**A Closer Look at Alienware's X17 R2 Gaming Laptop**

That's because in games it all comes down to the GPU and the RTX 3080 TI is a very very capable GPU, it easily cracks 60fps in the most demanding Games available today like cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2. And that's at 1080p with maxed out settings. You have access to Nvidia DLSS with this GPU as well, so things like Ray tracing and cyberpunk are possible at playable and frankly enjoyable frame rates. Despite the fact that this is from Alienware's thinner series of gaming laptops, the RTX 3080 TI still gets the full 150 watts the GPU is capable of along with an additional 25 watts from Dynamic boost that comes at the cost of fan noise and thermals though even if Alienware has the situation mostly under control, thermal throttling really isn't a concern here. But the machine does get quite loud when you're using the more heavy duty thermal profiles. Max fan noise results in the best performance and shows the RTX 3080 TI inside at its best. But I imagine most people will just take the performance hit and run with less fan noise.

There's a decent gap in performance between the balance preset and Max fan speed, but sometimes you have to make a few sacrifices. Alienware's x-series is known for being relatively thin and light, and the X17 R2 is no different. It measures just 0.8 inches thick at its thickest point and it weighs just under seven pounds. That's certainly not thin and Light by MacBook or traditional Ultrabook standards, but this machine is still relatively portable considering that it's a old desktop replacement. Despite the thinness I didn't have any issues with thermal throttling though fan noise did become a little bit of a problem when I was pushing really demanded games.

Overall this is the exact same design as the first version of the X17 just with Intel's 12th gen processors at the helm and frankly I'm glad Alienware didn't mess with the design. Similar to Lenovo's gaming laptops, all of your ports are around the back of the machine which is super convenient. You get two USB 3.2 gen 1 ports, a USBC port with DisplayPort, power delivery, Thunderbolt 4 connection, HDMI 2.1, Mini DisplayPort 1.4, and an Ethernet Jack. And even a Micro SD card reader. The wireless capabilities are what you'd expect out of a 12th gen machine as well, with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 around the top.

You have a mechanical keyboard that Alienware co-developed with Cherry, which sounds a lot better than it actually is. I've used a number of these laptop mechanical keyboards and they all have the same problem - there's a constant ping when typing. The actuation force never feels consistent, and you don't get that immediate response that you find on quality membrane keyboards. Seriously, I would much rather type on my Zephyrus G14 than this keyboard. Thankfully Alienware offers a regular x-series membrane keyboard which will save you some money over the mechanical option, probably feel better. The keyboard layout is actually one of my favorite things about it, particularly the fact that Alienware moved the page up and page down keys to the arrow keys and use the extra space for dedicated volume keys instead.

The trackpad is a bit small but let's be honest you'll probably be using the X17 R2 with a mouse most of the time anyway. The same goes for the webcam - it's a 720p webcam that somehow manages to look granny even with direct sunlight pointed at it. This is really not the laptop for meetings, but if you want to pull double duty you may need to strap on an external webcam.

**The Verdict**

This is a fantastic 17-inch gaming laptop with some of the most powerful hardware you can buy today, but as you might expect Alienware charges for that privilege. You're looking at twenty-two hundred dollars to even get started with the machine and this configuration I have here is over $3,500. You can easily spend up to four thousand as well if you go with more storage and memory. Laptops in this class are universally expensive but the high starting price of the X17 R2 is really the kicker here locking out a lot of people even if they don't need the top spec hardware available today.

The good news is that you can save some money on the screen, although 480 Hertz is a pretty big marketing bullet point and it doesn't make a big difference in practice. Competitive gamers are just fine saving $200 and buying the 360 Hertz option. And if you've already set that money aside, higher resolutions are the way to go.

