Alienware Aurora R16 (2025) review – a stylish gaming PC that needs a better CPU

Let’s start with the best part of the Alienware Aurora specs, which is the aforementioned GPU. Unlike its predecessor, the 4070 Ti, the new RTX 5070 Ti comes with 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM, which is plenty for gaming at 2,560 x 1,440 and beyond, and the GPU is really powerful too. Based on Nvidia’s latest Blackwell architecture, this GPU also supports all the latest Nvidia DLSS 4 features, including multi-frame gen, which can cleverly use AI to insert up to three extra frames after every one rendered by your GPU.

Although this feature is only really useful if your starting frame rate is above 60fps in the first place, and it can also introduce a small amount of input lag, we’ve found that it can genuinely smooth out your frame rate if you’re using a monitor with a high refresh rate. Either way, it’s a useful tool in your GPU’s box of tricks – it won’t fix a low frame rate, but it can make a fast frame rate look even smoother.

Meanwhile, its 8,960 CUDA cores (more are better for basic gaming performance) mean it has a good leg-up in rendering power compared to its predecessor, the 4070 Ti, which only has 7,680 CUDA cores. What’s more, the 5070 Ti also has a wider 256-bit memory bus than the 192-bit bus on the 4070 Ti, which means it can transfer data between the GPU and its memory much quicker, plus it has faster GDDR7 memory than the GDDR6X VRAM on the 4070 Ti. Indeed, the 5070 Ti’s total memory bandwidth of 896GB/s isn’t far off double the 504.2GB/s bandwidth of its predecessor.

Right now, a 5070 Ti card will set you back $799.99 on its own, so this is where a large part of the budget is being spent. There’s nothing remarkable about the Dell 5070 Ti card supplied with this machine – it’s a basic black card with a light-up GeForce logo, three fans on it, and no overclocking, but it does give you a great GPU and plenty of VRAM.

Another decent inclusion in our sample is the 32GB of Kingston Fury memory, which is supplied in a 2 x 16GB dual-channel kit, running at 3,200MHz (6,400MT/s effective) with 44-40-40-80 timings. There’s no RGB lighting on the modules, but 32GB is a decent capacity, and they’re plenty fast enough for gaming too. Weirdly, however, selecting this memory kit adds a massive $150 to the cost of this PC, which comes with a basic 32GB 5,200MT/s kit as standard. At these prices, I’d stick with the 5,200MT/s kit – the upgrade to the 6400MT/s memory shouldn’t cost any more than an extra $100.

Design

As I mentioned at the start of this review, on the outside, the Alienware Aurora’s case has a great aesthetic design. Although it’s clearly engineered for large-scale mass production, it still looks great, particularly with the bright RGB lighting surrounding the oval between the front of the interior and the front panel. The fact that the alien head on the front doubles as the power button is also a neat little touch, and I love the case’s curves around the edges.

It’s a well-built and solid case too, with chunky, thick plastic used to create the exterior, and while the left-hand side panel’s window is made from perspex rather than tempered glass, it does provide a stylish view of the interior. The metal mesh and hexagonal vents at the bottom also provide some room for the graphics card to breathe, and allow the light from the graphics card’s GeForce logo to spill out of the side.

Personally, I’d rather have a full tempered glass side panel and a premium metal chassis to house a PC at this price, but at least you get some ventilation through the side panel, and the case does still look good. The chassis is much smaller than your average full-size case, too – it measures just 16.46 inches tall, with a depth of just 18.05 inches – it’s positively dwarfed by the Fractal Design Define R6 that usually sits on my desk.

Access to the interior is easy as well – you simply unfasten a single screw on the back to release a block, which you can then pull back to release the side panel. Similar attention to detail has been paid to the graphics card, which is securely anchored to the chassis in several places to prevent it from sagging. It slides into the front with a set of rails and is then clamped in place by a block that’s removable by undoing a single screw.

On the downside, however, the graphics card cabling is a right mess. Alienware has installed a 2 x 8-pin adapter to go between the PSU and the 16-pin power plug on the graphics card, and left the cabling on top of the card, where it looks like an eyesore through the side panel. It doesn’t help that the cable setup is ugly too, with individual black wires wrapped in messy sleeving that only covers a part of the wiring, and which are then clipped to a bracket in front of the intake fan.

You can see a similarly messy nest of black wires if you look down behind the front of the graphics card too, and while lots of the other cables are at least routed around the back of the motherboard, this is one area where some more careful thought about cable routing could have made all the difference. It’s a far cry from the tidy sleeved PSU cables with careful routing that you often see from independent system builders.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that there are no other PCIe expansion slots accessible on the motherboard, as the graphics card takes up so much space. As with the memory slots, though, this isn’t much of an issue when all of the main features, such as audio, networking, Wi-Fi, and USB 4, are already covered by the motherboard.

