4K gaming seems to be the goal of this generation of hardware, whether it be new consoles or PCs. Achieving this resolution is nothing new, but for years the problem has been achieving consistent frame rates that make the resolution upgrade worth the trouble. Now, however, 4K gaming monitors and TVs capable of 120 Hz refresh rates are available, as well as affordable GPUs with enough performance to support those numbers.

With high-end 4K gaming as its goal, Alienware decided to send us the fully spec'd Aurora R11. an Intel Core i9-10900K CPU and Nvidia RTX 3090 are the centerpiece of this PC gaming battle station. 64GB of HyperX Fury DDR4-3200Mhz RAM.

Is this $4,300 system overkill? Of course it is; would we turn down the opportunity to tinker with what Alienware calls a "Benchmark Bruiser"? Of course not.

Alienware's storage solution is a 2TB Kioxia M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD backed by a 2TB Toshiba SATA HDD. This is plenty of storage for games and various media. Surprisingly, this is not even the most expensive R11; for an additional $600, you can swap out the RTX 3090 for dual 2080 Tis (via SLI) and double the RAM to 128GB. Unless you're running a time machine, the current configuration is more than adequate for just about anything.

And even then, two RTX 2080 Ti cards will not give you the gaming performance of the RTX 3090 in many cases, be it standard games or those that push ray-traced brilliance to the forefront. Multi-GPUs are dead.

Next-generation console buyers may hear a lot about NVMe SSDs and their insanely fast load times. While pricey, the difference in speed between SSDs and HDDs is night and day in large open-world games. For example, AC: Valhalla took about 14 seconds to load into the game after pressing continue, which is on the same level as both the PS5 and Xbox Series X.

The Aurora case is a design you may or may not like. It's a bold style choice, and it's great to see a company simply and unapologetically going for it. I believe the Aurora looks funky and fun and will catch the eye of anyone entering the room. The RGB ring on the front panel is reminiscent of engine exhaust fumes upon startup.

The only real issue I have with this case is its shape. The rectangular design means that there is no flat surface on top of the system to place anything, such as a controller or external hard drive. Just something I've noticed that I've taken for granted with boxy PC cases.

The toolless access is what I like best about the Aurora iteration. Upgrades are easy and power is accessible through the swing arm system.

The Aurora case remains one of my favorite designs and I hope other companies build equally creative and funky systems. It has a total of 13 USB 3.0 ports and two USB-C ports. For someone like me, who has a large number of devices, from cameras and ring lights to PC games and streaming, there is no such thing as too many USB ports.

However, given that everything fits so tightly together, there are cooling concerns. The system has a liquid cooler for the CPU, but I am more concerned about the GPU and fear that the case's very loud (and very overused) dual fans may not be sufficient. Once the system starts running, you can immediately feel the heat radiating from the cutouts on the sides of the Aurora. In my testing, the GPU temperature was on the hot side for a loaded RTX 3090 (though still acceptable), registering about 80 degrees Celsius after running a stress test with 3D Mark. For reference, the Founder's Edition 3090 had a maximum temperature of 70°C at the time of review.

The RTX 3090 in this PC is custom built to fit the Aurora perfectly. We noticed a problem with other manufacturers trying to cram a stock RTX 30 series card into an existing PC case. This 3090 has been shaved a few inches off its length, with absolutely no impact on performance.

The RTX 3090 represents the bulk of the system's cost, as the retail price of this massive GPU is about $1500; Alienware is offering an R11 with an RTX 2080 Ti for $900 less and dual 2080 Ti cards (via SLI) for an additional $100. It is interesting to note that the R11 is the only RTX 2080 Ti card that is available for $900. However, the performance gain of dual 2080 Ti is negligible and not worth the cost or hassle. In this case, at least, spending more money does not mean better performance.

The Core i9-10900K is a great CPU, and when paired with 64GB RAM, it makes a decent workstation, with a Geekbench 5 score of 10616, beating the full-spec Origin Millennium we reviewed a while back, Cinebench R20 scored 5734, and the Millennium's score was 4645.

The Benchmark Bruiser also lives up to its name with impressive gaming performance. This is a true 4K gaming rig; 4K, 120Hz gaming is possible if you spend the money. But if you're considering buying this beast, chances are you're also looking at or already own a high-end new monitor or TV suitable for this generation of 4K gaming.

The Nvidia RTX 3090 is definitely one heck of a GPU. As you can see from the benchmark and test numbers above, the RTX 3090 can easily hit an average of 60+ FPS in a list of games using the best graphics presets at 4K.

Yes, these numbers are all quite high. However, it is worth remembering that these numbers are only slightly higher than what you can get with the RTX 3080, which you can buy for almost half the price of this card.

I get it: this system is meant to be overkill. However, unless you are using a GPU-intensive creative program, you will not be able to exploit the full potential of the RTX 3090. If you don't do video rendering or 3D animation work, you're better off sticking with the RTX 3080 than spending the extra money for a 2-5% FPS boost on most games. Sure, it is technically the most powerful card, but the RTX 3080 is the best graphics card for gaming now and for the foreseeable future.

For fun, I checked out how well Watch Dogs Legion runs at 4K on Ultra with ray tracing maxed out. The new Watch Dogs is notoriously difficult to run and has some technical issues; on Aurora R11, it averaged 32 fps with ray tracing on and 58 fps with ray tracing off.

On Xbox Series X and PS5 consoles, Watch Dogs can be played at 30 fps at 4K, but these versions are definitely not running at the PC equivalent of the Ultra preset. However, it is still impressive that Aurora R11 was able to achieve 4K/30fps with the help of ray tracing. I can't wait to see how this rig handles "Cyberpunk 2077," because without seeing a sexy Keanu Reeves ray-traced in 4K, it wouldn't even make sense to live through 2020.

The Aurora R11 offers a wide range of configurations that the average person can afford. We've all had the experience of buying a system, clicking on the most expensive parts, wondering how long it will be before we can afford to pay rent, and settling on something we can actually afford. I like this build because it over-performs and, oddly enough, fulfills my "what if" fantasies. But Aurora R11 is a unique system, no matter which configuration you choose.

However, I think it's time for another case redesign to allow for better cooling options for these new, power-hungry cards and to allow the stock 30-series GPUs to fit without modifications.

Unless you're someone like me who gets a cheap (nay, expensive) thrill from knowing that your system is better than anything else on the market, you might as well stick with the RTX 3080 configuration, because the RTX 3080 is simply more expensive per frame. It's hard to believe that just a few months ago I had a $5,000 Extreme rig with an RTX 2080 Super. Now I have tested a system that is nearly $1,000 cheaper, and it still outperforms that PC by a wide margin.