Overall, the X17 R2 is an incredible machine that's sure to please even the most demanding gamers. Its powerful hardware, customizable lighting, and stunning design make it a standout in the market. If you're in the market for a new gaming laptop and can stretch your budget to accommodate its price tag, the X17 R2 is definitely worth considering.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthank you to GameStop for sponsoring this video visit a GameStop store today for an extra 50 off clearance prices in store only see the link in the description to find a store near you the Alienware x17r2 is one of the most powerful gaming laptops you can buy today but that's not what makes it interesting this particular model I have here stands out because it has a display with a 480 Hertz refresh rate the first gaming laptop ever with a 480 Hertz displays for the record it's built for the most competitive Gamers who need information from the game as quickly as possible not only does it have a 480 Hertz screen it has the hardware at least on paper to deliver frame rates that can take advantage of such a high refresh rate this particular model has an RTX 3080 TI an Intel Core i7 12700h processor and 32 gigabytes of ddr5 4800 memory and that's not even the top spec you can pack in up to 64 gigabytes of ddr5 along with up to a core I9 12900 HK processor that's a lot of power for a laptop and we've seen these components in play time and again I'll get to overall performance but my main question was is a 480 Hertz screen even worth it especially on a laptop before getting into that make sure to get subscribed to Digital Trends and leave a thumbs up on this video If you enjoyed immediately after unboxing the X17 R2 I had one question what games are even capable of pushing 480 frames per second it really doesn't matter how much power you throw at a lot of games they'll become CPU limited well before you're even close to 480 frames especially with a 1080p screen I focused on Esports titles and games that are built to run on Lower spec machines in particular Fall Guys rocket League CS go Rainbow Six Siege and fortnite unfortunately only two of those cracked the 480 FPS barrier rocket league and Counter-Strike Global Offensive Siege still maintained an average FPS above 300 but that was with the lowest preset at 1080p which is not really where you want to be with an RTX 3080 TI inside your laptop even without the extra frames though there's a difference in feel going all the way up to 480 Hertz from 144 Hertz it's roughly equivalent to going from 60 hertz to above 100 Hertz there's just this extra smoothness to motion that's immediately noticeable but you quickly adjust to the new refresh rate and it starts to feel like it's not doing much compared to other high refresh rate displays and that's because on a technical level 480 Hertz really isn't doing much at that refresh rate you're getting a new image about every two milliseconds a 360 Hertz screen is refreshing about every three milliseconds and Alienware actually offers a 360 Hertz option for the X17 R2 that's 200 cheaper is an extra millisecond really worth 200 bucks well I'll leave that up to you for me it's not if you're a highly competitive gamer the 360 Hertz screen is going to give you a much higher Advantage than spending the extra 200 ever would and if you've already set aside that extra money you can jump up to a 1440p 165 Hertz or 4K 120 hertz display for most people I'd recommend the 1440p option that's really The Sweet Spot for the size of this machine and the configuration I have here outside the refresh rate the screen is solid if unimpressive I measured a peak brightness of just over 350 nits with a contrast ratio of about a thousand to one which is typical IPS territory it supports Nvidia g-sync for variable refresh rate but unfortunately there's no HDR support not that you'd want to use HDR on this laptop considering what the screen is capable of but important to know so I don't think you should buy the 480 Hertz screen but that doesn't mean you should skip this laptop because it's fantastic a quick rundown of performance the core i7 12700h is only slightly behind the core i7 12 800h and even the core I9 12900 HK you're getting the same 14 cores available on Intel's more expensive 12th gen CPUs the only real difference is clock speed with the i7 12700h you're topping out at 4.7 gigahertz while the I9 can climb up to 5 gigahertz that 300 megahertz bump can make a difference if you're running a lot of single threaded applications but most modern apps are still going to see a bump from the 14 cores available to the i7 and the ddr5 in this machine you can absolutely configure the laptop with a more powerful CPU but most people especially Gamers don't need to worry about that and that's because in games it all comes down to the GPU and the RTX 3080 TI is a very very capable GPU it easily cracks 60fps in the most demanding Games available available today like cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2. and that's at 1080p with maxed out settings you have access to Nvidia dlss with this GPU as well so things like Ray tracing and cyberpunk are possible at playable and frankly enjoyable frame rates despite the fact that this is from alienware's thinner series of gaming laptops the RTX 3080i still gets the full 150 watts the GPU is capable of along with an additional 25 watts from Dynamic boost that comes at the cost of fan noise and thermals though even if Alienware has the situation mostly under control thermal throttling really isn't a concern here but the machine does get quite loud when you're using the more heavy duty thermal profiles Max fan noise results in the best performance and shows the RTX 3080 TI inside at its best but I imagine most people will just take the performance hit and run with less fan noise there's a decent Gap in performance between the balance preset and Max fan speed but sometimes you have to make a few sacrifices alienware's x-series is known for being relatively thin and light and the X17 R2 is no different it measures just 0.8 inches thick at its thickest point and it weighs just under seven pounds that's certainly