Alienware Aurora R11 3080Ti Upgrade Possible?

[Harit Paurana]

Hey guys, 

 

So I'm planning to buy an Alienware Aurora R11, which is a pre-built PC, instead of making one on my own. I am going for the dual 2080Ti and 10900K version with 64 gigs of ram. I am looking forward to upgrade to the 3080Ti once it arrives... I just want to know if it is possible to upgrade the R11 which has dual liquid cooled 2080Tis to a single 3080Ti on my own... If so, how can I go about it... Any help will be highly appreciated.

[Mateyyy]

5 minutes ago, Harit Paurana said:

So I'm planning to buy an Alienware Aurora R11, which is a pre-built PC, instead of making one on my own. I am going for the dual 2080Ti and 10900K version with 64 gigs of ram.

Not gonna lie, that sounds about as good as setting cash on fire. 

 

Considering we can pretty much safely say that a 3080Ti will also use a PCIe interface, upgrading to it should be as easy as taking the card(s) you currently have out and throwing the new one in.

 

But seriously though, don't buy a 10900K, don't buy two 2080Tis, and don't buy an Alienware. It's a sad love triangle of stupid overpriced..ness.

[Harit Paurana]

2 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

Not gonna lie, that sounds about as good as setting cash on fire. 

 

Considering we can pretty much safely say that a 3080Ti will also use a PCIe interface, upgrading to it should be as easy as taking the card(s) you currently have out and throwing the new one in.

 

But seriously though, don't buy a 10900K, don't buy two 2080Tis, and don't buy an Alienware. It's a sad love triangle of stupid overpriced..ness.

Thanks man I really appreciate it... I was really looking forward to buy the R11 cause many of the parts I require for a custom rig are currently unavailable... 2 x 2080Tis cause there ain’t any option for a single 2080Ti

[Haro]

7 minutes ago, Harit Paurana said:

So I'm planning to buy an Alienware Aurora R11, which is a pre-built PC,

If you have that much money to spend on a PC. Just build one. Relatively easy. And fun and there are plenty of guides out there. 

This combo is horrible. Bad value. Bad OEM and bad everything. Build your own get a 2080 super. And don't bother with sli. 

[zeusthemoose]

Take the advice mentioned above. That said, if you do get 2 water cooled 2080tis, it will likely not be just remove and plug in. If they are aio water cooler GPUs, then you will just have to remove the radiator as well, but I’m assuming it would be a custom loop in which case you would have to mess with the loop in order to replace the cards.

[Mateyyy]

2 minutes ago, Harit Paurana said:

Thanks man I really appreciate it... I was really looking forward to buy the R11 cause many of the parts I require for a custom rig are currently unavailable... 2 x 2080Tis cause there ain’t any option for a single 2080Ti

If I was spending that much money on a system, I better be building it myself lol, but that's just me I guess.

 

If this is a gaming setup you're looking for, swap the 10900K for a 10600K (or 10700K if i5 or Ryzen don't sound good enough), the 2080Ti for a 2080S, and the 64GB of RAM for 16/32GB.

But still, I'd just build it myself. By the time we get Zen 3 and Ampere and RDNA2, I think you should be able to find a lot more parts in stock to build your own system, so you know that you get an actually good PSU, and an actually good motherboard, and an actually good memory kit, et cetera, all of these being common components to cheap out on in prebuilts. And you get to put them all together yourself and keep all the cool boxes, isn't that a bonus?

[nick name]

I'd consider someone like Origin PC for a system like you're describing.  You can be certain that you can upgrade components that way as they use off-the-shelf, non-proprietary components.   

[Fasauceome]

21 minutes ago, Harit Paurana said:

Thanks man I really appreciate it... I was really looking forward to buy the R11 cause many of the parts I require for a custom rig are currently unavailable... 2 x 2080Tis cause there ain’t any option for a single 2080Ti

If you absolutely must, why not get a rig with a single GPU, and something like a 10600K? You can still upgrade in the future, and benchmarks show that the 10600K does everything that the 10900K does in gaming anyway.

 

Speaking of which, is this a gaming PC? If so, the 64GB of ram is totally excessive. Even 32GB would be a bit much.

