Alienware has taken on the challenge of manufacturing gaming laptops that are thin, cool, and powerful — a very difficult combination to achieve. They have released their new X15 laptops which are 15.9mm thick (two of its configurations, at least). The X15 base model is $1,999, and that contains an Intel i7-11800H processor – a stunningly powerful processor for a laptop.
That 8-core i7-11800H has a benchmark of 22,135 points on Passmark, and Geekbench multi-core scores ranging from 7,000 to over 9,000 points. This is more than enough for video editing and high FPS gaming with the included NVidia RTX 3060 GPU. Geekbench scores currently use the i3-8100 as a baseline.
The Alienware X15 base model is equipped with a 256GB NVMe SSD, which compliments it nicely due to the impressively high performance of NVMe drives. However, there are several games that could fill that 256GB SSD in the blink of an eye. It’s recommended to upgrade to 512GB or ideally 1TB. Editing very large videos (especially 4K RAW format videos and above) calls for more storage as well.
I have to throw in the fact that making laptops thinner should not be a priority. It is not only unimportant, but it limits the size of the battery the manufacturer can fit in it. This limits battery life severely and its ability to dissipate heat. Impaired heat dissipation can result in a performance penalty (it may have to slow down its clock speed to avoid overheating).
The X15 performance notebook is also equipped with 16GB of 3,200MHZ RAM, which is adequate for most activities. The RAM is not user-upgradeable due to size constrains. However, the SSD can be upgraded via the provided M.2 slots. To top it off the Alienware X15 is also equipped with a 15.6″ FHD display with a high refresh rate of 165 Hz for a smooth gaming experience at high frame rates.
The included 87 Wh battery is larger than average for a laptop. However, high performance laptops like these tend to consume more power as well. For example: The 90 Watt GPU and the 4.6 GHZ i7 CPU. The X15 comes with a sufficiently 240 Watt power adapter.