not thin and Light by MacBook or traditional Ultrabook standards but this machine is still relatively portable considering that it's a old desktop replacement and despite the thinness I didn't have any issues with thermal throttling though fan noise did become a little bit of a problem when I was pushing really demanded games overall this is the exact same design as the first version of the X17 just with Intel's 12th gen processors at the helm and frankly I'm glad Alienware didn't mess with the design similar to lenovo's gaming laptops all of your ports are around the back of the machine which is super convenient you get two USB 3.2 gen 1 ports a USBC port with DisplayPort and power delivery a thunderbolt 4 connection HDMI 2.1 Mini DisplayPort 1.4 and ethernet Jack and even a Micro SD card reader the wireless capabilities are what you'd expect out of a 12th gen machine as well with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 around the top you have a mechanical keyboard that Alienware co-developed with cherry which sounds a lot better than it actually is I've used a number of these laptop mechanical keyboards and they all have the same problem there's a constant ping when typing the actuation force never feels consistent and you don't get that immediate response that you find on quality membrane keyboards seriously I would much rather type on my zephyrus G14 than this keyboard and that keyboard isn't even my favorite thankfully Alienware offers a regular x-series membrane keyboard which will save you some money over the mechanical option and probably feel better I love the keyboard layout though in particular the fact that Alienware moved the page up and page down keys to the arrow keys and use the extra space for dedicated volume keys instead the trackpad is a bit small but let's be honest you'll probably be using the x17r2 with a mouse most of the time anyway the same goes for the webcam it's a 720p webcam that somehow manages to look granny even with direct sunlight pointed at it this is really not the laptop for meetings but if you want to pull double duty you may need to strap on an external webcam Bottom Line This is a fantastic 17-inch gaming laptop with some of the most powerful Hardware you can buy today but as you might expect Alienware charges for that privilege you're looking at twenty two hundred dollars to even get started with the machine and this configuration I have here is over 3 500 you can easily spend up to four thousand as well if you go with more storage and memory laptops in this class are universally expensive but the high starting price of the X17 R2 is really the kicker here locking out a lot of people even if they don't need the top spec Hardware available today the good news is that you can save some money on the screen although 480 Hertz is a pretty big marketing bullet point it doesn't make a big difference in practice and competitive gamers are just fine saving 200 bucks and buying the 360 Hertz option and if you've already set that money aside higher resolutions are the way to go hey thanks for watching this video if you liked it please leave a thumbs up I'd really appreciate it and get subscribed for more videos from Digital Trends if you want to watch more videos now here to that YouTube thinks you'll enjoy foreignthank you to GameStop for sponsoring this video visit a GameStop store today for an extra 50 off clearance prices in store only see the link in the description to find a store near you the Alienware x17r2 is one of the most powerful gaming laptops you can buy today but that's not what makes it interesting this particular model I have here stands out because it has a display with a 480 Hertz refresh rate the first gaming laptop ever with a 480 Hertz displays for the record it's built for the most competitive Gamers who need information from the game as quickly as possible not only does it have a 480 Hertz screen it has the hardware at least on paper to deliver frame rates that can take advantage of such a high refresh rate this particular model has an RTX 3080 TI an Intel Core i7 12700h processor and 32 gigabytes of ddr5 4800 memory and that's not even the top spec you can pack in up to 64 gigabytes of ddr5 along with up to a core I9 12900 HK processor that's a lot of power for a laptop and we've seen these components in play time and again I'll get to overall performance but my main question was is a 480 Hertz screen even worth it especially on a laptop before getting into that make sure to get subscribed to Digital Trends and leave a thumbs up on this video If you enjoyed immediately after unboxing the X17 R2 I had one question what games are even capable of pushing 480 frames per second it really doesn't matter how much power you throw at a lot of games they'll become CPU limited well before you're even close to 480 frames especially with a 1080p screen I focused on Esports titles and games that are built to run on Lower spec machines in particular Fall Guys rocket League CS go Rainbow Six Siege and fortnite unfortunately only two of those cracked the 480 FPS barrier rocket league and Counter-Strike Global Offensive Siege still maintained an average FPS above 300 but that was with the lowest preset at 1080p which is not really where you want to be with an RTX 3080 TI inside your laptop even without the extra frames though there's a difference in feel going all the way up to 480 Hertz from 144 Hertz it's roughly equivalent to going from 60 hertz to above 100 Hertz there's just this extra smoothness to motion that's immediately noticeable but you quickly adjust to the new refresh rate and it starts to feel like it's not doing much compared to other high refresh rate displays and that's because on a technical level 480 Hertz really isn't doing much at that refresh rate you're getting a new image about every two milliseconds a 360 Hertz screen is refreshing about every three milliseconds and Alienware actually offers a 360 Hertz option for the X17 R2 that's 200 cheaper is an extra millisecond really worth 200 bucks well I'll leave that up to you for me it's not if you're a highly competitive gamer the 360 Hertz screen is going to give you a much higher