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Alienware adds Nvidia RTX Super, Radeon RX graphics to Area-51m, m15 and m17 gaming laptops

Dell's mainstream G3 and G5 gaming laptops also get updated components for a performance boost.

Joshua Goldman Managing Editor / Advice
Managing Editor Josh Goldman is a laptop expert and has been writing about and reviewing them since built-in Wi-Fi was an optional feature. He also covers almost anything connected to a PC, including keyboards, mice, USB-C docks and PC gaming accessories. In addition, he writes about cameras, including action cams and drones. And while he doesn't consider himself a gamer, he spends entirely too much time playing them.
Expertise Laptops, desktops and computer and PC gaming accessories including keyboards, mice and controllers, cameras, action cameras and drones Credentials
  • More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.
Joshua Goldman
3 min read
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Alienware says the new Area-51m is the world's most powerful gaming laptop. 

Dell

The latest Alienware Area-51m R2 is essentially a small gaming desktop with a screen and keyboard attached. The monster gaming laptop is getting its first refresh since the first Area-51m arrived last year when it posted some of the best gaming performance we'd seen in the category. It goes on sale on June 9 starting at $3,050. International prices aren't yet available, but that's about £2,480 or AU$4,700.

Like that version, the new Area-51 R2 will have a desktop-class processor at its heart -- a 10-core Intel Core i9-10900K. The range of graphics chips for the Area-51m starts with the 6GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and ends with the 8GB RTX 2080 Super with 12-phase voltage regulation. In between there are 6GB 2060 and 8GB 2070 Super cards. An 8GB AMD Radeon RX 5700M is also available. 

You can also expect to find a wide variety of memory, storage and display options:

  • Up to 4TB of storage in RAID 0 (2x 2TB NVMe M.2 PCIe SSDs)
  • Up to 64GB Dual Channel DDR4 at 2933MHz or 32GB Dual Channel DDR4 XMP at 3200MHz
  • 17.3-inch 144Hz or 300Hz FHD displays or a UHD display with 500-nit brightness and 100% Adobe RGB color gamut
  • Killer Ethernet and 802.11ax wireless
  • Full keyboard with 1.7mm travel, per-key RGB LED lighting and N-key rollover
  • SD and microSD card readers

Also read: Dell adds XPS 17 to its skinny power-laptop lineup  

Joining the refresh cycle are Alienware's slim gaming laptops, the 15.6-inch m15 R3 and 17.3-inch m17 R3. They'll start at $1,500 and $1,550, respectively, and will be available May 21. Similar processor and graphics options to the Area-51m are available on the m15 and m17, although there are fewer of them and the 2080 Super is a Max-Q design in the m15, a Super Max-P in the m17 and the AMD chip option drops to a 4GB Radeon RX 5500M. Memory is capped at 32GB DDR4 2666MHz.

Alienware is also refreshing its Aurora desktop, too. The new Aurora R11 will offer up to a 10th-gen Intel Core i9-10980HK processor, HyperX Fury DDR4 memory and an optional 1,000-watt power supply to support dual GPUs. It will also be the first to offer liquid cooling for both its CPU and GeForce RTX 2080 Super graphics. Configurations are available now starting at $1,130. Lower-end configurations are coming at the end of May and will start at $880. 

Also read: Best cheap gaming laptop under $1,000 to get in 2020

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The Dell G5 is getting a new light bar at the front. 

Dell

Two of Dell's sub-$1,000 gaming laptops are getting touched up as well. The updated 15.6-inch G3 and G5 will be available with Intel's 10th-gen six-core i7 10750H processor and up to a 6GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 on the G3 and RTX 2070 Max-Q on the G5. A special edition G5 15 will be available with up to an AMD Ryzen 9 4900H processor and Radeon RX 5500M graphics. You'll also be able to get them with 144Hz displays while the G5 will have the additional option of a 300Hz display. 

The G3 is expected to start at $880 with the G5 comes in as low as $830. Both will be available on May 21.