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.

As the gaming industry and community are descending upon Los Angeles, Alienware and Dell Gaming will be showing up at E3 in a big way with exciting gaming hardware and partnership news and immersive experiences. Among its new products to complete the PC, gaming ecosystem is the blissful sounding new Alienware Wireless Gaming Headset, a 2nd generation, fast responsive Alienware Elite Gaming Mouse and the blazing-hot, high performance Windows 10 Inspiron Gaming Desktop with AMD processors and graphics cards.

Dell and Alienware are committed to giving esports players a competitive advantage with the best hardware. The Detroit Renegades, the esports team owned and operated by Utah Jazz player Jonas Jerebko, is the latest team to select Alienware as their exclusive technology partner. Alienware, in partnership with Tobii and Team Liquid, is also helping gamers take their skills to the next level with Alienware Academy, an esport skill-building online platform. Fans of Alienware Arena can now access the community from their phone with a new Alienware Arena app with access to play-to-win opportunities and rewards.

We've been to many editions of Computex, and it would often be Lian Li with the year's most outrageously imaginative case design. Over the past few years, In Win picked up that mission, and succeeded even this year, with the Z-Frame. This case is a work of art, and anyone taking it to their local BYO eSports event is bound to get the most attention, or maybe even make it to the local daily's picture. Its design is more alien than Alienware ever came up with - twisted blocks of cast aluminium converging at the base, with an open-air E-ATX motherboard tray inside, and mounts for an ATX PSU, and two each of 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch drives.

The Z-Frame can take in E-ATX (or smaller) motherboards, graphics cards up to 34 cm in length, and CPU coolers up to 17 cm in height, and has 8 expansion slots. Like all "Frame" cases from In Win, the Z-Frame is open-air, and doesn't have too many fan mounts, but you get room for three 120 mm along the top panel, letting you mount a 360 mm x 120 mm radiator. Front-panel connectivity includes type-C USB 3.1, in addition to type-A USB 3.0, and HDA jacks. The Z-Frame comes in two color options, chrome-silver, and glossy black, both of which are made of the highest density cast aluminium. The case weighs a staggering 40 kg, not counting what you install inside it. In Win will do a limited production run for this case, and it could be yours for a little over USD $10,000.

Today, Alienware and Dell are launching six new Windows 10 gaming laptops based on the new 8th Gen Intel Core high performance processors, with significant enhancements over prior generations. Continuing Dell's commitment to provide the ultimate gaming experience for everyone, Dell is also debuting Dell G Series, revitalizing the Dell Gaming portfolio. This suite of PCs, starting at $749, is designed and engineered for the gamer who prioritizes performance and excellent gameplay.

Further expanding its more than a decade long legacy in esports, Alienware is forging new partnerships with the NBA 2K League, Miami HEAT and Misfits Gaming, and taking its partnership with Team Liquid into unchartered territory for North American esports. These organizations and teams have turned to Alienware for a competitive advantage.

At the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Dell is unveiling a suite of elegant new products and software to address the myriad ways people play and work. In addition to revealing some of the world's most beautiful devices, Dell will highlight incredible hidden innovations within these products designed to improve performance, functionality and the overall user experience.

"At Dell, innovation never sleeps. We're passionate about creating technology that expands the boundaries of what's possible," explains Sam Burd, president, Client Solutions Group, Dell. "With Dell, the incredible product design you see on the outside makes for gorgeous machines, but one of our most striking advantages comes from the innovation within. Beauty and brawn lurk beneath those beautiful exteriors, revolutionizing and redefining personal computing, and giving people experiences they want - and some they've never dreamed possible."

Alienware today unveiled their latest gaming monitor, the AW3418HW. After you've parsed that seemingly unreadable name/product number, you should know that this monitor features a 38090R curved WFHD (2560x1080) display, with full NVIDIA G-SYNC support. Adding to its gaming chops, G-SYNC enables extra fluidity on the monitor's 144 Hz (stock, overclockable up to at least 160 Hz). The monitor has a pretty aggressive, "gaming" design, which definitely won't agree with all potential customers. However, one thing where the Alienware AW3418HW really is looking towards being a jack of all trades is its connectivity department: 1x Line-out port; 1x USB port with Power Charging; 1x Headphone jack; 1x USB 3.0 port; 1x USB upstream port; 2x USB 3.0 ports; 1x HDMI port; and 1x DisplayPort. Now breathe with me after all those connectivity options. That's it.

