As with on the desktop, the Core i9-9900K entices overclocking with its unlocked config, which Alienware assists with through overclocking tools within its Alienware Command Center software. While not wholly unique to laptops, particularly desktop replacements, the majority of notebooks steer way clear of overclocking. That’s not the case here. What’s really unique, though, is that the new Area-51m is easily upgradeable.
Towards the end of the interview, Azor talks about the Area-51m being easy to service and upgrade. Whereas laptop designs are trending towards sealed form factors that are difficult to crack open and get into, the Area-51m is like a desktop, in that it’s not difficult to dive into the guts of the system (as you can see above). Even the graphics is modular. Alienware also plans on hosting several videos on YouTube, to help users with certain upgrades.
Being a desktop replacement, this baby has a chunky backside, though it’s dressed up with LED lighting. Beyond the aesthetics, what you’re seeing in the image above is the dual exhaust system powered by the blower fans you’ll note above as well. Underneath the laptop are more vents, along with what you see on the side, for a dual intake system as well.
“Our
chassis prioritizes performance with a dual fan design
that pulls in cool air from the bottom and top vents
while exhaling with plenty exhaust area along the rear
and side vents optimizing cooling for the core
components,” Alienware explains.
The cooling system is also aided by high voltage driving fans, load balancing heat pipes, and copper fin stacks. Short and sweet, Alienware engineered a cooling system that should be able to handle the high-end hardware and overclocking.
The LED keyboard is fairly standard for a gaming laptop with a full numpad and shaped key caps. However, what’s neat is the stealthy Tobii Eye Tracking, a feature that is not immediately obvious. It’s there, though, and in our testing so far, it works amazingly well. The bubble on the screen is tracking HotHardware’s Editor-in-Chief Dave Altavilla’s eyes, and that is actually his skull, in Tobii rendered form. Quite frankly, he’s never looked better!
There is a price to pay for all of this power in a laptop form factor. As you can see above, there are two power bricks, one 330 watt and one 180 watt. Both are needed to unleash the laptop’s full power, though if you want to go lighter on the road, you can get by with just the 330 watt brick.
Benchmarks
The Cinebench R15 scores are in line with what we would expect from the hardware, which tells us that the cooling system is working as it should and this machine performs very much like a full-sized desktop PC.
Regardless, stay tuned as we will have a full evaluation posted soon, so stay tuned!
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