The Alienware x17 R1 is the gaming brand’s thinnest 17-inch notebook, and like every major Alienware product, it has the power and performance to match your maximum gaming needs, so coincidentally, I received this test unit just when I started a multi-hour/multi day grind on Star Citizen.
Star Citizen is an MMORPG famous (or notorious) for a number of things – developed by Chris Roberts, the creator of the legendary Wing Commander series from the 1990s, Star Citizen broke Kickstarter funding records when it was announced in 2012, and has been in development since, clocking up $400 million in development funding by the end of 2021.
Yes, ten years of game development and it’s still not released to the public, though players like me can buy into the open Alpha, where you experience an immersive star system where you own a starship an can travel between four planets, multiple moons and choose which ‘gameloop’ interest you – starting out with simple courier missions, then evolving your play to asteroid mining, mercenary missions, medical rescue, bounty hunting and cargo freighting, with salvage, NPC transport missions and capital ship combat in the future. The game is so immersive and resource intensive that its servers can each host a maximum of 40 players individually, players using HDD drives suffer massive loading lags, and 16GB RAM is considered marginal.
So this a perfect game to try out the big Alienware x17 R1, especially as the review unit came with the top Intel Core i7 mobile processor for gaming, the 8 Core i7-11800H, with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU (16GB GDDR6) and 16GB RAM, so I was slightly apprehensive, as with Windows 11 installed, usable RAM hovers around the 10GB mark, which is actually considered marginal for Star Citizen (at max graphics). By the way, this specific notebook benches 6,769 on PCMark 10 and clocks 11,031 for 3DMark’s Time Spy, while its 17.3-inch Full-HD display is quite decent, with a good 165Hz refresh rate easily benched high FPS rates by 3DMark for Apex Legends and Fortnite, so handled my fast 34-inch WQHD 3440 x 1440 widescreen gaming monitor with zero issues.
While Alienware have followed the general PC trend to reduce overall notebook size, the x17 R1 is still a beast, weighing in at 3.2kg and taking up a substantial corner of my work-from-home desk. It also runs hot – especially after 3 hours of Star Citizen play, and the heat emitted from the top makes the function keys too hot to touch, even with Alienware’s Quad Fans. Do note that this is after three hours of gameplay at Maximum Performance mode, and after two weeks of this daily routine I still encountered zero PC performance issues, and for regular day to day work and ‘less stressful’ gaming heat this notebook actually runs pretty cool, with its AI smartly allocating resources to match your needs.
The Alienware x17 R1 makes for an excellent mobile gamer, especially if you opt for the UHD@120Hz panel for 4K gaming, or the fast FHD@360Hz for super sharp FPS gameplay, and it’s a perfect for creators looking for a single machine to handle Adobe Premiere on the go.
Technical Specifications (as tested)
- Operating System Windows 11 Home
- Display 17.3-inch FHD (1920 x 1080 resolution) with ComfortView Plus, 165 Hz, 100% sRGB color gamut, 300 nits
- Processor Intel Core i7-11800H
- Memory 16GB DDR4
- Storage 512GB M.2 SDD
- Graphics NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 16GB GDDR6 165W
- Connectivity: 2x Type-A USB 3.2 (with PowerShare 2), 1x Type-C USB 3.2 PD, 1x Type-C Thunderbolt 4/USB 3.2 with PD, microSD,1x HDMI 2.1,1x Mini Display Port 1.4,1x RJ-45 Killer ethernet port, headphone jack, Killer WiFi 6E & Bluetooth 5.2
- Battery 87 Whr
- Dimensions 399 x 299 x 21.4mm
- Weight 3.2kg
We say
Pricey heavyweight 17-inch gamer that will handle all your AAA gaming needs and anything else you throw at it
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
From MYR$10,720
