First Look: Alienware's 2023 Aurora R16 Gets a New, Down-to-Earth Design

pcmag.com:

It was past time for an alien makeover. Dell's Alienware just announced the next edition of its powerful Aurora gaming desktop line, the Alienware Aurora R16. It packs the latest Intel and Nvidia components inside an entirely new tower chassis design. But the bigger news is the new look.

We’ve reviewed plenty of Aurora desktops at PCMag in the past, and the case design always stood out from the pack. Alienware's bold look, while appealing to some, has certainly been a divisive (not to mention physically large) departure from traditional tower design. This new style goes in a more mainstream direction, with a much sleeker and more modern tower aesthetic. Available today starting at $1,749, the Aurora R16 also has plenty of additional configuration options to choose from before checkout.

This update isn't all about the fresh tower, either: The Aurora R16 can pack up to 13th Generation Intel Core i9 processors and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080GPU. Dell has bragged about some performance gains in the new tower design itself as well, though you'll still find some drawbacks to Alienware’s proprietary build—something these Alienware cases can't seem to get away from.

First, that new tower: The most recent Alienware Aurora R15 model was created as part of Alienware’s Legend 2 design language, keeping in sync with the laptops of the same style. Like the most recent laptops this year, the R16 is shifting to the Legend 3 styling, and it’s a noticeable departure.

While the sci-fi white and geometric look of the R15 would appeal to some, it’s far from universally loved and outside of the norm for desktop design. The R16 (like Alienware's most recent laptops) has a much sleeker look, leading with darker color schemes across a more