Alienware 17 R3

  The Alienware 17 R3 is really a good laptop that you can use for gaming and graphics. This super machine can also be used for business. The model mentioned here comes with powerful specifications and is priced at $2750. The entry level is worth $1500. It’s true that other notebooks have more powerful desktop level GPUs that are built in, but when you attach the Alienware 17 R3 to it’s optional graphics amp priced at $980 that comes with Nvidia 980Ti GPU, the gaming performance will bring you to a higher level performance. GPU ( Graphics Processing Unit ) is a programmable logic chip processor  that specializes in display functions. This provides images, animations and video for computer’s screen. You can find GPU’s in plug-in cards, in a chipset on the motherboard or in the same chip as the CPU. These are the full configurations for this particular model. It comes with a 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7-6820HK processor and has a Windows 10 Operating System. It has a Hard Drive Size of 16 GB and a Secondary Hard Drive of 1TB. The primary Hard Drive Type is SSD and the secondary Drive Type is an HDD. The secondary Hard Drive Speed is 7,200. It’s Display Size is 17.3 inches. The Resolution is 3840 x 2160. It uses an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M with 8 GB GDDR5. The video memory is 8 GB. It has an 802.11ac WI-FI. The model of the WI-FI is the Killer 1535 802.11ac 2x2 WI-FI.  Installed in this laptop is a Bluetooth 4.1. The touchpad size is 3.75x2.75. It has ports for a headphone, Thunderbolt 3, Ethernet, HDMI 2.0 and 4 USB ports. It has one card slot for the SD memory reader. The size is 16.93x11.49x1.35 inches and weighs 8.33 pounds.

  

   The body of the Alienware 17 R3  has not changed it’s style for some time. It did a bit of change for the 2016 model.  It still has a very smooth chassis. A lustrous black deck gives you a variation to the gray exterior panels and the added lights that you can see under the keyboard. There are lights at the back side of the Alienware logo underneath the display. Everything looks so sturdy and that is why it weighs 8.33 pounds. When it comes to Display this Alienware laptop is a sure winner. The Benchmark scores proves this. For the Brightness test ,it registered 318 nits.  It was unbeatable in it’s class. For color gamut sRGB  it scored 173.5 percent, it was unsurpassed in it’s class and for the DELTA – E test ( color accuracy this gaming notebooks had a score of 0.83. This is very strong. Although it has 8GB of vRAM, the Alienware 17 R3 Nvidia 980M GPU is not as powerful as  the non-mobile desktop GPU that some other gaming laptops have. Still, the Alienware 17 R3 is lower in price and gives you a strong performance. On the 3DMarks’s Fire Strike Ultra graphics test it raked in a score 2,270 which is good enough.

   Overall the performance of the Alienware 17 R3 with the configuration said above can do any kind of work and this includes surfing, classifying spreadsheets plus multitasking. On the Geekbench 3 test, ( it measures the overall system’s performance ), it scored 13,906 which is at par with most of it’s competitors. The storage speed of the Alienware 17 R3 i7’s 512GB SSD registered a transfer rate of 508.96 MBps. This score is just average. In the Spreadsheet Macro test it came up with a score of 3.53 and it is above average.  The Alienware 17 R3 gives you a real pleasant gaming and typing experience. The  3.8 2.8 inch touchpad is spacious and nice to use. When you touch it, it lights up.  It is so smooth and the surface has a nice feeling. The audio needs a bit of improvement, I think it could sound better. It needs to be a bit louder and it needs more bass. The Alienware 17 R3 gets hot, so never use it on your lap. It makes good use of it’s large framework and it is because of the 3 USB 3.0 ports, HDMI 2.0, SD card reader, Etherrnet, discrete headphone and microphone jack plus a new USB-C port with thunderbolt 3. Having this configurations means that you can transfer several 4k displays with a single port or even transport data to and from an external storage device at up to 40 Gbps. The Alienware 17 R3 comes with a 2 megapixel camera that has dual microphones so that the voice would be clear when you are chatting and don’t have a headset. It takes good picture images. The battery life will last for 6 hours and so many minutes. The Base model that uses a Corei7- 6700HQ Nvidia 970M GPU, 8GB of RAM and 1 HDD cost $1500. The 2^nd model that uses a Core i7- 6700HQ NVidia 980M GPU, 16GB of RAM and a 128 GB SSD will cost $1950. The 3^rd model mentioned here comes with a Core i7 6820HK Nvidia 980M GPU 16 GB and 512 GB SSD, 1TB HDD will cost $2750. As for me the 2^nd model is good enough and you will be satisfied working with it. Gaming will be quite an experience.