Alienware m15 and Dell G15 gaming laptops feature AMD Ryzen for the very first time

If you want proof AMD’s Ryzen 5000 laptop CPU has really made it, look no further than the new Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5, which, as its name tells you, will feature an AMD CPU—for the first time in history. Announced Wednesday and due to ship April 20 in the United States, the new Alienware m15 will pack either an 8-core Ryzen 7 5800H or an 8-core Ryzen 9 5900HX, with a starting price of $1,793.98. (If that’s too rich for you, check out the budget-friendlier Dell G15 gaming laptops below, also announced Wednesday.

Alienware m15 and Ryzen 5000: Hell freezes over

Having covered Alienware gaming laptops since the very beginning, we can tell you AMD CPUs have never made it this far. Sure, you can say Asus, MSI, Gigabyte and other gaming laptops would like to have a word, but in the “making it” world, getting an AMD Ryzen into such a high-profile brand as Alienware is a crowning achievement for AMD’s Zen 3 cores and its award-winning Ryzen 5000 chips.

Alienware, after all, is backed by mega-PC company Dell, and it’s one of the global brands synonymous with ‘gaming’ for mainstream audiences. Who hasn’t seen its computers in movie and television show product placements over the years?

Those hoping for an all-AMD Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 won’t get their wish today, unfortunately, as the laptop will offer either an Nivida GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop or GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop. Both GPUs are rated at a total graphics power (TGP) of 115 watts. With their support for Nvidia’s Dynamic Boost 2.0 technology, you can add another 10 watts to the graphics power for those times when the CPU doesn’t need it. Both TGP ratings would put the laptop at the top of the performance scale. The bottom is as low as 80 watts for the RTX 3070, and 60 watts for the RTX 3060.

Alienware

Alienware said it has improved the cooling over the previous model. With its Cryo-Tech cooling, thicker liquid-crystal polymer fans, and heat pipes that can balance the load between the CPU and GPU, the company promises about 12 percent more airflow.

Those who have bitterly complained about Alienware’s soldered-in main memory on previous versions will be happy to know that the R5 will feature a pair of SO-DIMM slots that are user-upgradeable with up to DDR4/3200 RAM.

Screen options for the 15.6-inch laptop will vary from a 165Hz, 1080p panel with a 3ms response rate, to a 1080p panel with 1ms response, G-Sync, and Nvidia’s Advanced Optimus. The last option is a 16:9 panel at a 240Hz refresh rate, 1ms response and G-Sync with Nvidia Advanced Optimus. Both of the 1080p panels are rated at 300 nits of maximum brightness, while the 1440p panel is rated at 400 nits.

Advanced Optimus is a technology that lets you switch seamlessly between using the power-saving MS Hybrid Graphics mode and the discrete graphics’ ability to support Nvidia’s G-Sync. Up to now, most gaming laptops have chosen one or the other. More recently we’ve seen laptops that let you switch between them manually, which required a reboot of the machine. With Advanced Optimus, you get the best of both worlds, automatically. The new Alienware m15 R5 will actually be the first laptop with a Ryzen CPU to support the feature.