[xg32]

28 minutes ago, Harit Paurana said:

Hey guys, 

 

So I'm planning to buy an Alienware Aurora R11, which is a pre-built PC, instead of making one on my own. I am going for the dual 2080Ti and 10900K version with 64 gigs of ram. I am looking forward to upgrade to the 3080Ti once it arrives... I just want to know if it is possible to upgrade the R11 which has dual liquid cooled 2080Tis to a single 3080Ti on my own... If so, how can I go about it... Any help will be highly appreciated.

I think there are videos on youtube that took apart alienware system, i think some of the custom oem parts are worse than the ones you can get for yourself, and i wouldn't count on it functioning properly if you were to swap multiple parts out. Honestly if you are gonna do all that just build it urself.

[Harit Paurana]

10 hours ago, Mateyyy said:

If I was spending that much money on a system, I better be building it myself lol, but that's just me I guess.

 

If this is a gaming setup you're looking for, swap the 10900K for a 10600K (or 10700K if i5 or Ryzen don't sound good enough), the 2080Ti for a 2080S, and the 64GB of RAM for 16/32GB.

But still, I'd just build it myself. By the time we get Zen 3 and Ampere and RDNA2, I think you should be able to find a lot more parts in stock to build your own system, so you know that you get an actually good PSU, and an actually good motherboard, and an actually good memory kit, et cetera, all of these being common components to cheap out on in prebuilts. And you get to put them all together yourself and keep all the cool boxes, isn't that a bonus?

Thanks a lot everyone for the wonderful advice... I shall build my own PC then... But I want a high end overkill PC which is why I’m going for the 10900K and the 2 2080Tis... Now I’ll have the same CPU but I’ll go for a single 2080Ti...Imma be gaming, streaming, programming, 3D modelling and video editing on the PC, hence the Ram

[zeusthemoose]

14 minutes ago, Harit Paurana said:

But I want a high end overkill PC which is why I’m going for the 10900K and the 2 2080Tis... Now I’ll have the same CPU but I’ll go for a single 2080Ti...Imma be gaming, streaming, programming, 3D modelling and video editing on the PC, hence the Ram

I would argue that AMD would be better for those tasks. You will get a slight bump in FPS when gaming with Intel, but amd will be faster in streaming, compiling code, and video editing. For the price of a 10900k, you could get a 3900x instead.

[Harit Paurana]

19 minutes ago, zeusthemoose said:

I would argue that AMD would be better for those tasks. You will get a slight bump in FPS when gaming with Intel, but amd will be faster in streaming, compiling code, and video editing. For the price of a 10900k, you could get a 3900x instead.

Ok, but will I lose FPS at maxed out settings while streaming if I use a 3950X? That’s the only alternative  I’m considering, but I expect no compromise in Gaming performance... Acc to reviews, they say that I’ll lose FPS in competitive titles with an AMD chip

[Harit Paurana]

22 minutes ago, zeusthemoose said:

I would argue that AMD would be better for those tasks. You will get a slight bump in FPS when gaming with Intel, but amd will be faster in streaming, compiling code, and video editing. For the price of a 10900k, you could get a 3900x instead.

Moreover, does a 3950X work well with a 2080Ti in terms of config and overall running of the PC?

[Harit Paurana]

23 minutes ago, zeusthemoose said:

I would argue that AMD would be better for those tasks. You will get a slight bump in FPS when gaming with Intel, but amd will be faster in streaming, compiling code, and video editing. For the price of a 10900k, you could get a 3900x instead.

And of course it is imp to consider FPS loss cuz I’ll be using a 27” 1440p 240Hz Monitor (Samsung Odyssey G7)... Would you recommend this monitor for this build and the purpose of it (gaming and content creation) or would you suggest a 25” Alienware AW2521HF with a 240Hz IPS display?

[Mateyyy]

2 hours ago, Harit Paurana said:

Ok, but will I lose FPS at maxed out settings while streaming if I use a 3950X? That’s the only alternative  I’m considering, but I expect no compromise in Gaming performance... Acc to reviews, they say that I’ll lose FPS in competitive titles with an AMD chip

Intel is better if you play competitively at 1080p. At 1440p that margin gets pretty much negligible in most titles, and Zen 3 should further improve gaming performance anyway.

