Alienware’s 17-inch laptops have always offered strong performance. But now thanks to an update that’s adding support for up to a Radeon RX 6850M XT GPU and a new 480Hz display, Alienware says the refreshed m17 R5 is the most powerful AMD Advantage laptop yet.
Engineered to make use of features like AMD’s Smart Access Memory, SmartShift Max and FreeSync Premium, the m17 R5’s latest config is meant to wring out every last framerate while keeping Alienware’s signature sci-fi aesthetic. Specs include either an AMD Ryzen 7 6800H CPU or a Ryzen 9 6900HX chip, up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM, 4TB of NVMe storage and a Radeon RX 6850M XT graphics card with 12GB of vRAM. That said, for people who don’t care about the AMD Advantage platform or just prefer NVIDIA cards, the m17 R5 can still be configured with up to an RTX 3080 Ti GPU as well.
As for display options, new for 2022 is a blisteringly fast full HD 480Hz panel (that will also be available on the x17 R2), which is the highest refresh rate you can get on a laptop today. However, if you’re not a hardcore competitive gamer, you may want to consider Alienware’s UHD display instead, which features a much wider gamut (99 percent of DCI-P3 vs 100 percent sRGB) and significantly better brightness (500 nits for UHD vs 300 nits for FHD).
Another bonus for AMD fans is that systems sporting a Radeon RX 6850M XT GPU will also get Alienware’s Cryo-tech cooling, which includes a 3.5x larger vapor chamber compared to older m17 R4 models along with a smaller but more efficient CPU fan. And like all of its recent M-series gaming laptops, the m17 R5 comes with support for both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos and Alienware’s ComfortView Plus blue-light filtering tech.
However, the one major downside aside from its price is that with a max weight of 7.3 pounds (depending on the exact config), the new m17 R5 definitely ain’t light. So regardless of which model you get, you better make sure you have a sturdy bag for taking it on the go.
The refreshed m17 R5 is available today for a starting price of $1,600, or around $2,800 when kitted out with a Ryzen 9 CPU and a RX 8650 M Xt GPU.