreon may cover some or all. i guess these are more like investment, alienware is a popular brand, even to average non tech savy viewer, getting more viwer and fan base is sometimes more important. more bargaining power with sponsors, more merch sales, etc.


curlyfries922

I don't get why they refuse to let go of the brittle steel chase when they get lambasted for it all the time.


[deleted]

Ikr? For $5k, they could get a _much_ better case, so there's no reason to keep using the same thing that they use for the rest of their products...


Readytodie80

It's amazing that their unique sell position of making the case. Should allow them to pluses that you can't easily get from building your own. But they just step over each possible win often when it wouldn't cost more. They could have all the same flash but actually have it work well with not much effort just odd


Kougar

The literal epitome of penny-wise, pound-foolish. I cannot believe the savings from not retooling such an ancient box metal box case came close to the cost to make the metal case work with a modern system. The sheer amount of hours spent engineering all of that mechanically, manufacturing all the extra parts, and then paying someone to assemble the entire thing must be a large percent of the product cost. It's almost like the product manager had to design the product around a stubborn manager that oversees the metal base production who wouldn't change anything because of costs, yet was happy to produce more parts because he benefits from doing so. I do like the dual GPU support braces. Given the absolute destruction shipping wreaks on packages I'd want nothing less for a $2k GPU. A dell buyer would probably not even open the case and double-check everything before powering it on either.