Linksys at its exhibition alongside the 2018 CES, showed off its latest gaming-grade Wi-Fi router, the WRT32XB. The router comes in two main "variants," one with co-branding from Alienware, Razer, GIGABYTE, and MSI; while another with exclusive Xbox One co-branding, named WRT32XB. Both variants are based on Rivet Networks Killer WLAN processors, and firmware optimization. The WRT32XB comes with a little more firmware fine-tuning that gives your Xbox One console a slight edge in pings and bandwidth prioritization. The router can sense that an Xbox One is seeking traffic (you're playing on it), and automatically run QoS rules that give it priority. The router comes with 802.11AC (2x2 dual-MIMO), with gigabit Ethernet WAN ports, and USB 3.0 ports for mass-storage sharing. When it comes out this February, it will be priced at the same USD $299.99 price as the WRT32X.

Alienware has introduced a pair of ultra-large monitors to their lineup at IFA, which boast of Curved, ultrawide displays with a 34" diagonal. Refresh rates are above 100 Hz - especially after these have been overclocked - and both feature NVIDIA's G-Sync tech alongside Alienware's AlienFX lighting and cable management features.

While the AW3418DW will be Alienware's flagship, packing a 3440x1440 resolution on its 4 ms GtG IPS panel, the AW3418HW is much more of a budget option, offering a much more common 2560x1080 IPS, G-Sync panel with the same 4 ms GtG, a 160 Hz refresh rate (when overclocked), G-SYNC, and a less enveloping 3900R curvature. Both displays offer the same 1000:1 contrast ratio, and while we don't know the brightness rating of the AW3418HW (2560x1080) panel, the flagship AW3418DW only offers 300 nits of brightness, effectively leaving HDR out of the picture. Pricing on these is what seems to be a little off, if you were to ask this particular editor. The AW3418DW is an interesting panel (who needs 144 Hz or higher refresh rates at this resolution) but at this point, giving up $1,499 for a non-HDR panel seems wrong. There are other options out there with the same or equivalent specifications at a much lower price tag. And the $1,199 Alienware is asking for their 34", 2650x1080 W3418HW also seems too excessive. But your mileage may, of course, vary. The flagship AW3418DW is available now, while the AW3418HW should be available around the holiday season. I've put a useful guide for screen curvatures below, if you need a reminder of how curvature ratings work.

Adding to Alienware's staple of custom-built PCs and their exclusivity deal with AMD to sell pre-built machines with Ryzen Threadripper 16-core CPUs, the company has just announced that their Area 51 desktop solution will now also be available with Intel's latest X299 HEDT platform. Intel Core X-series processors can be configured with a Core i7-7800X, i7-7820X, or i9-7900X processor, and liquid cooling comes standard with the system for these high-performance CPUs. Alienware even ships the Area 51 with an unlocked BIOS so that users can still tap all of the potential inside their new gaming rig.

Kingston's HyperX 2933 MHz memory comes standard (up to 64 GB in 4x 16 GB configuration), and the graphics processing can be configured with either AMD (RX 560, 570, and 580) or NVIDIA cards (GTX 1050 Ti, GTX 1060 (6GB), GTX 1070, GTX 1080 or GTX 1080 Ti.) The absence of AMD's Vega graphics cards should come as a surprise for red-team fans. There are also dual and triple-GPU configurations available, though with the slow, choking death of multi-GPU support, that might not be the best inroad for a high performance computer. A 2 TB HDD takes care of storage, and SSD goodness can come in 256, 512 GB, or 1 TB in the M.2 form-factor. There's Intel Optane support (in 16 GB or 32 GB), and the power supply can range from an 850 W unit up to a 1500 W one. There is a total of 8x USB 3.0 ports (2x front, 6x rear) and 2x USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports (1x Type-A, 1x Type-C). Dual gigabit LAN is provided by a Qualcomm Killer E2500 NIC, while wireless connectivity is available in the form of Killer 1535 or Dell 1820 802.11ac WiFi.

LinusTechTips has received an Alienware Area 51, the boutique system which Alienware has developed through its exclusive partnership with AMD for the 16-core, 32-thread Threadripper CPUs.

