Alienware Aurora R4 Review

The side panels are heavy and we were surprised to see such attention to detail, as shown above. The insides of each door have received the special ‘Alienware' branding, with custom pieces of artwork etched into the panels. A nice touch for those who open the case to look inside.

The Alienware Aurora R4 has several black plastic ‘doors' inside, which cover sections of the hardware. These also receive special Alienware branding to enhance the appearance. We were a little disappointed to see that the case wasn't completely painted black to match the outside design.

The door covering the graphics card can be removed by pushing in, then pulling out. The Nvidia GTX580 is then exposed.

The optical drive is white, and is hidden behind another Alien styled black plastic panel. We think this would have looked better if the internals of this case were all black, rather than naked metal.

The hard drive is attached to rails and it can be removed by simply pushing in on the side levers.

A popular all in one liquid cooler, which again receives the Alienware treatment.

Sadly, no fancy gaming memory in this machine, just naked DDR3 sticks as shown above. Alienware are a part of Dell, and they purchase a huge quantity of DDR3 memory from partners in one order. This will mean that this memory will get farmed out into a wide range of computers within their portfolio, including this high end gaming system.

This has always been a major let down for me when analysing a Dell desktop computer and while it isn't a huge issue technically, it brings disappointment every time I see it. High quality gaming memory with heatspreaders is so inexpensive now, but Dell work to strict margins and bulk orders. After experiencing all the lovely panel touches and design extravagance with the Alienware Aurora R4 it just hits home that these computers are really ‘factory production' designs.

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