Advantage than spending the extra 200 ever would and if you've already set aside that extra money you can jump up to a 1440p 165 Hertz or 4K 120 hertz display for most people I'd recommend the 1440p option that's really The Sweet Spot for the size of this machine and the configuration I have here outside the refresh rate the screen is solid if unimpressive I measured a peak brightness of just over 350 nits with a contrast ratio of about a thousand to one which is typical IPS territory it supports Nvidia g-sync for variable refresh rate but unfortunately there's no HDR support not that you'd want to use HDR on this laptop considering what the screen is capable of but important to know so I don't think you should buy the 480 Hertz screen but that doesn't mean you should skip this laptop because it's fantastic a quick rundown of performance the core i7 12700h is only slightly behind the core i7 12 800h and even the core I9 12900 HK you're getting the same 14 cores available on Intel's more expensive 12th gen CPUs the only real difference is clock speed with the i7 12700h you're topping out at 4.7 gigahertz while the I9 can climb up to 5 gigahertz that 300 megahertz bump can make a difference if you're running a lot of single threaded applications but most modern apps are still going to see a bump from the 14 cores available to the i7 and the ddr5 in this machine you can absolutely configure the laptop with a more powerful CPU but most people especially Gamers don't need to worry about that and that's because in games it all comes down to the GPU and the RTX 3080 TI is a very very capable GPU it easily cracks 60fps in the most demanding Games available available today like cyberpunk 2077 and Red Dead Redemption 2. and that's at 1080p with maxed out settings you have access to Nvidia dlss with this GPU as well so things like Ray tracing and cyberpunk are possible at playable and frankly enjoyable frame rates despite the fact that this is from alienware's thinner series of gaming laptops the RTX 3080i still gets the full 150 watts the GPU is capable of along with an additional 25 watts from Dynamic boost that comes at the cost of fan noise and thermals though even if Alienware has the situation mostly under control thermal throttling really isn't a concern here but the machine does get quite loud when you're using the more heavy duty thermal profiles Max fan noise results in the best performance and shows the RTX 3080 TI inside at its best but I imagine most people will just take the performance hit and run with less fan noise there's a decent Gap in performance between the balance preset and Max fan speed but sometimes you have to make a few sacrifices alienware's x-series is known for being relatively thin and light and the X17 R2 is no different it measures just 0.8 inches thick at its thickest point and it weighs just under seven pounds that's certainly not thin and Light by MacBook or traditional Ultrabook standards but this machine is still relatively portable considering that it's a old desktop replacement and despite the thinness I didn't have any issues with thermal throttling though fan noise did become a little bit of a problem when I was pushing really demanded games overall this is the exact same design as the first version of the X17 just with Intel's 12th gen processors at the helm and frankly I'm glad Alienware didn't mess with the design similar to lenovo's gaming laptops all of your ports are around the back of the machine which is super convenient you get two USB 3.2 gen 1 ports a USBC port with DisplayPort and power delivery a thunderbolt 4 connection HDMI 2.1 Mini DisplayPort 1.4 and ethernet Jack and even a Micro SD card reader the wireless capabilities are what you'd expect out of a 12th gen machine as well with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 around the top you have a mechanical keyboard that Alienware co-developed with cherry which sounds a lot better than it actually is I've used a number of these laptop mechanical keyboards and they all have the same problem there's a constant ping when typing the actuation force never feels consistent and you don't get that immediate response that you find on quality membrane keyboards seriously I would much rather type on my zephyrus G14 than this keyboard and that keyboard isn't even my favorite thankfully Alienware offers a regular x-series membrane keyboard which will save you some money over the mechanical option and probably feel better I love the keyboard layout though in particular the fact that Alienware moved the page up and page down keys to the arrow keys and use the extra space for dedicated volume keys instead the trackpad is a bit small but let's be honest you'll probably be using the x17r2 with a mouse most of the time anyway the same goes for the webcam it's a 720p webcam that somehow manages to look granny even with direct sunlight pointed at it this is really not the laptop for meetings but if you want to pull double duty you may need to strap on an external webcam Bottom Line This is a fantastic 17-inch gaming laptop with some of the most powerful Hardware you can buy today but as you might expect Alienware charges for that privilege you're looking at twenty two hundred dollars to even get started with the machine and this configuration I have here is over 3 500 you can easily spend up to four thousand as well if you go with more storage and memory laptops in this class are universally expensive but the high starting price of the X17 R2 is really the kicker here locking out a lot of people even if they don't need the top spec Hardware available today the good news is that you can save some money on the screen although 480 Hertz is a pretty big marketing bullet point it doesn't make a big difference in practice and competitive gamers are just fine saving 200 bucks and buying the 360 Hertz option and if you've already set that money aside higher resolutions are the way to go hey thanks for watching this video if you liked it please leave a thumbs up I'd really appreciate it and get subscribed for more videos from Digital Trends if you want to watch more videos now here to that YouTube thinks you'll enjoy foreign\n"