The system was tested using a proprietary Dell/Alienware motherboard, as well as 32 GB (4x 8 GB) of 2666 MHz DDR4 RAM. Graphics were handled by a Founders Edition GTX 1080 Ti, and storage was etched on a SanDisk A400 256 GB NVME drive (Up to 2050/700 MB/s Sequential Read/Write). The nature of the benchmarked systems, with their myriad of hardware parts, means that the benchmarks are not 100% representative of CPU performance deltas between the tested processors; however, they do put out some interesting numbers. The other HEDT system to be tested was an Intel-based X299 system with a stock Intel Core i9-7900X (10 cores, 20 threads) on an ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe, 4x 8 GB of 3200 MHz DDR4 memory, the same GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition, and a 512 GB Samsung 950 Pro NVME SSD.

AMD today officially announced some more details on its brain-child and market-stormer Ryzen Threadripper HEDT line of CPUs. Ryzen is a true new stand-alone architecture for AMD, the result of more than four years of careful planning and silicon design towards reaching a truly scalable, highly-flexible, non-glued together MCM design that could power all experiences and workloads through a single architecture design. The Ryzen architecture is already powering desktops with Ryzen 3, 5 and 7 desktop CPUs; has extended to server-side deployments through its EPYC line-up and will begin shipping for professionals with Ryzen PRO starting in Q3 2017. Also announced was that it will find its way to mobile APUs around Q4, paired with the new Vega graphics microarchitecture; and will even power professional-geared mobile solutions in 1H18. But more immediately, it's coming to the HEDT market. And AMD is putting that fight in the hands of Threadripper.

AMD pits its HEDT line-up to developers, researchers, prosumers, creators, and even multi-tasking gamers. Increased compute capabilities with up to 16 cores and 32 threads; larger memory footprint, increased I/O and storage, and support for many more GPUs and PCIe lanes ensure a stable, impressive platform for today's large data sets and tomorrow's exponentially more resource-intensive workloads. AMD will execute this with a three-pronged approach. There will be three processor models on offer for their HEDT platform. The $999 TR 1950X and $799 TR 1920X are known quantities already, with their respective 16 cores (32 threads) and 12 cores (24 threads). The new addition, however, comes in the form of the $549 TR 1900X, which offers not only 8 cores (16 threads) and 3.8 GHz base, 4.0 GHz boost clocks, but a clear upgrade path within AMD's new platform. Say what you will about AMD's offerings and execution, one thing is for sure: Zen and all the silicon it powers have prompted a reshuffle of the CPU landscape as we hadn't seen in years. Coincidence? AMD doesn't think so.

Summer is getting known more by the amount of game sales than by days spending creating a sunny side up on your skin. After GOG's Summer Sale and Steam's Summer Sale (which is still going strong until July 5th, to the woe of many households), Microsoft has just announced the "Ultimate Game Sale", which is striving to be the game sale to end all others.

Microsoft's sale isn't restricted to a single marketplace, encompassing all platforms where Microsoft does gaming business: Windows Store, Xbox Store, and Windows store. This sale also encompasses hardware, so if you're looking for some, this might be your chance. You'll have to wait for June 30th to get a look at the deals (the sale starts on June 30th and goes on through until July 10th), but you should temper expectations. Microsoft says games on this sale will be available for up to 50% off, which while welcome, isn't that much of a steep discount as it is. If that makes you twitch your face in discontent, you might want to take a selfie, so you can participate on Microsoft's "Ultimate Game Face Sweepstakes".

Alienware has inked an exclusivity deal with AMD which makes it the only pre-built gaming PC vendor to sell desktops with 16-core Ryzen Threadripper processors, until the end of 2017. The company's upcoming Area 51 desktops will feature AMD's flagship 16-core/32-thread processors, combined with quad-channel memory, and the fastest graphics card options money can buy. This does not affect DIY consumers. You will still be able to buy retail PIB (processor in a box) packages of the 16-core Threadripper chips from your friendly neighborhood PC hardware store. Alienware will, however, make its next Area 51 release special to make the most out of this exclusivity deal.

Alienware and Dell head into this year's E3 with a triad of new PC gaming systems and components - high-end Alienware gaming desktops with new multi-core processor options, a full range of performance gaming monitors and peripherals with Alienware's signature design and a new Dell Inspiron Gaming Desktop bringing VR to all. Alienware and Dell continue to demonstrate why, together, they have become a leading PC gaming brand worldwide with gaming solutions for players of all levels and budgets.

Driven by a fierce commitment to deliver what PC gamers want in gaming products and community, Alienware and Dell continues to make solid investments in PC gaming, virtual reality and esports through ever-expanding offerings and partnership innovation. This has stoked an incredible 17 consecutive quarters of PC growth*, continuously innovating with PC performance and designs, both in the realm of gaming, VR and beyond.

