[Sponsored] Alienware Aurora ALX-XL

Note to admins, this project is in progress of being moved so please do not delete. Thanks



The Alienware Aurora ALX-XL

Sometimes you get a chance you can't say no to, so that's what happened to me.
After some discussions and exchanging ideas with Dell, I am very happy to announce to you a build with a super case. It's allready beautiful But I'm gonna give it a try

The Alienware Aurora desktop.

And not only the case, but a complete configuration with the following components:

- CASE : Alienware Aurora ALX 875W-chassis (Matte Black)
- PROCESSOR: Intel® Core i7-3820 (4 Core, 10MB Cache, 3.60GHz)
- OPERATING SYSTEM : Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64-bits
- GRAPHICS : 1 GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 555
- MEMORY : 16GB (4 x 4 GB) 1.600 MHz Quad Channel DDR3
- HARD DRIVE : 256 GB SSD
- OPTICAL DRIVE : 8X Blu-ray Disc-rw-station en 24x dvd+/-rw-station

Before I start, first I want to thank all the great sponsors for making this build possible.

Alienware, for the system.



Nvidia to deliver GPU upgrade (more on this later)



And EKWB for the watercooling components



There will be a lot of pictures again in this build. What is new is that I now going to add videos, think this will be a nice addition.

First contact with an alien:

Always a great feeling to receive packages Once everything is dragged into the living room to have another great feeling ..... unboxing



The Aurora is certainly well packed, they have given this some good thought.



A box in a box





Clips to unlock the cover



Almost







The Alienware Aurora















Nice shapes







Front also beautiful and clean











One touch on the Alien head and the panel slides down.



If the PC is turned on and you activate the sliding panel, the lights which illuminate the optical drives will turn on







Acrylic part what looks very nice ... especially when it is enlightened





Power button



Behind this is a pushpanel to the front I / O. containing

(2x) Hi-Speed USB 2.0
(1x) SuperSpeed USB 3.0
(1x) Mic
(1x) Headphone



At the rear is the handle to unlock the side panel.





Pull the last vent





To unlock the sidepanel





The PSU (Alienware™ 875-watt) is also swappable and modular







Another great gadget is the enlightenment on the back. Activated with a push button.





Also a great gadget is the Alienware Active Venting.







Next box. With keyboard and other accessories







The Alienware tactx keyboard with two-zone lighting setup











The Alienware mousepad



Some documents



Drivers and utilities



Cables



And two Alienware 3D avatars



Not finished yet ..... a monitor, the beautiful Alienware OPTX AW2310

Specs:

•Connections Dual-link DVI (with HDCP), HDMI, 4 x USB
•Viewable Screen Size 23.5in
•Maximum Resolution 1,920 x 1,080
•Contrast ratio 80,000:1 (dynamic), static not quoted
•Brightness 400cd/m2
•Response time 3ms (grey-to-grey)


















Back to the Alienware Aurora .... the inside

First looks without sidepanel



And again a nice gadget: when the sidepanel is removed, the inside is illuminated without the power on.





Powered by rechargeable batteries



Very handy!!!

The caps for the airflow and coverup are very nicely designed and printed









Cap for the GPUs is rotatable and removable





Beautiful swappable, tool-less and cable-free hard drive bays











Also well thought about is the power suply for the side panel (Lights)
On the side of the powersupply are contact points which provide this





For now a Nvidia GTX555 is installed, but this will be exchanged for two Nvidia GTX680



Cooler motherboard



And the beautiful Alienware CPU cooler





Personally I really like this one, so it stays in this build (perhaps modify)



What cable management is concerned, everything is provided. But it looks a bit messy.
This will be better









Module for lighting, fans and other applications





This will be a lot of work, but a very exciting thing to do.

The first change that I'm going to do is swap the Nvidia GTX555 for two GPUs Nvidia has sent me.

Again thank you Nvidia



For sending me two Nvidia GTX680's

Engine Specs:

- CUDA Cores: 1536
- Base Clock: 1006
- Boost Clock: 1058
- Texture Fill Rate: 128.8
- Memory Speed: 6.0 Gbps
- Standard Memory Config: 2048MB
- Memory Interface Width: 256-bit GDDR5
- Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec): 192.2

Unboxing again









The beautiful GPU's























with one Dual Link DVI-I, one Dual Link DVI-D, one HDMI and one DisplayPort



And installed the new GPU's





And now it is time for some modding

First a window in the Alienware Aurora. And maybe two, one on both sides.
But this is for later... first one.

The sidepanel





Contacts for lighting has to be kept in mind



And the shapes / curves must be maintained



Everything is pretty easy to disassemble. Black panel removed and drawn the line for cutting





Disassambled the remaining parts





RGB strip for color effects



Detached the Acrylic carefully





What's left...a piece of iron



This is what we gonna use for cutting the window in the plastic panel



After some sawing and filing





Excess plastic also removed with my dremel to place the window (later)



first fit



Next step. We use the jigsaw



Removed the reinforcement strip and drawned the hole slightly larger than the window in the plastic panel



And saw it (and some filling of course)



The points which seem to be thin will be reinforced



Furthermore, it's still a strong frame



And placed everything back. The gap inside between the plastic and iron needs to be filled



And the window is almost finished





A big start topic with a lot of pics and vids, but hope you like it.

Until the next update!!!

Grtz.

Kier
Edited by kier - 11/29/12 at 12:39pm

My assignment to make it look better

Wont let you down

Thanks

Thanks they do look beautiful, ashame there will be waterblocks on it







Update!!!

After playing some games and testing it was time to strip the case.
First the wiring, which is quite a lot in this case. But quite logical because all the gadgets.

PCB and a lot of cables for the lights









The PCB strip at the top for lighting and power pump









2 of these for the lighting behind the HDD bays



And some more cables







After all cables are removed, This is what's left ... for illumination





Also removed the Alienware mobo. Rams will by provided with black ram coolers later on.









Fan bracket for the swap bay





And the fanbracket for the GPU's





The HDD bays are easy to disassemble with screwdriver





Putting the SSD away for later





CPU cooler remains a beautiful item, so as previously mentioned this will be used again in this build later





Removed the midplate.



And mobo tray



Still dismanteling with only a screwdriver Also removed the PSU



Later on this will be black



And the cables which will be a challenge regarding the sleeve job



And removed the covers



Everything is stripped, so this is what's left



Time to think and mod. The idea is to put 2x 360 rads for the GPUs
This is not possible in the original case. Therefore I'am gonna raise the case using an old LL case where I have shortened the vertical bars and put it back together.



Mounted the Alienware Aurora on top and made a bracket around the lower part​. Because the lower case is smaller I had some space for the HDD cage to place it in the empty space.







For the sides I have cut a piece of aluminum and bent the curves in it.





Bent everything in the shapes of the lower strip on the existing side panel. This strip is where the new cover is going to be mounted on.





Done both sides and front.



After this cut out the radiators





All assembled and stick together with tape









Shiny







Made the covers black









And the end result after some sawing, filing, drilling, bending and pasting.













The Alienware Aurora XL version
Edited by kier - 11/29/12 at 12:39pm