News

First gaming laptops with Intel Alder Lake processors

Jan 26, 2022 - 12:28

Some of the first gaming laptops with Intel’s 12th generation Alder Lake processor and the latest NVIDIA RTX graphics are available for order. Several of these laptops have been announced at this year’s CES, and orders open today.

One of the companies launching their laptops today is Dell’s Alienware brand, which is releasing Alienware x15 R2 and Alienware x17 R2. They are available in 15.6-inch and 17.3-inch variants. Both are powered by an Intel Core i9-12900H processor with 14 cores (6P + 8E) and 20 threads, with P cores being boosted up to 5GHz. They also come with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU, which has 16GB of GDDR6 memory and is significantly more powerful than the standard RTX 3080.

All this is cooled by Alienware’s custom thermal interface, which the company calls Element 31. This solution offers improved heat transfer and allows laptops to be as thin as they are, despite their specifications.

The Alienware x15 R2 is available with up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM at 5200MHz and up to 2TB of PCIe SSD memory. It is also available with a Full HD (1920 x 1080) panel at 360 Hz or Quad HD (2560 x 1440) at 240 Hz. More models may be available later, and for now, these are available for as little as $ 2,199.99.

Alienware x17, will have 32GB of DDR5 RAM though at 4800MHz and with an additional 2TB of SSD memory. Currently, only Full HD 360Hz screen options are available, but more options should appear in the future. Its prices start from 2,299.99 USD.

Razer’s latest Blade 15 and Blade 17 gaming laptops, also powered by Intel Alder Lake processors and the latest NVIDIA GPUs, are also available for pre-sale as of today. Both have pretty much the same specifications: up to Intel Core i9-12900H processors, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics, 16GB of RAM (upgradeable) and 1TB of storage (also upgradeable). However, GPUs are different, as on the Blade 15 they can only reach 105W of power, while on the Blade 17 they go up to 130W.

Apart from the size, most of the screen options are also the same: Full HD 360Hz, Quad HD 240Hz or Ultra HD 144Hz. The Razer Blade 17 has an additional option, which is a more affordable Quad HD panel at 165Hz that goes along with the weaker GeForce RTX 3060 GPU. It is also worth noting that the Ultra HD panel option on the Razer Blade 17 is not yet available for pre-sale, although it is available on the Blade 15.