Alienware, a leading pioneer in specialty high-performance PC gaming systems, today unveiled the Alienware 17 gaming notebook with integrated eye tracking hardware and software from Tobii. The device is the world's first notebook to capitalize on eye tracking's unique ability to identify and anticipate a user's actions based on their presence and attention. Armed with this new intelligence, the Alienware 17 provides greater convenience, enhanced security, optimized power management and even insight into a gamer's style and technique.

"Alienware, never shy to innovation or groundbreaking design, understands the value of eye tracking as it relates to the interaction between gamer and machine," said Oscar Werner, president of Tobii Tech. "With a greater understanding of its user and a better idea of their intentions, the Tobii solution in the Alienware 17 can bring gamers new experiences and insights unlike any other seen in gaming PC."

AMD is working on a standardized external graphics solution for notebooks. This solution will allow people with ultra-thin notebooks to enjoy the mobility served up by frugal, mainstream hardware; as well as high-end gaming, with the graphics card plugged in at home. It also probably gives AMD greater control over design and cooling solutions. Unlike a mobile GPU that sits inside your notebook, and makes it bulky due to additional cooling and power requirements, an external graphics card sits on your desk, sipping on wall socket power.

AMD's external graphics solution isn't necessarily an AMD-branded piece of hardware, but rather an open specification for notebook vendors to follow. AMD will merely provide the GPUs and software ecosystem that makes the solution truly universal and plug-n-play, with "standardized connectors, cables, drivers, and OS support." Such a graphics card will interface with just any notebook with a high-speed interface (eg: Thunderbolt). Its drivers will make it crunch your games, while sending back output to your notebook's display, over the same connection. This gives you the mobility of an ultra-thin notebook. You should also be able to plug this into your work's boring Dell desktop, or any SFF ITX box. Pictured below is a Razer Core graphics solution embedding a Radeon R9 Nano. Other examples include MSI Gaming Dock and Alienware Graphics Amplifier.

AMD today announced a collaboration with Oculus and Dell to equip Oculus Ready PCs with AMD Radeon GPUs, starting at $999 USD. The powerful PCs are designed to deliver stunning gaming performance and enable spectacular VR experiences for consumers around the world by leveraging AMD VR leadership with LiquidVR and Graphics Core Next architecture.

"It's an exciting time to be at the heart of all things Virtual Reality," said Roy Taylor, corporate vice president, Alliances and Content, AMD. "I'm confident that with Dell and Alienware, we can enable a wide audience of PC users with extraordinary VR capabilities powered by AMD Radeon GPUs."

Valve announces a number of product and technologies at this week's Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. "We continue to see very strong growth in PC Gaming, with Steam growing 50% in the last 12 months," said Gabe Newell, Valve's president. "With these announcements we hope that we are helping build on that momentum."

Steam Machines, Windows PCs, Macs, and Linux PCs will be able to take advantage of a new product announced at GDC called Steam Link. Designed to extend your Steam experience to any room in the house, Steam Link allows you to stream all your Steam content from any PC or Steam Machine on the same home network. Supporting 1080p at 60Hz with low latency, Steam Link will be available this November for $49.99, and available with a Steam Controller for an additional $49.99 in the US (worldwide pricing to be released closer to launch).

2015 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) - AMD and its technology partners are ready to wow attendees of the 2015 International CES with a wide range of new products and technology demonstrations that showcase AMD's view of the future of computing, and reinforce the company's surround computing leadership. The company will showcase an array of innovations powered by the latest AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), Radeon Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) technologies, and embedded designs that push the boundaries of modern computing.

"AMD is contributing to the excitement of CES 2015 with new graphics and computing technology that powers breakthrough consumer and commercial computing experiences of today and tomorrow," said John Byrne, senior vice president and general manager, Computing and Graphics business group, AMD. "This year, we continue to see inspiring developments in virtual reality, Ultra high Definition 4K resolution computing and beyond, computing form factor and intuitive user interface innovation. AMD is thrilled to power the best of these with new generations of our smart, innovative, and efficient technology."

Alienware, a leader in high-performance gaming systems, is announcing details and availability for the legendary return of the Alienware Area-51 gaming desktop and the portable powerhouse Alienware 13 gaming laptop. Alienware also revealed the innovative Alienware Graphics Amplifier, giving gamers desktop graphics performance at home and high-performance mobile gaming with the Alienware 13. A truly no compromises approach to gaming.

