While Alienware hasn’t given its gaming laptops a full overhaul for 2021, like other gaming laptop makers the company is kicking off the year by refreshing its 15 and 17-inch notebooks with new Nvidia RTX 30-series GPUs. The larger m17 R4 is also getting a huge display upgrade that could make it the laptop for gamers.
Both the 15-inch m15 R4 and 17-inch m17 R4 start at $US2,150 ($2,783) and have a similar range of components and ports, but if you don’t mind trading out some portability for even better performance, Alienware’s big 17-inch system is probably the better choice for more demanding games. That’s because in addition to support for new Nvidia RTX 30-series GPUs (which the m15 R4 is also getting), the m17 R4 is Alienware’s first laptop to get a 360 Hz 17.3-inch 1920 x 1080 screen.
Other new upgrades for Alienware’s 2021 gaming laptops include slightly faster 2933 MHz memory, support for up to 4TB of storage, and a new vapour chamber that’s part of Alienware’s new Cryo-tech cooling solution for its R4 revisions. Finally, thanks to new support for a built-in HDMI 2.1 port, m15 and m17 owners will have an easier time outputting high-refresh content to an external display.
Alternatively, if a desktop gaming rig is more your speed, Alienware is also adding new configs to its Aurora tower, including options for both AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs with Radeon RX 6800 XT GPUs or Nvidia RTX 30-series graphics cards. And in case you often find yourself working with big files or hosting multiple livestreams, the Aurora R10 can now be configured with up to 128GB of HyperX Fury DDR4 RAM to eliminate any concerns about running low on system memory.
While Alienware’s updates are mostly spec bumps to help its systems keep up with the times, a little extra speed is always nice, and when it comes to its desktops, it’s nice to see more manufacturers support both AMD and Intel-based configs.
The Aurora Ryzen Edition R10 starts at $US1,080 ($1,398), and will be available alongside the refreshed m15 R4 and m17 R4 on January 26 in the US.
Editor’s Note: Stay tuned for local Australian pricing and availability.