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.