Pre-Built PC Selection/Advice

[DocMcTofu]

Hello interwebs, I'm looking for some advice on a pre-built desktop to kit out my home office.

Build:

Alienware Aurora R10 Ryzen Edition:

AMD Ryzen™ 7 3700X (8-Core, 32MB L3 Cache, Max Boost Clock of 4.4GHz)

NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2080 SUPER™ 8GB GDDR6 (OC Ready)

16GB Dual Channel HyperX™ FURY DDR4 XMP at 2666MHz

1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (Boot) + 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)

850w Power Supply (80+ Bronze)

Liquid Cooled AIO

Killer Wi-Fi-6 AX1650 2x2 / Bluetooth 5.0

 

(https://www.dell.com/en-us/member/shop/desktop-computers/alienware-aurora-ryzen-edition-r10-gaming-desktop/spd/alienware-aurora-r10-desktop/wdryzr1040?view=configurations&configurationid=c483c2a4-ba0c-4c3c-af9d-9a0cc273a395)

 

Cost:

$1790.45 (after sales and discounts)

+$69 Dell Rewards (maybe I'll get a headset or mic for meetings and gaming?)

Background:

I have a yearly allocation of funds through work that I have to use or lose before July 1, since all of the classes and conferences that I was registered for were cancelled due to COVID-19 its all unused and about to expire.  Of this, I am allocating up to $2K USD for a desktop and $1K for work software.

 

Starting next year I won't be able to use these funds for hardware, so I have a big incentive to future-proof now.

 

Me:  Researcher/Doctor, lots of virtual meetings, Remote Desktop work, PDFs/Office Software, Photo Editing, Rarely Video Editing.

SO:  Teacher, will occasionally need to do music or video editing.

 

Gaming is a distant secondary priority, but it would certainly be nice to have the option.

 

Already have a nice mechanical keyboard, optical mouse and a large 4K monitor (Acer ET 430K).

Currently using a Macbook from 2017 for everything that I'll be keeping for use around town and at lectures. (it really doesn't like running dual screen with a 4K monitor especially with a video call going on one screen)

 

If I had more free-time, I'd consider building my own, but I don't think I have the time to properly research parts, order things, and build/troubleshoot.  I'd rather use that time to actually organize my workspace on the PC.

 

Notes:

Would have really liked to have a Blu-Ray Reader in the PC, but this doesn't seem to have an option.  (The home office doubles as man-cave/home gym)

I've heard that Ryzen likes fast memory and I can upgrade to more and/or faster myself at a later date, but Dell pricing is horrendous for high end memory.

 

Questions:

Anyone have an Alienware Aurora, and have opinions?

Ryzen vs. Intel build?  (could get a similar build in a Dell XPS 8930, G5, or Aurora with an overclocked i7 9700K for roughly the same price)

Any other manufacturers offering a better value-for-dollar package?

Any changes to the build?

Am I dramatically missing out by not building my own?

alienware-aurora-r10-desktop_users-guide_en-us.pdf

[zeusthemoose]

36 minutes ago, DocMcTofu said:

Ryzen vs. Intel build?  (could get a similar build in a Dell XPS 8930, G5, or Aurora with an overclocked i7 9700K for roughly the same price)

For ryzen 3000 vs 9th gen, ryzen all the way. Ryzen vs Intel 10th gen depends.

 

37 minutes ago, DocMcTofu said:

Any other manufacturers offering a better value-for-dollar package?

I don’t know about that specifically but there are some where you can fully customize it yourself so you don’t end up with a sketchy psu like most prebuilts have.

 

39 minutes ago, DocMcTofu said:

Am I dramatically missing out by not building my own?

Yes. If you can, always build yourself. If you don’t think you will be able to research to learn how to build it then go prebuilt. However if you learn to build, there are countless people on the forum who can help you with a part list so you don’t have to research that aspect.

[DocMcTofu]

@zeusthemoose

Serious question:  Does your concern about the sketchiness about the power supply still apply if it's 80+ bronze certified?  Does that provide a reasonable minimum threshold of quality or are there some PSUs that are reasonably efficient but still crappy quality? 

 

This is a reasonably close PC Part picker list, that comes out to $1670.58  (PCPartPicker Part List:  (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/hKmczN), and for me personally paying the $120 price difference for it to just having it work out of the box without any fuss except wiping the bloatware and updating drivers, not fighting to get reimbursed for 10 different receipts, a 1 year warranty, and for the time I save personally... it's a pretty good deal.

 

(No shade to people who build as a hobby, it's just not where I'm at personally anymore unless there's really big savings to be had upfront.  Realistically, upgradability and tinkering is not a priority for me.)

[zeusthemoose]

2 hours ago, DocMcTofu said:

Serious question:  Does your concern about the sketchiness about the power supply still apply if it's 80+ bronze certified?  Does that provide a reasonable minimum threshold of quality or are there some PSUs that are reasonably efficient but still crappy quality?

Unfortunately I don’t know. All I know is that big builders will try to save money wherever possible and power supplies (and i think coolers?) is where they are known to do that. It seems Alienware uses their own psu.

 

I personally have a prebuilt that I got before I got into computers and I have had no problems.

[bmcastro11]

On 5/24/2020 at 11:37 AM, zeusthemoose said:

For ryzen 3000 vs 9th gen, ryzen all the way. Ryzen vs Intel 10th gen depends.

 

I don’t know about that specifically but there are some where you can fully customize it yourself so you don’t end up with a sketchy psu like most prebuilts have.

 

Yes. If you can, always build yourself. If you don’t think you will be able to research to learn how to build it then go prebuilt. However if you learn to build, there are countless people on the forum who can help you with a part list so you don’t have to research that aspect.

Honestly I would rather build. In this case I really wanted that 3090. Unfortunately they wouldn't sell the thread ripper with the 3090 and down graded to a 2080ti sli...  Actually this is my first pre built and dell support is very forward about getting some commission off a sale. Guy literally tried call me back 5 times. Then I realized he wanted commission. But I'm looking to upgrade the radiator fan and I'm thinking about reversing the top fan so it blows in instead. I upgraded the front and I'm still having issue with the bios.