Alienware Unveils First 480Hz Display Laptops

The struggle to offer the maximum refresh rate in a laptop gaming has a new winner, however short-lived his reign will undoubtedly be. Alienware has announced the availability of new 17.3-inch 480Hz displays on two of its gaming laptops, integrating these impressive panels into the updated Alienware m17 R5 and x17 R2, which will receive them as part of their configuration options.

Starting with the Alienware m17 R5, we are faced with the most powerful AMD-based laptop from the Dell subsidiary. It is equipped with Ryzen 6000 processors (Ryzen 7 6800H or Ryzen 9 6900HX) and dedicated Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards (or Nvidia 3000 Series), peaking in a new 12 GB RX 6850M XT with which AMD hopes to do more than appear against Nvidia, which for years has been at ease in this particular segment. RAM is between 12 and 64 GB, and there is up to 4 TB of storage in SSD format.

Regarding the Alienware x17 R2, we are talking about a 12th generation Intel Core i7 or i9 with RTX 3000 Series graphics, the most advanced option being an RTX 3080 Ti GPU with 16 GB of video memory. RAM is set to the same values ​​as its AMD hardware sibling and so is storage, with options ranging from 512GB to 4TB in RAID 0 using SSD drives.

Regardless of the model chosen, the new 17-inch 480 Hz screen has Full HD resolution and a response time of 3 ms. It is compatible with both FreeSync Premium and G-Sync, and supports Low Frame Rate Compensation (LFC). It’s not a FreeSync Premium Pro or G-Sync Ultimate panel, so it can’t render HDR, but this is normal when it comes to laptop displays.

The company already has enabled in Spain its new screen in the configuration options of the Alienware m17, although the price is logically high. The PVP is 2,298 euros with the most basic hardware available, while the cheapest X17 at 480 Hz does not fall below 2,648 euros.