Best RTX 3080 laptop buyer’s guide

The Alienware X17 pulls off the impressive feat of being a thin and portable laptop, whilst not sacrificing graphics power, and also remaining remarkably cool under stress. The same cannot be said unfortunately of the smaller Alienware X15, which does suffer from lower TGP graphics cards and greater thermal throttling, so we’d always recommend picking the X17. It’s not the lightest machine, particularly when combined with the power brick, but you won’t find a more portable 17-inch machine.

The highest specced option of the Alienware X17 is a powerful RTX 3080 laptop with a 150-165W TGP. It comes with an Intel Core i7-11800H CPU and options for up to 32GB of RAM and 2x 2TB SSD drives. This is a very powerful machine for gaming, and performs decently in rendering scenarios as well, though admittedly not as good as some of the other models on this page with AMD processors.

There are different options for the display, ranging from a 360Hz 1080p option with a superb 1ms stated response time (which we’d recommend for pure gamers), to a 120Hz 4K model with a very respectable 4ms stated response time (the version for creatives who want to game on the side). In terms of color gamut, the 1080p display variant has 100% sRGB coverage, high contrast, and peak brightness, making it suitable for any color-based workflows in this space. The 4K option has superior Adobe RGB color replication, but at the cost of response time and refresh rate.

Besides the faster refresh rate and better response time, the 360Hz 1080p variant is also the only version that comes with G-Sync, and most importantly, a MUX Switch, to give a substantial additional performance boost in-game. For this reason, we would only recommend choosing the 4K option if you’re planning on using the X17 for other uses besides gaming where it will prove useful.

In terms of other features, the mechanical keyboard of the X17 is a nice inclusion and feels great to use, though it doesn’t come with a numpad which may bother some people. The different colored trackpad is also great and responsive. The selection of ports is good and includes a microSD card slot. The motherboard is of the flipped variety, making it more difficult to upgrade the GPU and CPU should you wish to, but at least the RAM can be upgraded.

The battery life of the RTX 3080 version of the laptop lasts up to around 5 hours of non-strenuous use in-game, which is far better than most historical Alienware releases, well known for their reliance on socket power, but about average for RTX 3080 laptops in general.

Taking everything into account, this is a superb, premium end RTX 3080 laptop with unparalleled quality of design. The only real issue is the steep MSRP, though price reductions are often available.