Alienware 17 R5 Review: One of the Best Gaming Laptops?

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Alienware 17 R5: At First Glance

Dell launched Alienware in June 2018. Since then, it has gained much popularity as one of the top gaming computers.

Alienware 17 R5 is popularly called the “ultimate-power machine”. The laptop achieved this name because it promises enough power for gaming and other computing tasks.

The Alienware 17 R5 is a great improvement to its predecessor – the Alienware 17 R4. Although, they share some similarities such as: the screen size, storage capacity and RAM.

However, the Dell designed the Alienware 17 R5 has with a slimmer chassis and more lighting features.

In summary, The Dell Alienware 17 R5 has promised a lot of functionalities. Whether it has kept up with these promises or not, we’ll find out in the sections below.

Alienware 17 R5: Design, Dimension, and Weight

Dell Alienware 17 R5 is undoubtedly one of the best solidly built gaming laptops you’ll come across today.

It is just as large as its predecessor with an all-black chassis except for the lid which is metallic gray. The Alienware 17 R5 is an illuminating piece to behold.

In reference to the above, there is a lightning strip by the sides of the lid, the enclosure, and the keyboard. Similarly, the touchpad and even the alien-head logo positioned on the lid.

Consequently, these lightning features makes the Alienware look sophisticated.

Dell built the Alienware 17 R5 with high-quality materials such as magnesium alloy, copper, aluminum, and steel.

Moving on to colors. The Alienware 17 R5 is only available in two color options – black or silver.

Moreover, before you open the lid of this aesthetically built laptop, you will find the silver Dell logo placed on the lid. This silver logo adds to the beauty of the design – it literally lights up.

Meanwhile, opening the Alienware’s lid exposes its keyboard which is positioned between the power button and the touchpad. Moreover, its enormous 17.3-inch display panel sits above the plastic strip which houses the Tobii eye tracker.

Furthermore, Alienware has retained its traditional 17’s steel-reinforced TactX keyboard. Its 2.2mm key travel and 79g force of actuation make the keyboard responsive to keystrokes and with bouncy keys.

In addition, the keyboard layout features a column of 9 programmable macro keys, a dedicated numbers pad, and customizable backlighting.

That is not all there is to know about this laptop’s keyboard. The Alienware 17 R5 also comes with a 4 × 2.3-inches touchpad which is responsive to touch and supports gestures.

The touchpad has its own backlight which is its most unique feature. The touchpad also features two mouse buttons.

Moving on to the laptop’s weight and dimension, Alienware 17 R5 has a dimension of 424 × 332 × 29.9mm and an average weight of 4,420g. Due to the size and weight of the laptop, it is considered a movable desktop-replacement gaming laptop.

In comparison with the MSI GT75 Titan with a weight of 4,581g, the Alienware 17 R5 is lighter. However, when compared with the 3674g Aorus X9 and the 3900g Origin PC Eon17-X, the Alienware 17 R5 is heavier.

Our testing unit features a QHD 2,560×1,440 pixel resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate and support for G-Sync. However, the laptop is also available in Full HD 1,920×1,080 at 60Hz, and in 4K at 60Hz – both without G-Sync support.

Whichever of the two higher-resolution screens you choose to buy, you will enjoy the Tobii eye tracker. Tobii eye tracke is a facial recognition technology that is used to control the camera with a glance.

The beauty of this technology is that it records your eye movements and selects objects just by you staring at them. This is an interesting feature that makes the gaming experience seamless and more exciting.

Additionally, the Tobii eye tracker isn’t only advantageous for gaming, it can also be used generally within windows. For example, the Tobii eye tracker can be used for taking the screen off sleep mode, saving power, and logging in to Windows.

As customary with Alienware laptops, Alienware 17 R5 comes with a command center – an options configuration feature that can be used to customize the keyboard backlight. It can also be used to optimize the power-saving settings and for creating shortcuts.

So far, it is obvious that Alienware 17 R5 is well designed with some exciting features. Therefore, it will not be surprising to know that it also offers some great ports.

Alienware 17 R5 features a USB Type-A 3.0 port on the right with another positioned on the left. The laptop also has a USB Type-C port, a headphone port, a microphone as well as a Noble lock spot.

Alienware laptops are built with a hinge-forward design. This means that most of its ports are placed on the rear of the laptop. These include a mini-display port, HDMI 2.0, Thunderbolt 3, and Ethernet.

You also get a a power port, and the Alienware graphics amplifier port.

In conclusion, the Alienware 17 R5 scores a nine in this review due to its aesthetic and rugged design.

Alienware 17 R5: Processor (CPU) Performance

The Alienware 17 R5 comes in 3 processor models. You can get the laptop with the Intel Core i9, Intel Core i8, or Intel Core i7.

Dell equipped our testing model with a hexacore Intel Core i9-8950HK processor with an overclocking frequency of 5.00 GHz.

It is worthy of mention that the Alienware 17 R5 is an excellent multitasking device. This is evident from our test – which opens multiple browser tabs including video streaming and running through graphic benchmarks continuously.

In reference to the above, these heavy-duty activities had no effect on the system’s performance. Specifically, with these multiple tasks running at the same time, we did not notice any stutter.

The implication is that Alienware 17 R5 can handle productivity tasks with ease. For instance, during an editing task, it takes the Alienware 9 mins 10s to transcode a 4k video to 1080p.

However, from the test above, the Alienware 17 R5 performance trails behind that of the ASUS ROG G703G1 – it delivered the same task in 8 minutes 15 seconds.