[xg32]

3 hours ago, Harit Paurana said:

Ok, but will I lose FPS at maxed out settings while streaming if I use a 3950X? That’s the only alternative  I’m considering, but I expect no compromise in Gaming performance... Acc to reviews, they say that I’ll lose FPS in competitive titles with an AMD chip

even a couple of gaming benchmark youtubers switched over to 3950x, yes u do miss some frames in a few games (thinking 10-15% even if max tuned), if ur aiming for a gaming first setup with the 10900k, there are very specific parts that you'd need to get, just by having 32gb ram instead of 16 will slow u down a bit. Just stuff to think about.

 

motherboard: https://www.newegg.com/asus-rog-maximus-xii-apex/p/N82E16813119293?Description=z490 apex&cm_re=z490_apex-_-13-119-293-_-Product&quicklink=true

 

imagine this kinda tuning on a 10900k:

 

 

3950x is better at everything else but gaming though

 

 

[zeusthemoose]

10 hours ago, Harit Paurana said:

Moreover, does a 3950X work well with a 2080Ti in terms of config and overall running of the PC?

Yes

 

10 hours ago, Harit Paurana said:

And of course it is imp to consider FPS loss cuz I’ll be using a 27” 1440p 240Hz Monitor (Samsung Odyssey G7)... Would you recommend this monitor for this build and the purpose of it (gaming and content creation) or would you suggest a 25” Alienware AW2521HF with a 240Hz IPS display?

You should be able to get 240hz at 1440p max settings, so it will be a good monitor. I’m not great with monitors though, so you should post a topic in the monitors section. The monitor experts there can help you decide.

[xg32]

10 hours ago, Harit Paurana said:

And of course it is imp to consider FPS loss cuz I’ll be using a 27” 1440p 240Hz Monitor (Samsung Odyssey G7)... Would you recommend this monitor for this build and the purpose of it (gaming and content creation) or would you suggest a 25” Alienware AW2521HF with a 240Hz IPS display?

if you are playing competitive shooters then the g7 is fine, however according to hardware unboxed, the monitor is too curved depending on personal preference, the only reason i'd get the g7 would be for the curve, as 1440p 240hz ips panels are coming out later in the year. For 240hz i can only recommend intel. Though unless you are playing competitively u can always go with a 144hz monitor and a 3950x.

[Harit Paurana]

2 hours ago, xg32 said:

if you are playing competitive shooters then the g7 is fine, however according to hardware unboxed, the monitor is too curved depending on personal preference, the only reason i'd get the g7 would be for the curve, as 1440p 240hz ips panels are coming out later in the year. For 240hz i can only recommend intel. Though unless you are playing competitively u can always go with a 144hz monitor and a 3950x.

Imma be playin at 240Hz, and I kinda like the curve, which is why I’m going intel and g7

[reicek]

Hey @Harit Paurana!

I have an Aurora R11 and from what I read it's not what you are looking for, it's just too small for that much power/heat properly. It works great for single cards though.

Another issue is that the chassis was not optimized to be easy to be upgraded later on, they provide detailed steps and if you take a look it's so nice:
https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/us/en/19/alienware-aurora-r11-desktop/alienware-aurora-r11-service-manual/removing-and-installing-components?guid=guid-7fbb11d7-9820-47bb-afaa-48fa912314d9&lang=en-us

If you want that level of maximum overkill you will have to go for a custom built, I recommend Thermaltake's Level 20 HT chassis, it can hold a large dual liquid cooling system so you properly cool the processor with one and the GPUs with the other, you will also have plenty of space to manipulate:
https://www.thermaltakeusa.com/level-20-ht-snow-chassis.html

Another plus is that R11 custom internal components are not visible, so they are not designed to be "flashy", you can get much better components that also look cool and that chassis will put it all in full display.

I bought the R11 since it packs a lot of power in a very small form factor and also for Dell's warranty.

Even if you moved the internal components of an R11 to an 20HT chassis (+ custom dual liquid cooling) you would get a performance bonus due to the great improvement on heat disipation. You would notice the difference on long gaming sessions.

This is a pic of my R11, the liquid cooling is limited to the grill you see on top, it's just right for my build but it would definetely struggle with the one you are looking for. You will have fans running at full speed and making a lot of noise.