science

Dell Alienware Area 51m Review – Times Now


Alienware

Alienware&nbsp

Dell is one of the biggest names in the personal computing business and its sub-brand Alienware arguably among the most recognisable in the portable PC gaming arena. The latter’s origin dates back to 1996, and since then Alienware has gone through a takeover and multiple rounds of restructuring to establish itself as Dell’s premier gaming brand.

From casual gamers to enthusiasts, Alienware has amassed a loyal fan base that swears by its products. But in the last year or two, this gaming-centric brand has been losing steam with many passing on its gaming laptops.

This appears to have prompted Dell and Alienware into a rethink, the result of which is the Area 51m. With its broad and bulky frame, this new laptop is very much like the Alienware flagships we’ve seen before. However, it’s under the hood where Dell has attempted to make a radical shift towards creating a gaming laptop of the future.

Much like its predecessors, the Area 51M is an insanely powerful machine that compromises a little on portability that a typical notebook would give you, in return for more than enough computing power to tackle the most demanding of games available right now. But crucially, what it also brings with it is almost desktop like upgradability, which frankly is something that puts the Area 51m in a unique position vis-a-vis the competition available in the market.

We recently got the chance to take the Area 51m for a spin, during which we used the laptop for multiple things, including watching movies, browsing the internet, and most of all, gaming.

While we’ll be doing another review later which will focus on the design, build and other features of the Area 51m, in this one, we will talk about the gaming performance of this laptop and take a look at what it offers as a gaming machine.

So let’s get started!

Dell Alienware Area 51m Review: Specifications

So what’s under the hood? Well, only the best hardware that money can buy right now!

The Area 51m is a true beast when it comes to the hardware that it packs within its frame. There is a comparatively more affordable variant of the Area 51m with core specs of i7-9700K CPU, a RTX 2070 GPU and 16GB of DDR4 RAM while the top end model we reviewed brings with it a Core i9-9900K processor, a Ray Tracing supporting Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, 32 gigs of DDR4 RAM running at a maximum of 2400mhz — split in two 16GB sticks — and 512GB of M.2 SSD and 1TB of a Hybrid disk drive with an 8GB NAND memory allocation for faster performance.

All this hardware — on both the models — sits on an Intel Z390 motherboard which also brings with it a ton of connectivity options, including support for an Alienware Graphics Amplifier Port, two DC power input ports, one Thunderbolt 3 with DisplayPort, one RJ-45 Realtek 2.5Gbps Ethernet Port, two ports for USB 3.1 and one USB 3.1 with PowerShare, along with one HDMI 2.0 slot, one mini display 1.4 port as well a 3.5mm audio jack.

The display outside is a 17.3-inch Full-HD panel with a refresh rate of 144Hz. The panel here is bright enough with at 300-nits brightness and has a 72 per cent colour gamut. The whole package is powered by Lithium Ion 90 watt-hour battery with ExpressCharge that uses as many as two bulky 330W + 330W adapters for the top end model.

Dell Alienware Area 51m Review: Performance

The Dell Alienware Area 51m comes with a copy of Windows 10 pre-loaded and offers impressive performance for anything and everything you throw at it. Despite being a laptop, the hardware that’s on offer ensures that this machine from Alienware is capable enough to outperform not just any other machine from its kin, but also a majority of desktops out there.

This is primarily because the Area 51m uses a full-scale desktop CPU and modded version of a desktop GPU — instead of scaled-down mobile versions that most laptops use for handling games and other heavy-duty software.

While the nomenclatures for the desktop and mobile GPUs and CPUs may not seem too far from each other, the difference between the two is quite a lot. From the number of virtual and physical cores to the max clock speed on offer, the difference between desktop and mobile CPUs is significant.

The same is the case for the GPU that’s used here. Unlike the mobile version that is used on other laptops, the modded RTX 2080 used on the Area 51m brings with it the same stock 14Gbps memory bandwidth as well as 2,944 Cuda cores as on the almost 1KG weighing reference card released for desktops by Nvidia.

And because this core hardware — that’s fit enough to power 4k Ray Tracing gaming — is used here to run what’s essentially relegated to a 1080p gaming machine — an area we believe Alienware could have improved in by at least using a 1440p display, if not a 4k one — the results we got while trying popular games were quite impressive.