Also, in our test, MSI GT75 Titan performed better than Alienware 17 R5. MSI GT75 Titan completed the same editing task in 7 minutes 41 seconds.

We also provide CPU-stress test performance in our laptop processor review.

In the Cinebench 15 test, the Alienware 17 R5 scored 2924 points. This performance is a tie with Acer Predator Helios 500 with Intel Core i9-8950HK, which scored the same 2924 points

However, in comparison, Alienware 17 R5 performed better than Lenovo Legion Y920 with Intel Core i7-7820K – it delivered a score of 1850 points.

Finally, the Alienware 17 R5 CPU performance can be rated an eight because of its impressive performance among competing laptops.

Alienware 17 R5: Memory (RAM) Performance

Dell ships the Alienware 17 R5 with 32 GB 2,666 MHz DDR4 RAM. The laptop is designed with two memory slots, which take a maximum of 32 GB of RAM.

Specifically, this review is based on a single 32 GB RAM with the second slot empty.

The Alienware has a strong multi-threading capability. We confirmed this by opening 30 chrome tabs, including a YouTube video.

Opening 30 Chrome tabs at the same time had no effect on the performance of the laptop as it kept running without lag.

In the PC Mark 10 test, it scores 3443 points. This is relatively poor when compared with HP Omen that scored 5939 points.

Similarly, in comparison with the Acer Predator Helios 500PH517-51-79BY that scored 5589 points, Alienware 17 R5 came up short.

Based on my detailed critique of the laptop’s memory performance in this section, I can rate Alienware RAM performance a six. The reason for this relatively low rating is that, despite its good multitasking capabilities, it trails in performance among its competitors.

Alienware 17 R5: Storage Options & Performance

Dell equipped the Alienware 17 R5 with a 512 GB PCie SSD. Additionally, it also comes with a 1TB secondary storage HDD in the 2.5-inch format. The 1TB HDD has a rotational speed of 7200rpm.

Consequently, because the laptop uses an SSD drive, games load faster. The laptop also offers better shock vibration protection and better speed.

Finally, on the benefit of SSD, in comparison to traditional HDDs, SSDs do not make any noise because they do not have any moving parts. This improves your overall experience with Alienware 17 R5.

Like in our processor and memory reviews, we also add benchmark tests in our storage performance reviews. We use the CrystalDiskMask benchmark test to compare the storage performances of laptops.

In the CrystalDiskMask test, the Alienware 17 R5 scores a point of 565.5. In comparison, Aorus X9 scores 424 points and origin Eon 17-X, 565.5 points.

Impressively, it took Alienware 17 R5 9 seconds to transfer 4.97GB of files at a rate of 565.5 MBps.

Finally, the storage performance of Alienware 17 R5 is impressive enought to achieve a 9 in this review.

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Alienware 17 R5: Graphics Card Performance

The Alienware 17 R5 comes with three graphics configuration options. You can get the laptop with Nvidia Geforce GTX 1060 with 6 GB of GDDR5 -VRAM. Alternatively, the laptop may ship with Nvidia Geforce GTX 1070 or the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 GPU.

Dell equipped our testing unit with the Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 which has an 8 GB VRAM. This GPU comes with a frequency ranging from 1782 MHz to 1793 MHz.

While gamers who are conscious of the price might conveniently go the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 model – the models that ship Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070, or 1080 – offer better resolution.

On the other hand, gamers that want a resolution higher than 1980 × 1080 should consider the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 or1080 models.

Moving on to the specific gaming performance of Alienware 17 R5, the laptop delivered some impressive results.

For example, on the Rise of The Tomb Raider played at very high resolution – 1080p, Alienware 17 R5 ran the game at 68fps. Based on this result, it beat MSI GT75 Titan that played Rise of The Tomb Raider at 67fps.

However, Alienware 17 R5 performed below the Origin PC Eon17-X that played the same game at 69fps.

Furthermore, on the Alienware 17 R5, Hitman played at 99fps on a very high setting of 1080p. In comparison, Alienware 17 R5 is ahead of both the Aorus X9 and the Origin PC Eon17 – both played the same game at 96fps.

In conclusion, I rate the graphics performance Alienware 17 R5 an eight. This is because it is a high-end gaming machine producing one of the highest scores among the top gaming laptops.

Alienware 17 R5: Battery Life and Performance

The Alienware 17 R5 has two battery options. You can get the laptop with either a 66 Wh or a 99 Wh battery. This review is based on the 99 Wh battery.

In a test that browses the web, watches videos, and runs through graphics benchmarks continuously at 150 nits – Alienware 17 R5 performed averagely well. Specifically, Alienware lasted 3hrs 47 minutes.

This battery performance is better than that of MSI GT75 Titan that lasted 2hrs and 54min. It also performed better than Origin EON17-SLX, which delivered 1 hour 52 minutes.

Therefore, Alienware 17 R5 is rated an eight because its overall battery performance is more impressive than its competitors.

Conclusion

The model of Alienware 17 R5 we reviewed is quite pricey. However, Alienware offers a good range of configuration choices for different budgets.

If you have a lower budget, you may be able to get a cheaper Alienware 17 R5 configuration. However, you need to balance price with performance.

The good news is that even the lower configured version of this laptop offers sufficient performance.

In conclusion, the Alienware 17 R5 is an impressively performing machine. Although, it performs a little below expectation on some CPU benchmarks.

However, Alienware 17 R5 performance is top-notch in everything else and I am impressed by it performance.

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