Alienware Aurora Desktop: i7-8700, 16GB DDR4, 1TB HDD, GTX 1070 Expired

Having picked this machine up and worked inside of it a bit, here's some details.

The motherboard seems to be an ASUS OEM board. Others have said the PSU is a Delta and the Video Card most likely is an MSI OEM, using a Blower Fan design. The Hard Drive we received was a 1TB Toshiba drive, and the Optical Drive is a Lite-On/Philips CD/DVD Burner, and NOT the Blu-Ray option, however a swap might be possible?

The system DOES have an m.2 slot, it contains the 16gb Optane module and is hidden under the video card on the right hand side of the motherboard. Optane ONLY works with the PRIMARY/BOOT drive, PRIMARY partition (according to Intel).

You can easily put in an SSD, either SATA or M.2, but you will most likely need to reinstall Windows on said SSD (Due to the TPM module), and using an M.2 SSD will require removing the Optane Module. Optane DOES work with SATA SSD Drives, however I am unsure what, if any benefit this provides over an SSD alone.

If you choose to swap to a SATA SSD for your boot drive, it MUST be connected to SATA Port 1 (top port), moving the original 3.5" bay/drive to SATA Port 3. The Optical Drive stays as SATA Port 2, and SATA Port 4 is for the 2nd SSD bay.

If you replace the boot drive with another SATA drive, AND keep the Optane module, you will need to de-link the Optane Module from the original HDD (found in the F12 boot menu), and then re-link it with the new boot drive (Intel Rapid Storage Utility in Windows), otherwise the Optane Module will not function.

The PCI-E Slot below the Video Card IS a tight fit, but I managed to put an X-Fi in it, replacing the onboard Realtek Audio without problems.

The system is water cooled, and I am not sure if it is an AseTek or CoolIT design (they are the 2 main AIO Liquid Cooling OEMs), however baring failure of the water cooling system (very rare but it CAN happen), it shouldn't need any maintenance other than dusting out the fans regularly.

The system CAN support a K series CPU, however it does not come with one. If you do install a K series CPU, the BIOS/Alienware Control Center supposedly support SOME overclocking features, however I do not know how advanced or detailed said features are.

The Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and BT are all Killer Networking based (Essentially Qualcomm w/ fancy software), and I haven't noticed any issues with the ethernet in terms of speeds or disconnects.

Overall, the system is quite fast with a clean Windows install, especially if you move to an SSD, and seems like it should be a great performer for a long time, especially for the price, if you can find one.

Do however, get a decent Keyboard and Mouse, it's really sad Dell's been using the same cheap packins for many many years now.

It's pretty much tool-less (except the one time screw removal on the side panel lock lever).

Everything is upgrade-able as are most desktop PC's. In this case, the compact design of the case uses a swing out power supply to gain access to the GPU, CPU and RAM. Very easy.,

It has m.2 on the mainboard (occupied by the optane module, but can remove and use NVMe SSD), and has 2 2.5" bays on the bottom of the chassis and one 3.5" bay, plenty of power cables, etc. The 2.5" bays are just the right size to fit a 15mm drive (4 or 5TB drive) if you wanted to maximize storage.

This configuration says it comes with liquid cooling, and the heat pump in the Aurora is silent. It's dual channel, so more than likely has 8GB x 2 memory.

Overall, it's a great system and a decent price IMO.

The Optane module is used only for the HDD and it occupies the single m.2 slot in the system. It's a configuration for those people not using a m.2 SSD.

"m.2" defines a connector. There is no "m.2 vs SSD" as you're comparing a connector to a type of drive. An SSD can be 2.5" or m.2, and m.2 can support SATA or NVMe.

You can remove the Optane module and insert a m.2 SSD--either a SATA-based m.2 SSD or a NVMe m.2 SSD. The latter can be much faster (depending on manufacturer and model), but also a bit more expensive.