The surplus raw computing power — both in terms of the CPU as well as the GPU — came in handy while playing popular games on the laptop. In our limited time with the Area 51m, we put this gaming machine through the paces by running demanding titles such as Metro Exodus, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Battlefield V, Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, Assassin’s Creed Odessy and good old, GTA V.

Partially down to the fact that we ran the games at the rather modest resolution of 1920×1080, we were met with buttery smooth performance with most of the games largely throwing up over an average 100 frames per second despite running on highest possible graphical settings with DX12 and all the supported eye candies enabled.

Although this wasn’t true for Ray Tracing supported titles such as Battlefield V and Metro Exodus — as the new technology does come with a significant burden on GPU resources — even these games ran at over a solid 60 FPS on average.

Now generally 100+ FPS is a little bit of an overkill, with 30 FPS being acceptable, and 60 FPS considered as a good output of frames. However, with the Alienware 51m’s 17.3-inch panel supporting an extremely high refresh rate of 144Hz — as opposed to 60Hz on most TVs and monitors — the rather high frame rates we saw during games did add up to a much smoother gameplay experience than we’re usually used to on frame rate capped consoles as well as our GTX 1660ti-based primary gaming rig which is tied to a slower refresh rate sporting TV.

Interestingly, this performance was on the stock clocks that the Area 51m offers. On Dell’s part, it does encourage users to try their hand at overclocking both the CPU and GPU — memory clocks are locked at 2400Mhz because of restrictions of the CPU platform being used — albeit only through the pre-installed Alienware Command Center.

Speaking about the gaming performance, it is essential to note that for running games at peak performance, the laptop has to be connected to the bundled DC charging adapters. Without that, you can say goodbye to the power efficiency of the Area 51m. As such, for all intents and purposes, while gaming the laptop is meant to be used attached to the charger.

Dell Alienware Area 51m Review: Should you buy it?

At Rs 3,03,590, the Alienware Area 51m does not come cheap and is not for everyone. The price tag makes it one of the most expensive portable computers you can get your hands on right now — and possibly the most expensive available in India. Yet, if you take a step back and consider what this new flagship from Alienware brings with it, the price does start to make sense.

While the powerful (and expensive) hardware onboard may stand out as the obvious reason, it is the promise of almost desktop like upgradability that makes the Area 51m so much more than what meets the eye.

Using a modded variant of the Intel Z390 Chipset which brings with it support for the LGA1151 socket, Dell’s top-of-the-line Alienware offering brings with it the promise of simply swapping the current CPU on board with a faster one in the future.

While no such CPU currently exists in the market right now — not at least for the top-end variant of the Alienware 51m — in the future a user could buy a CPU from Dell or directly from the market and swap it with the i9-9900K they have on their laptop.

And that’s not all.

The same goes for the GPU on board the Area 51m.  While desktops users generally take for granted this sort of freedom, on a laptop the option to change GPUs is something that’s only limited to select non-mainstream device makers, and as such for Dell and it’s premium gaming brand Alienware to bring that to the general users is nothing short of revolutionary for the industry.

However, it’ll be prudent to mention that unlike CPUs, graphics cards used on the Area 51m are modded variants, and as such, if a user wants to upgrade the same in their portable gaming machine they will only have to source it from Dell.

At the time of review, Dell has announced any pricing for these, but our guess is they will once the next generation of Nvidia cards get announced.

Factoring everything minus the price, the Area 51m is thus an excellent option as it does not just attempt to be a gaming laptop, but rather a portable desktop or even gaming console replacement which you can hook to a bigger screen and enjoy smooth 4K gaming.

In many ways, it is the Windows 10-based gaming console that we’ve never had. It brings more power to the table than 99 per cent of gaming desktops and delivers it in a form factor that despite being slightly heavy is sufficiently portable. And above that, there’s the promise of upgradability which no console can offer.

However, things do change a little when you factor the price in the equation. Despite being an extremely good gaming machine that even makes complete sense, the Area 51m is bogged down by its prohibitory price.

At a price that’s substantially over the ex-showroom of a Reno Kwid and Datsun Redi Go, the Alienware Area 51m could be a tough sell in a country which is cost conscious.

However, ask any PC gamer; powerful gaming rigs never come cheap. So if you have the means to splurge on the Alienware Area 51m, then splurge away on this portable gaming rig. Between its powerful hardware and the promise of upgradability wrapped in a package that also promises portability, for the right audience, this beast from Alienware is worth every penny that Dell is asking for.





READ SOURCE

Leave a Reply

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.