A Day With The Alienware Aurora R9 Reminded Me How Much I Missed Gaming

My life today is literally all work and no games. From working from home and Netflix, my life has become rather monotonous. My non-lockdown weekends are either spent lazying on the bed or catching up with friends. But this wasn¡¯t always the case. There used to be a time when all I wanted was to make more time for was to play games on my PC.

I still remember my gaming sessions during my school and college days -- spending hours trying to complete the stories in games like Crysis (yes I have played the trilogy), or Far Cry 2 and 3, being hooked for hours.

Although most of my hours, I¡¯ve spent playing Need For Speed racing games -- Most Wanted and Carbon, multiple times. Oh, such fun days there were! But that was in the past, those days were gone. Or so I thought.

The Arrival of Alienware Aurora R9

Just before Coronavirus lockdown became the new normal for India, I was rushing to office, running a few minutes late and catching up on news events. Just as I arrive, my editor, Jayesh informs me that Alienware is sending across a gaming desktop for review and I need to give them my address. For a second I¡¯m like, okay, sure. It¡¯s another gaming PC review, something I¡¯ve done many times in the past.

I¡¯ve tested games on gaming laptops, pushed them to their limits to see how they¡¯d stack up, but I wouldn¡¯t call that gaming. For one, I ran games only to test the system, not because I wanted to play a particular game.

And I remember Jayesh¡¯s experience with the Aurora R8, and how he just couldn¡¯t stop talking about it. So I was a little excited. A few hours later I got a call, the Aurora R9 had arrived.

As my day ended, I quickly packed my things, boarded the bus to home. Throughout the journey, the Aurora R9 was on my head. I was going through my games library, narrowing down what games I¡¯ll run, the benchmarks I need to set up. I was also thinking of friends I can call to play online with. But what I was most looking forward to, was experiencing gaming on my new 55-inch 4K TV.

Running benchmarks, getting acquainted with the R9¡¯s power

As I entered my home, I tossed my backpack to the side, pulled off my shoes, and with socks still on, proceeded towards the delivery box in anticipation of what was in store. A large square box awaited. As I ripped through the tape with my cutter. Held in two large styrofoam structures was a white coloured unit that looked nothing like a gaming CPU. I somehow managed to pull the CPU out (this thing weighed a good 17 kilograms!) and I placed it next to my TV.

Yes, this looked nothing like a gaming CPU. The front reminded me of a futuristic air purifier, but not a PC. But then I thought -- It¡¯s an Alienware after all.

The R9 is loaded with a plethora of I/O that won't disappoint you.

That night I spent staying up late, installing games, software for testing and setting it up for the next day.

I also ended up running a few benchmarks and the score surely made me realise that this machine was a beast.

However, I was tired so I decided to call it a night, desperately waiting for the sun to rise.

The day I had my mind blown into tiny pieces!

The next day I woke up to the noise of kids playing below my apartment window, someone cranking up their weekend music playlist in the background. But It didn¡¯t bother me. I brushed my teeth, grabbed a juice box, bag of crisps and turned on the behemoth of a gaming PC.

Yes, I called it a behemoth, not just because of its weight, but what it was actually packing under the hood. I¡¯m talking a liquid-cooled Intel Core i9 9900K, paired with 32GB Of DDR4 RAM, along with 256GB+ 1TB of SSD.

Dell

But the star of the show was the graphics card -- RTX 2080 Super -- a graphic card that was the second-best in the RTX line of cards by NVIDIA -- a card that can play on 4K resolutions with the goodness of Ray Tracing, making graphics look more realistic than ever.

I pressed the Alien head logo, which illuminated the RGB halo in the front -- it surely looked slick. The Alienware branding to the right too looked neat. Although, to be honest, I would have loved to see more RGB elements, but I think Dell was going with a more discrete aesthetic on this one, and they¡¯ve sort of nailed it.

In a matter of seconds, the PC was booted. The first game I decided to run was Need For Speed Heat -- a game I was dying to try out ever since I saw its launch trailer last year. As the game booted, the intro video just made me realise what my day was going to be like -- legendary.

Not only did the large screen truly sucked me into the gaming experience but also the amount of detail I could see in that game, it was crazy. And everything ran butter smooth.

Next, I decided to do something may only dare to do -- crank the settings to ¡®Ultra¡¯ -- something that can crash your PC if you don¡¯t have the firepower. As soon as I hit apply, it was as if the PC felt nothing. Then I hit play again, and the stunning imagery on the 4K screen was breathtaking, to say the least.

Next game on my list was Tom Clancy¡¯s The Division 2 -- a beautiful role-playing tactical shooter. Again, cranking it to maximum settings I was able to get over 60fps on 4K resolution. That game surely made a post-apocalyptic world look surreal. But also, how quiet the system truly was, in my non-air-conditioned room.

The elliptical halo was actually an inlet for air to pass through, to cool the insides of the system efficiently and it surely did a pretty good job at it. The top also had an inlet for air, although that was for the AIO liquid-cooling radiator.

Dell

After a few Division 2 missions, I cam back to NFS Heat. After starting my session at 2 in the afternoon, I didn¡¯t get up from my chair (except my usual bathroom/snack breaks) until around 11:00 PM, completing almost 40 percent of the game¡¯s career. By that time my back had given up, my fingers surely needed a break and my body was telling me, ¡°you¡¯re too old for this s#it!¡±. But I could go at it again, even if it killed me.

Is the system worth its hefty price tag?

As I lied down, recuperating from my battle scars of playing all day long, I couldn¡¯t stop thinking about the sheer power this system possessed. This amazement was eclipsed shortly after with its even more expensive price tag of Rs 2,72,990.

Sure it isn¡¯t for everyone, and people can argue that one can build a system with similar specs for a lot less. But then again, it won¡¯t look as cool and slick as this, nor would it come with Dell¡¯s support or software that could help a pro overclock this machine as easily as cycling through the video settings in a game.

The next day, I woke up, got dressed and headed to work, while the R9 rested near my TV set. At work, I booted my humble Lenovo Thinkpad, filing stories as usual while my heart was at home, with the Alienware Aurora R9.