With the announcement of Intel’s 11th-gen Core CPUs today, Dell wasted little time in announcing that it will be refreshing both the XPS Desktop and the Alienware Aurora R12 with the new processors. These new desktops are not only home to Intel’s latest processors, but they could also be one of the easier ways to land a hard-to-find RTX 30-series graphics card, as at least the XPS Desktop’s graphics options top out at an RTX 3070.
That, combined with the 11th-gen Intel Core processors, should make the XPS Desktop quite the capable machine not just for graphics-intensive work like content creation, but also for gaming. Of course, as with most of the machines that Dell releases, you’ll have a number of different options when it comes to XPS desktop configurations.
For instance, there are 13 different CPU options in the new XPS Desktop, starting with the 10th-gen Core i3-10105 (the only 10th-gen Intel processor on the list) ranging all the way to the freshly-revealed Core i9-11900KF. Just the same, graphics options for the XPS Desktop are quite broad as well, and they include both NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards.
On the NVIDIA side, graphics options start at a GeForce GT 1030 2GB and go all the way up to a GeForce RTX 3070 8GB. AMD options are a bit more limited, beginning with an AMD Radeon RX 5300 3GB and going up to a Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB. Prospective buyers also have the option of going without a discrete graphics card and using just Intel UHD graphics instead, and while that will bring the price down significantly, we wouldn’t recommend it for anyone looking to do some gaming or rendering on this machine.
There are similarly broad memory and storage options available with the XPS Desktop as well, so this is definitely a customizable rig. Unfortunately for us, Dell hasn’t detailed the Aurora R12 (pictured above) refresh at all, saying only that the machine “showcases Intel’s 11th Gen Core Processor and high-end features including 2.5G ethernet, PCI-Express 4.0 and 80 Plus Gold efficiency rather power supplies for tool-less upgradability.”
While it’s safe to assume that the Alienware Aurora R12 will feature similar customization options to the XPS Desktop (including, we imagine, RTX 30-series cards), that’s all we’re getting out of Dell for now. Luckily, we don’t have much longer to wait before we learn what’s in the Aurora R12, as both it and the XPS Desktop are going up for sale on Dell’s website on March 18th. The XPS Desktop will start at $749.99, while the Aurora R12 will start at $899.
