One of our readers sent in evidence that their Alienware m15 gaming notebook, which comes with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop discrete GPU, has fewer CUDA cores than it should. The user ran GPU-Z to discover that their GPU has 4,608 CUDA cores, as opposed to the 5,120 that's standard for this SKU. Elsewhere on the NotebookReview forums, an Alienware m15 owner discovered that the latest video BIOS restores the CUDA core count to 5,120. The stock m15 R4 BIOS runs the GPU with 4,608 CUDA cores, whereas the R4 BIOS was shown unlocking all 5,120 CUDA cores. They comment that this could be "VBIOS tomfoolery." It is possible to disable CUDA cores (below the hardwired count) using video BIOS. Perhaps this is an oversight by Dell, which will likely be fixed with BIOS updates.Screenshots courtesy: EepoSaurus on NotebookReview forums

Dell's gaming subsidiary, Alienware, has launched a product designed to reintroduce products of a company that was abandoned in the laptop sector a long time ago. Alienware's last AMD-based gaming laptop made an appearance in 2007, and for 14 years there wasn't an Alienware laptop with an AMD processor inside it. For all those years, the heart of Alienware laptops was promised to Intel, however, that is no longer the case. Today, Alienware has introduced a Ryzen edition of the m15 R5 gaming laptop, powered by... you guessed it, AMD Ryzen 5000 series of mobile processors.

The new Alienware m15 R5 Ryzen Edition laptop is set to bring the balance to the force. Featuring AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 5900HX overclockable processor, the CPU is paired with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card. All of that is crammed inside a 15-inch body that offers QHD 240Hz or FHD 360Hz panels for the best possible gaming experience. For the cherry on top, the laptop offers Cherry MX keyboard switches with per-key RGB lighting. The new Ryzen edition Alienware laptop will be available for purchase in the U.S. with select configurations on April 20 starting at $1793.98. You can check out some pictures of the laptop below.More pictures follow.

Alienware, the gaming division of Dell Technologies, has today announced a lineup refresh, meaning that all of the existing products will get upgraded to versions with the latest hardware. And to start off, the company has equipped their thin and powerful Alienware m15 R4 and m17 R4 laptops with the latest hardware we saw announced just yesterday. The laptops are equipped with 12-phase voltage regulation modules to power the newest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3000 series of mobile GPUs. To pair with a strong GPU, Alienware decided to use 10th generation Intel Comet Lake-H designs. These new laptops can be equipped with up to 4 TB of PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD storage and up to 32 GB of 2933 MHz RAM. For display, options range from FHD LCD to a 4K OLED panel and 360 Hz refresh rate for the m17 R4 model.

Dell's coveted Alienware gaming PC division announced three new product updates. This include the Aurora R11 desktop updated with 10th gen Intel Core processor options; updated Area 51m R2 17.3-inch gaming notebook; and a pair of m-series notebooks. To begin with, Alienware updated its Aurora R11 desktop with processor options that now include the Core i5-10400F, i5-10600KF, i7-10700KF, and i9-10900KF. Memory options now start with DDR4-2933, and go up to DDR4-3200, with size options including 8 GB single-channel, 16 GB dual-channel, 32 GB dual-channel, and 64 GB dual-channel. Storage options begin with 1 TB and 2 TB 7,200 RPM HDD; and go up to M.2 NVMe SSDs ranging between 250 GB to 2 TB, with various options for secondary drives that include SATA SSDs and HDDs. There are also options that combine Optane M10 drives with 7,200 RPM HDDs. Graphics options range all the way from GeForce GTX 1650 to RTX 2080 Super, with all SKUs along the way. 2.5 GbE connectivity is now standard, WLAN options include Intel and Killer 802.11ax + Bluetooth 5 solutions.

Next up, is the Area 51m R2, a 17.3-inch desktop-replacement gaming notebook that comes with desktop-grade hardware. Built into an airy chassis with 17.3-inch screen (options include Full HD and 4K UHD with various refresh-rate options), these notebooks come with CPU options that include Core i7-10700, i7-10700K, i7-10900, and i7-10900K; with memory options ranging between 8 GB single-channel to 32 GB dual-channel, ticking between 2933-3200 MHz. NVMe SSDs are standard issue, beginning with a 256 GB option, with dual-drive and NVMe RAID options being included. Graphics options go from GTX 1660 Ti to RTX 2080 Super (mobile).

In 2002, Dell was dipping its toe into multimedia home entertainment and Alienware launched the industry's first gaming laptop, the Area-51m, a landmark in portable gaming. It was an amazing moment for die-hard gamers to play popular titles like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City anywhere they wanted. Power plus mobility, gamers could have it all.

Nearly two decades later, Dell and Alienware will continue showcasing their relentless commitment to gaming innovations at CES. Kicking things off with the new redesigned Dell G5 15 SE (Special Edition), the latest product in Dell's G Series portfolio for new and price-conscious gamers. You'll also learn about a new software to help monitor in-game performance without having to leave your gameplay and about our recently announced Alienware 25" Gaming Monitor, but first, the Dell G5 15 SE.

There was a time when gaming laptops were as monstrous in performance as in size and design. There was no such thing as "less is more", and manufacturers always seemed interested in surprising us with grotesque designs that were far away from the aesthetics of ultrathin laptops.

But that has changed, and the new generations of discrete graphics cards for laptops has ushered us to a new generation of machines in which thinness is finally a virtue, not a symbol of weakness. The Dell Alienware m15 is the first gaming laptop from this manufacturer that bets on this kind of design, and the result seems to be a well balanced machine that represents a good compromise between power, thinness and weight.