Dell announced updates to two of its 17-inch Alienware laptops, both of which sport the first 480Hz screens to ever debut on gaming laptops. It’s available now as an option for the previously announced Alienware x17 R2, and it’s debuting on the all-AMD Alienware m17 R5. We got a taste of 480Hz laptop displays in May, but we didn’t expect them to hit the market so soon. As we saw earlier this year, the Alienware laptops come with a Full HD resolution to hit the high refresh rate, and the response times are bit higher than gamers might be accustomed to — 3ms as opposed to the typical 1ms. Although Dell is the first to market with a 480Hz laptop display, there should be more soon. AUO, the company that originally demoed the cutting-edge display, works with vendors like MSI, Acer, and Asus, among others. As the year continues, we could see more 480Hz laptops start to make their way to market.
For the laptops themselves, Dell says the m17 R5 is “the world’s most powerful 17-inch AMD Advantage laptop.” It comes equipped with up to an eight-core Ryzen 9 6900HX processor, as well as a 12GB RX 6850M XT graphics card. You need both an AMD CPU and GPU for the AMD Advantage features, but Dell is offering the laptop with Nvidia GPUs as well — up to a mobile 16GB RTX 3080 Ti. If you opt for the Advantage configuration, you’ll have access to three of AMD’s Smart Technologies. SmartShift Max allows the CPU and GPU to dynamically swap power when needed; SmartAccess Graphics enables them to optimize battery life or performance by going between the integrated graphics and dedicated GPU, and Smart Access Memory boosts game performance in certain titles by giving a direct line from the GPU to the CPU. The machine comes with FreeSync Premium, as well, even on the 480Hz model. If you opt for an Nvidia GPU, you can still use a variable refresh rate with G-Sync, as well.
Although the 480Hz display is the crown jewel, you don’t have to go that high if you don’t want to. Dell is offering Full HD variants with a 165Hz or 360Hz refresh rate, or you can opt for a 4K 120Hz display if you want to chase resolution. Dell hasn’t announced pricing yet, but it’s safe to assume the 480Hz display will come at a premium.
The Alienware x17 R2 isn’t new, debuting in early 2022 alongside Intel’s mobile 12th-gen processors. Dell is simply adding a 480Hz panel option to the machine, which matches the specs available on the m17 R5. It serves as an Intel alternative to the m17 R5, coming with up to a Core i9-12900HK processor and RTX 3080 Ti mobile graphics card.
AMD has a new driver for its latest Ryzen AI 300 processors, and it introduces a feature that could provide a massive performance boost in games. It’s called Variable Graphics Memory, or VGM, and it allows the integrated graphics to convert up to 75% of the memory in a system to dedicated graphics memory. This, according to AMD, can not only boost performance in games, but also make some otherwise unplayable titles boot. The new Ryzen AI 300 processors are mostly found in thin and light laptops, including devices like the Zenbook S 16 that aren’t targeted at gamers. In addition to VGM in the new driver, AMD also turned on its Fluid Motion Frames 2 (AFMF 2) feature for Ryzen AI 300 processors. With both features working in tandem, you can see the performance boost on the Zenbook S 16 below.
Intel is giving up on its 20A node, or at the very least, it won’t show up in any desktop processors. Intel announced that it would shifting resources away from developing 20A toward its smaller 18A node. Intel 20A was the foundation of Intel’s upcoming Arrow Lake CPUs. The company says it’s now using “external partners” to create Arrow Lake chips, which will likely be chipmaker TSMC. We first heard about the 20A node in 2021, where the then-new CEO Pat Gelsinger laid out a road map detailing how Intel would move off its storied 14nm node onto smaller manufacturing processes. You could read this shift to 18A as Intel jumping forward to more exciting future technology, but it doesn’t bode well given Intel’s long-standing road map. The release of 20A was supposed to start the “Angstrom era,” as Intel called it, where we would move beyond measuring transistor size in nanometers.
Acer is cooking up something very interesting at IFA 2024. The company revealed Project DualPlay, which is a laptop concept with several interesting tricks up its sleeve. Closed, it’s a relatively standard clamshell design, but once you open the lid, Project DualPlay pulls things off that I’ve never seen before, even from the best gaming laptops. For starters, it includes a detachable controller. It doesn’t look like some dinky afterthought, either. The controller is built into the touchpad of the laptop, and it’s held in place with an electromagnetic lock. You can place two fingers on a release button on the keyboard to unlatch the controller, allowing you to kick back and play without lugging around an extra controller.
