Hardware and Pricing Overview

The Alienware xv is a highly-configurable organization with prices ranging from $1,350 to $two,700, so there'south bound to exist a configuration that will suit your budget and performance needs. The total list of options available on Dell'south website, and pricing does change slightly on a frequent basis. For case, the prices of some models were cheaper when I was writing this review last calendar week, and some models were more than expensive.

While the top finish Alienware 15 models are very expensive, mostly due to SSD pricing, y'all can go a system that's much better than the base model past simply spending a few hundred dollars. With the GTX 1060 variant, information technology'due south well worth spending an extra $150 to net yourself a faster Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor, 16 GB of RAM, and an boosted 1 TB HDD. All three of these purchases will brand a significant difference to the gaming experience for but an 11% increment in price.

Of the other options, moving to 32 GB of RAM volition accept a minimal issue on gaming performance, however it could be considered if you plan on using the Alienware 15 for professional workloads. I would suggest 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 but $50 – could be worth it if you'll use this laptop on the go.

Opting for the GTX 1070 is a moderately expensive decision: it will cost y'all $225 actress over the GTX 1060 with the same CPU. The good news is that this is a xv percent price hike, while you lot can expect to attain 40-50 percent ameliorate GPU operation. You'll too get 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 lot should opt to beginning with the pre-configured GTX 1070 option at this price betoken. This model comes with a faster Core i7-6820HK processor for just $100 extra, which is a small price to pay.

If you'd rather not pay for RAM or storage upgrades, the Alienware xv is easily upgradeable. Remove seven screws from the base, and you lot'll get piece of cake access to 2 DIMM slots, a 2.five-inch hard bulldoze bay, and two Thousand.two 2280 slots for SSDs. I of the M.2 2280 slots was left free on my review unit, then there's already room to add together in some other SSD at a later date. On top of this, there is a free G.2 2242 slot that can be used for an boosted SSD.

As I mentioned earlier, the review unit I have with me is configured as follows: an Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor, 16GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, and a 256GB SSB combined with a 1TB hard drive. This model is available for $1,549.99. Information technology should exist noted that my unit also has a 1080p 120Hz K-Sync display, which is but available on GTX 1070 Alienware 15 models in Northward America.

The Intel Core i7-6700HQ that powers nearly Alienware 15 systems is typical for a gaming laptop. The i7-6700HQ is a 4-core, 8-thread processor clocked at 2.6 GHz, with Turbo boost taking a unmarried core as loftier every bit three.5 GHz. This 14nm CPU packs half-dozen MB of L3 cache, a 45W TDP, and an integrated GPU that is largely unused in a gaming laptop.

The GeForce GTX 1060 establish in this laptop uses the same core configuration as the desktop equivalent carte du jour, but uses slightly lower clock speeds. We'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 bill of fare at heave. The GTX 1060 in notebooks uses the same memory system equally on desktop cards: 6 GB of GDDR5 clocked at 8000 MHz on a 192-bit but providing 192 GB/south of bandwidth.