Alienware’s m15 and m17 laptops stage up with GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs

Alienware’s newly upgraded m15 R4 and m17 R4 gaming laptops will swap of their present GPUs for vivid unusual—and likely critical sooner—Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 GPUs this year, the company presented at CES 2021.

Whereas critical of the m15 R4 and m17 R4’s gain is carried over from previous R3 variations by ports, weight, and measurement, the largest toughen for avid gamers is in graphics.

Alienware m15 R4

The 15.6-lunge Alienware m15 R4 soundless weighs about 4.65 lbs to 5.5 lbs (reckoning on the alternate strategies) and springs with up to 32GB of RAM. Alienware also offers 300Hz 1080p and 4K OLED veil veil alternate strategies, and the laptops soundless shall be found both Lunar Light (white) or Darkish Facet of the Moon (shaded). 

But the visuals are if truth be told dealt with by “Subsequent generation Nvidia graphics.” Alienware didn’t notify which particular GPUs would be supplied as a consequence of Nvidia’s knowledge lock down after we wrote this, but from the laptop’s 240 watt energy brick, we mediate it might perchance maybe toughen up to a GeForce RTX 3080 Max-Q. We’ll update this sage as more knowledge comes in, but the RTX 30-series chips are per Nvidia’s unusual 8nm Ampere structure, which offers a really essential enhance over previous generation GPUs.

One advise that doesn’t swap is the CPU. The Alienware m15 and m17 continue to deploy Intel’s 10th-gen Core processors. There is a minute swap despite the indisputable truth that with alternate strategies now along side a Core i7-10870H or Core i7-10980HK. Each are 8-core chips, but the Core i7-10870H shaves 100MHz off the previous model’s Core i7-10875H.

Must you’re let down there’s no AMD Ryzen 5000 cell chip within the upgraded Alienware notebooks the company offers a salve that is liable to be appropriate as essential: A brand unusual 1920×1080 resolution webcam aside from the older 720×480 webcam. For avid gamers who must advise a laptop for work Zoom calls or Twitch streaming, the increased-resolution camera is a welcome toughen.

For ports, there’s soundless a wedge-shaped lock port, three USB-A 5Gbps ports, an analog audio port, a UHS-II microSD reader, Thunderbolt 3, miniDisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1. Alienware continues to give its beget Amplifier port for exterior graphics too. We should also level out that the ethernet port is now backed by a Killer E3100X, which supports up to 2.5GbE but now aspects a mode that improves game efficiency by “reshaping” the community traffic for the length of game sessions.

Alienware m17 R4

Alienware

If a 15.6-lunge panel is appropriate too minute for you, Alienware’s m17 R4 expands to a 17.3-lunge veil veil with alternate strategies for 1080P at 144Hz or 360Hz, both with Nvidia’s G-Sync know-how integrated. There’s also a 4K, 60Hz option that pumps out a blazing 500 nits. Must you recede for the 4K veil veil, you might perchance maybe also furthermore recede for a model with Tobii Eyetracking.

The larger laptop over but again aspects “Subsequent generation Nvidia graphics,” which we’re going to steal means up to a GeForce RTX 3080 GPU. One spec that Alienware didn’t detail became whether or no longer it became the Max-Q version of the 3080, which sacrifices some efficiency for improved thermals, but we’re going to bet there might perchance maybe appropriate be the corpulent-corpulent version inner since the laptop’s alternate strategies consist of 240 watt to 330 watt energy bricks.

The Alienware m17 R4’s ports, CPU, 1080p camera, and community controller look to ascertain the smaller model’s loadout. The burden of the unusual Alienware m17 R4 is 5.4 lbs. to 6.5 lbs.

Each laptops are anticipated to be available on Jan. 26 with prices for every starting at $2,149.

One among founding fathers of hardcore tech reporting, Gordon has been covering PCs and ingredients since 1998.