When combining the new Alienware 13 and Graphics Amplifier, gamers no longer need to choose between a portable performer for fragging on the go or the fantastic FPS of a gaming desktop. The Alienware Graphics Amplifier boosts the already potent gaming performance of the Alienware 13, providing desktop graphics quality gaming at home while continuing to offer the same high-performing experience that road warriors demand.

Alienware, the leader in high-powered gaming systems, is announcing the return of the legendary Alienware Area-51 performance gaming desktop, packing the newest technologies from Intel, NVIDIA and AMD, to give gamers high frame rate fragging at any resolution. The Area-51 is Alienware's newest flagship desktop gaming system engineered to perform at beyond Ultra HD resolutions and multi-monitor setups, while meeting the requirements of the most demanding gamers on the planet.

A Legacy of Excellence
The Area-51 pays homage to the storied legacy of gaming excellence started by Alienware nearly two decades ago. Fueled by the love of gaming, the original Alienware Area-51 set the industry standard for performance gaming systems. Maximizing performance first and foremost, the Area-51 delivered the best technologies to gamers who demanded only the best. Alienware's newest flagship performance gaming system features a new revolutionary chassis design and packs the latest and greatest hardware to give gamers the ultimate gaming experiences.

Alienware, a leader in high-performance gaming systems, has announced the pre-order availability of the Alienware Alpha gaming console. Starting August 12, 2014, gamers will have the opportunity to ensure they are among the first to own the Alienware Alpha. Fans that are eager to get their hands on the Alienware Alpha gaming console will be able to secure their system from select retailers like Amazon and Walmart, or direct from Dell, with configurations starting at $549.

Gamers can now secure their gateway to the entire Steam library on a system that was engineered to provide an immersive PC gaming experience, custom-tailored for the living room. The Alienware Alpha merges the open ecosystem and flexibility of PC gaming with the ease-of-use and intuitive interface of consoles. This enables gamers to choose what and how they want to play, whether it's a competitive online FPS with the bundled Microsoft Xbox 360 wireless controller for Windows, or having their friends bring their controllers of choice for a fragfest in the newest indie side scroller.

This November Dell is set to let loose a new Alienware-branded gaming machine, a thin and light notebook dubbed Alienware 13. As its name suggests, the upcoming laptop packs a 13-inch display which, depending on configuration, can have a native resolution of (only) 1366 x 768, 1920 x 1080, or 2560 x 1440 pixels.

The Alienware 13 will also feature an ultra-low voltage Intel processor, a GeForce GTX 860M graphics card, up to 16 GB of RAM, up to two SSDs (HDD options will also be available), Qualcomm Killer 802.11ac WiFi, a TACTX keyboard, and Klipsch audio. No word on pricing yet but since it's Alienware, one might want to start saving already.

Dell's Alienware division has previously confirmed working on a Steam Machine and now the fruits of that work have entered the spotlight at E3. Alienware Alpha is a Steam Machine-like Mini PC that is designed for living room gaming without actually utilizing Valve's Steam OS or its (delayed) Steam Controller.

Alpha comes with Windows 8.1 pre-installed and makes use of a Console-mode UI allowing users easy access to Steam Big Picture. The system will be bundled with an Xbox 360 controller and will have a base price tag of $549. For that amount you get an Intel Core i3 (Haswell) processor, 4 GB of DDR3-1600 memory, a 2 GB NVIDIA Maxwell-based graphics card (GTX 750 Ti maybe?), and a 500 GB hard drive. Higher-priced configurations include Core i5/i7 processors, 8 GB of RAM, and 1/2 TB HDDs.

Alienware, a pioneer in specialty high-performance PC gaming systems, is once again driving innovation in PC gaming. Alienware and Valve, the developers of the world's largest online gaming platform and the creators of the Half-Life franchise, have been collaborating on designing the first dedicated Alienware Steam Machine gaming console.

Alienware designed its upcoming Steam Machine to deliver the benefits of PC gaming in an incredibly small footprint, providing the best balance between size, performance and aesthetics for the living room gaming experience. Its sleek design is both distinctively Alienware yet unobtrusive in a media cabinet. The Alienware Steam Machine echoes the build quality and advanced engineering that are the hallmarks of the brand including a custom-built chassis to provide optimal thermal and acoustic management for a gaming console destined for the living room.