Features

The Alienware Aurora isn’t packed with RGB lighting like some garish gaming PCs, but what is there is slickly managed. There’s basically an RGB exhaust fan, the light from the AIO cooler, and the large light at the front of the case, and they’re all controlled by Alienware’s software.

Even if you don’t tweak the software, though, the defaults have some neat touches. I loved the fact that they turn yellow when you load Cyberpunk 2077, for example, and they also change to a beige mud color when you load Doom The Dark Ages. You can also customize the lighting using the AlienFX software system, which offers various different patterns and color choices to match your setup.

The software also enables you to monitor the temperature and clock speed of your CPU and GPU, as well as how much memory and storage space are being used. You can select several different performance modes as well, with Quiet, Balanced, and Performance modes available – by default, the Performance mode is automatically engaged when you fire up a game, but you can change the settings yourself. I ran all my benchmarks at the Performance setting, but with overclocking disabled, and the machine was still remarkably quiet during testing.

Benchmarks

Thanks to the RTX 5070 Ti on graphics duty, the Alienware Aurora delivers some great frame rates, even with high settings and ray tracing enabled. Let’s start with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which is a grand graphical showcase that’s renowned for punishing graphics cards, particularly if they don’t have enough VRAM. The RTX 4070 Ti struggles in this game at top settings, but the 5070 Ti in this machine could happily run at 4K with the Ultra preset at an average of 82fps, along with a solid 1% low of 70fps and latency of 27ms. Drop down to 1440p at the same settings, and you’re looking at an average of 125fps, and a super-low latency of just 19ms.

If you drop down to 1,920 x 1,080, you can even run this game at the brutally demanding Full RT path tracing settings maxed out, and the Supreme preset enabled. You’ll need to enable DLSS upscaling at the Quality setting to do this, but this still looks good, and it averages 67fps with a 53fps 1% low. That gives you enough headroom to enable multi-frame gen, where it then averages 181fps. On the downside, the latency then increases from 35ms to 48ms, which starts to feel unresponsive when you’re in a fist fight.

Cyberpunk 2077 works well on this rig too. With the Ultra ray tracing preset enabled at 1440p, and DLSS (Transformer) on the Quality setting, the game looks fantastic, and it happily averages 83fps with a solid 51fps 1% low. Again, that gives you some headroom to enable multi frame gen, where it hits 254fps, and while the latency only increases from 33ms to 39ms, it still feels smoothly playable.

Meanwhile, Doom The Dark Ages happily runs at 83fps with a 1% low of 65fps at the Ultra Nightmare preset with 27ms latency. If you enable DLSS on the Quality setting, you can then push those frame rates up to 112fps and 88fps respectively, and the game still looks fantastic, while the latency drops to 21ms. Enabling multi-frame gen then nets you an outrageous average of 285fps, and the latency only increases to 31ms – a great result. You can even run this game at 4K with DLSS on the Quality setting, where it averages 71fps with a 57fps 1% low, and latency of 30ms. Enabling multi-frame gen, then pushes up the average to 192fps, but the latency also then increases to a noticeable 43ms.

Finally, Call of Duty Black Ops 6 benchmark is also easily playable at the top Extreme settings on this PC, where it averages 124fps at 1440p with latency of just 18ms and a 1% low of 96fps. It’s even playable at 4K, where it averages 83fps, and the latency only goes up to 25ms.

Price

Verdict

There’s a lot to like about the latest Alienware Aurora, from the super-cool RGB lighting to the classy-looking, easy-access chassis. The GPU in our review configuration is also great, offering top-tier 1440p gaming performance, as well as the ability to play some games at 4K, and with its 16GB of VRAM giving the GPU enough headroom to breathe. The small desktop footprint, airflow design, and low-noise operation also work in its favor.

However, Alienware needs to question its loyalty to Intel at the moment, particularly when it comes to gaming PCs. As I’ve demonstrated, even a last-gen AMD X3D CPU is faster than the Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF used in this Alienware system in games. It would be a much easier recommendation with a 9800X3D in it, or a 9950X3D if you want a system that can handle both gaming and heavily multi-threaded workloads. Meanwhile, the slapdash cable tidying shows a lack of attention to detail in the build.

If you prefer to buy your PC from a known, established brand such as Alienware, backed by the might of Dell, then this is a good-looking machine with a decent GPU and some neat design touches. The CPU could be better for gaming, yes, but this machine can still play the latest games at decent settings, and the CPU’s 24 cores are great for multi-threaded workloads too.

However, the Aurora is also expensive for the gear on offer, particularly in the UK, where you can get a very similar spec for a much lower price from an independent system builder. Dell regularly has sales and discounts available on its PCs and laptops, and I’d look out for an offer rather than paying full price for this machine.

In short, this is a decent PC if you like the look of Alienware gear and you want to buy from an established brand, but it could really do with a better CPU for gaming, and you can get a better spec for less money elsewhere.