The Alienware Aurora

The Alienware Aurora is fast, silent and a budget buster

The Alienware Aurora is fast, silent and expensive

by Alvin Chong

04:45 AM Feb 15, 2012

It is every hardcore gamer's dream to get their game on without their systems breaking a sweat. However, with power comes great confusion and costs; while hardware haunts like Sim Lim Square may offer the tech geek with adequate hardware to build their bespoke systems, the average gamers may find themselves hopelessly lost.

The new Alienware Aurora. PHOTO COURTESY DELL

The Alienware Aurora offers dream gaming specs without the geek-speak.

(However, if you need numbers, the Alienware Aurora boasts a liquid-cooled Intel Core i7 - overclocked up to 4.2GHz - options for solid state drives and space for up to 32GB RAM. It also offers some of the best graphic cards money can buy, like the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 or dual AMD Radeon HD 6950s).

But on to the important stuff.

The Alienware Aurora crunched through games I'd tried like The Darkness II, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, and Far Cry 2. At graphics setting at maximum, the frame rates were buttery smooth. It was a pity I could not test Crysis 2 on it as it would have been the last resource hog of a game to put the machine through its paces.

Of course, any Alienware hardware looks as good as it works. The Aurora is no exception: It comes with a black, stylishly-foreboding-looking Alienware ALX chassis with customisable lighting in the form of AlienFX lighting controls. You can separately adjust eight different lighting zones on the casing, allocating a different colour and effect to each zone for a psychedelic gaming experience. And if the lights are sending someone else into convulsions, you can always turn the lighting effects off.

The liquid cooling system reduces the number of fans required to a bare minimum, so operation is extremely silent. With headphones on, the only sound you'll make is the incessant clicking of the mouse button and tapping on the keyboard.

The chassis also boasts automated vents that open when you launch a particularly graphically intensive game, to help with heat dissipation - or whenever you want. With the liquid cooling system and air vents in place, the PC shell always feels cool. However, it should be noted that the heat is released from the back, where the main heat exhaust is. And it can get uncomfortably hot at times, so you might want to keep it away from tight spaces.

Upgrading the Aurora is easy: Its chassis has LED lighting within the casing to let you adjust its hardware without need for a torch and, without messy cables, expanding the hard drive is as easy as slotting in a new drive.

If you hanker for lag-free, top-notch graphics - and have no budget constraints, the Alienware Aurora is the perfect system for you. Price for the Alienware Aurora starts from S$3,599, which does not include the monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers or other peripherals - but some say you can't put a price on a work of art. ALVIN CHONG

Source:  www.todayonline.com/TechandDigital/EDC120215-0000004/The-Alienware-Aurora-is-fast,-silent-and-a-budget-buster