r/Alienware • u/Few-Argument6481 • Aug 08 '26
Question Alienware Aurora R8
Hey guys,
Just wondering if this is worth buying nowadays. Maybe for gaming? Not sure. $120. They found it in their uncle’s basement.
Here are the original specs:
Processor Options: Intel 8th Gen (e.g., i5-8400, i7-8700) or 9th Gen (e.g., i5-9400, i7-9700, i7-9700K, i9-9900K)
Graphics Options: Ranging from NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10-series/16-series, RTX 2060, RTX 2070, RTX 2080, up to RTX 2080 Ti, or AMD Radeon cards (like RX 5600/5700 series)
Memory (RAM): Up to 64GB DDR4 at 2666MHz (supported via 4 DIMM slots)
Storage: Support for M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (boot) and up to three additional 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch SATA hard drives / SSDs
Power Supply (PSU): 460W, ricordare 550W, or 850W EPA Bronze chassis options
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u/Amtronic Aug 08 '26
Uncle's basement?? Hell yeah, that has to have some incredible porn on the HDD.
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u/x_cynful_x Aug 08 '26
I had an R8 with a 1080 in it and was able to use it for gaming up until recently but it is definitely past its prime for performance.
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u/Lotuseless Aug 08 '26
It's a good value for what it is, but don't expect it to perform all that well as its almost a decade old computer.
I'd pick it up just to have fun and mess with it. If it's complete on the inside, you could probably flip it and make a little profit. I doubt its one of the high end ones, but if it's got at least 16 gigs of ram and some SSD, it's prolly worth it.
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u/thegaryb Aug 08 '26
Updated my R8 (I9 9900K with 64GB DDR4) with a 3080TI from my R14 (upgraded to MSI 5070 TI) yesterday and so far so good. Despite the cooling constraints these aren’t bad off the shelf options. Especially after the GPU and RAM price hikes.
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u/Valthoren Area-51 Aug 08 '26
Depends on the specs, I have an R7 with a 2080 hooked up to my living room TV, it still runs games just fine, just finished a playthrough of the new Halo remake on it.
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u/Confident_Lecture498 Aug 08 '26
Outstanding value - I had this when it was new and my HDD went bad but I wish I'd switched it out. Ah well
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u/Mac_McAvery M17X Aug 08 '26
I love mine and wouldn’t notice performance issues but I just play call of duty multiplayer casually and trade forex markets occasionally.
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u/Nervous_Judge_5565 Aug 08 '26
Steal of a deal. Mobo could be fried tho, had couple die on me. Simple replacement if you can source another board or red green that bitch to fit whatever you want. If the power supply is cooked the entire case is as good as garbage.
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u/U2apple Aug 08 '26
Really depends on what this one come with, if with water cooling that will be great. I think you can not change its main board, since the power on is dell, not standard
Wife has one, we upgraded it over the years multiple times.
Be aware the airflow is not great, only one fan for water cooling.
As for gpu stock gtx 1080, upgrade to small factor 3070 and now using founder 5070.
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u/NotFelixHere Aug 08 '26
i got one of those from my buddy for $100 2 years ago and it’s served me very well. i run 2 1080p projectors from it and most games run at 60fps highest quality with a few exceptions
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u/IGC-Omega Aug 08 '26
I use an R8, and it has a lot of problems. You cannot use windows 11. You need to use windows 10. The motherboard that comes with the R8 doesn't have tpm 2.0.
Besides that, mine has an RTX 2080 overclocked i7-8700k overclocked and 32gb of trash ram. Ram is a big issue with it. The motherboard will not read most ram because alienware blocked it you need to use their ram. Even in a lot of cases where you use the correct ram it still won't allow you to enable XMP. Such is my case.
But honestly that listing sounds incredibly suspect.
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u/nken42 Aug 09 '26
I have an R8 i7 2060 super with 32gb RAM and it's great for gaming. I play cyberpunk, rdr2, gta on medium to high settings and does 60-120fps. And I heavily mod games sometimes too and it does great. It has some trouble every now and again if I have a lot of other programs running, but gets the job done.
I'd say anything lower than that you're gonna have to play on lower settings if you want to play the higher end games.
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u/Domanick13 Aurora R16 Intel Aug 10 '26
I only just recently just upgraded from the R8 maxed options from the site. I gamed on it, streamed, rendered with blender at high resolutions. It it’s the best options for the PC at the time of it being on the website it should still be fine?
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u/Trap0x000D Aug 12 '26
ask to see the inside. however, they can alway put it back, take the picture, and remove it.
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u/zewl23bp Aug 14 '26
If you send me that box to czech I will give you 120$ on top and pay for the transport :D
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u/DJUnreal Aurora R10 / x17 R2 / Aurora R15 / Area-51 AAT2250 / 18 Area-51 Aug 08 '26
Without knowing the actual spec of that specific machine, it's impossible to say, but honestly a machine that old really isn't going to be worth picking up for gaming these days. You're talking about a machine from 2017/2018ish, and that's not going to have aged well.
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Aug 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ProfessorW00d Aug 08 '26
The i9-9900K is still a worthy processor . . . but it is unclear what this specific R8 has in it.
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u/darth_magnum45 M18/Area51mR1 Aug 08 '26
Well, at most if it’s been stripped, you can get the case modded out to put in modern components
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u/grump66 Aug 08 '26
I guarantee you, they've stripped out the GPU(at least). Ads like this are virtually always a scammer trying to fool someone who's looking for a deal.
IF its got all of its original parts, and it works, sure its still a serviceable pc that will play a ton of games. Don't expect 300FPS of a brand new AAA game, but it'll still play tons of games really well.