Hardware and Pricing Overview

The Alienware 15 is a highly-configurable system with prices ranging from $1,350 to $two,700, so in that location's jump to be a configuration that volition suit your budget and performance needs. The total list of options available on Dell'due south website, and pricing does change slightly on a frequent ground. For example, the prices of some models were cheaper when I was writing this review last week, and some models were more expensive.

While the top end Alienware 15 models are very expensive, mostly due to SSD pricing, you tin can get a system that's much better than the base model by merely spending a few hundred dollars. With the GTX 1060 variant, it's well worth spending an extra $150 to net yourself a faster Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor, 16 GB of RAM, and an additional 1 TB HDD. All three of these purchases will brand a significant difference to the gaming experience for just an 11% increment in price.

Of the other options, moving to 32 GB of RAM volition have a minimal effect on gaming operation, however it could exist considered if you lot plan on using the Alienware xv for professional person workloads. I would advise against purchasing the 4K brandish for an extra $200 in the GTX 1060 model because the GPU actually isn't powerful enough for 4K gaming. The battery upgrade – 46% larger for just $fifty – could be worth information technology if y'all'll utilise this laptop on the get.

Opting for the GTX 1070 is a moderately expensive decision: information technology will price you $225 extra over the GTX 1060 with the same CPU. The good news is that this is a xv percent price hike, while yous can expect to achieve forty-l percentage better GPU performance. You'll as well go a larger battery thrown in with this upgrade, adding to the value proposition.

If you're planning to spend more than $2,150 on an Alienware 15 you should opt to start with the pre-configured GTX 1070 option at this price point. This model comes with a faster Cadre i7-6820HK processor for merely $100 extra, which is a small price to pay.

If you'd rather non pay for RAM or storage upgrades, the Alienware 15 is hands upgradeable. Remove seven screws from the base, and you'll get easy access to two DIMM slots, a two.v-inch hard drive bay, and ii M.2 2280 slots for SSDs. One of the M.2 2280 slots was left free on my review unit, so in that location'due south already room to add together in another SSD at a later date. On top of this, at that place is a free K.2 2242 slot that can be used for an additional SSD.

Equally I mentioned earlier, the review unit of measurement I have with me is configured every bit follows: an Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor, 16GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, and a 256GB SSB combined with a 1TB hard bulldoze. This model is available for $1,549.99. It should be noted that my unit also has a 1080p 120Hz Thou-Sync display, which is merely bachelor on GTX 1070 Alienware xv models in N America.

The Intel Core i7-6700HQ that powers most Alienware fifteen systems is typical for a gaming laptop. The i7-6700HQ is a 4-core, 8-thread processor clocked at two.6 GHz, with Turbo boost taking a single core as high every bit 3.5 GHz. This 14nm CPU packs 6 MB of L3 enshroud, a 45W TDP, and an integrated GPU that is largely unused in a gaming laptop.

The GeForce GTX 1060 found in this laptop uses the same core configuration as the desktop equivalent menu, but uses slightly lower clock speeds. Nosotros're looking at a 16nm Pascal GP106 GPU with 1280 CUDA cores, 80 texture units, 48 ROPs and an 85W TDP. The GPU is clocked at 1404 MHz and has a boost clock of 1670 MHz, which is 38 MHz lower than the desktop carte at heave. The GTX 1060 in notebooks uses the same memory system as on desktop cards: vi GB of GDDR5 clocked at 8000 MHz on a 192-scrap but providing 192 GB/s of bandwidth.