Gaming Laptop Analysis

Is the Dell Alienware M15 R4 (2021) i7-10870H RTX 3080 8GB Mobile 32GB RAM 512GB M.2 4K 60Hz good as a gaming laptop? Excellent

Processor - This Core i7-10870H 8-Core 2.20GHz processor in the laptop is an excellent gaming CPU choice for 2021 gaming. AAA games often need extra cores to run smoothly and minimise bottleneck. This laptop processor has 8 cores, which is excellent for modern gaming.

Graphics Card - The GeForce RTX 3080 8GB Mobile is an excellent gaming GPU for 2021. Dont underestimate the importance of your GPU VRAM in modern gaming. Fortunately this GPU has 8GB, making it an excellent gamers choice of GPU.

System Memory - This laptop system memory is excellent at meeting today’s 2021 system requirements demands and with its 32GB of RAM it will certainly meet the requirements of games into the near future as well.

Screen Size - The 15.6" screen on this laptop is a good size for a 2021 gaming laptop. You could go larger, of course, but then the larger you go the less portable a laptop becomes. For gaming laptops that are still portable, we would go for 17 inch gaming laptops.

Refresh Rate - If you want your gaming laptop to push past 60FPS, then make sure your laptop display panel has a higher refresh rate than 60Hz. Not all laptop manufacturers clearly state the screen refresh rate. If it is not clear, assume it is 60Hz. The laptop only turn out FPS (frames per second) as high as its screens refresh rate. 60hz refresh rate gets a max of 60FPS in all games, regardless of the hardware’s power in your laptop. Now after those thoughts on refresh rates, today’s review laptop has a 60Hz refresh rate, where we would say that is passable as a gaming laptop panel. For gaming we would consider getting a laptop with a higher refresh rate if our budget would stretch to it.

GeForce RTX 3080 8GB Mobile graphics card gaming performance in the Dell Alienware M15 R4 (2021) i7-10870H RTX 3080 8GB Mobile 32GB RAM 512GB M.2 4K 60Hz laptop

One of the most important components to a gamer for this laptop is getting it’s graphics card right. We will be taking a look at the sort of price to performance ratio the laptop hardware has and in particular help us know if how well the graphics card can run Far Cry 6 at 4K ultra settings. Now this comes with the GeForce RTX 3080 8GB Mobile installed as the mobile graphics card, and at the moment it is capable of running 500 games at their minimum graphics system specs and then running 497 recommended specs of today’s top 500 most demanding games.

Comparing Dell Alienware M15 R4 (2021) i7-10870H RTX 3080 8GB Mobile 32GB RAM 512GB M.2 4K 60Hz to today’s best price to performance laptop ranges

As you have probably discovered during your research into buying your next gaming laptop, getting an up-to-date value assessment that enables you to compare a laptop’s hardware performance against today’s games is tricky. And especially so, when we factor in all variations of hardware and prices that the Alienware M15 R4 (2021) comes with. What we have done in this Dell Alienware M15 R4 (2021) i7-10870H RTX 3080 8GB Mobile 32GB RAM 512GB M.2 4K 60Hz laptop review is give a price to performance rating to help standardise our comparisons.

The Dell Alienware M15 R4 (2021) i7-10870H RTX 3080 8GB Mobile 32GB RAM 512GB M.2 4K 60Hz gaming laptop is currently getting a 7 on our P2P rating out of 10. Higher is better and this figure will adjust as new hardware and prices shift over time Here we look at how our version of this Alienware M15 R4 (2021) laptop compares against the other laptops in the range. This laptop is currently 7th in this range for hardware value. Laptops closer to the 1st position of the model range represent the better gaming performance bang for your buck.

It's good to see how this Alienware M15 R4 (2021) laptop compares to models outside of its own model range as well. If we look at the very best P2P laptop, the ASUS TUF A15 R7 4800H GTX 1660 Ti 16GB RAM 512GB M.2, our laptop has 145% worse performance difference when comparing its price to performance rating. That top laptop currently has a listed price of $999. Again only comparing against Price to Performance we can see that the second best model in today’s P2P ranking list is the MSI Bravo 15 R7 4800H RX 5500M 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop, and our laptop is 114% worse when compared against this price to performance rating. The price of the 2nd best laptop is listed as $1049.

How does the Dell Alienware M15 R4 (2021) i7-10870H RTX 3080 8GB Mobile 32GB RAM 512GB M.2 4K 60Hz laptop compare to the best CPU performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

One of the key components in a laptop is of course its CPU. So let's see if our Alienware M15 R4 (2021) laptop compares favourably when placed against the laptop that has one of the most powerful CPU’s around today. This comparison will at least help us know how this laptop performs against the top end CPU laptop and we can then see the amount of money we might have to pay to get that sort of laptop. A suitable comparison laptop that is CPU focused is the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R9 4900HS RTX 2060 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2. This represents one of the laptops for the current cheapest price with the most powerful CPUs in it today. It has the Ryzen 9 4900HS 8-Core 3.0GHz processor tucked inside it which can deliver 24% better performance when compared to our CPU, Core i7-10870H 8-Core 2.20GHz which is found in this review laptop.

The Core i7-10870H 8-Core 2.20GHz processor found in this machine can currently run 472 games of the top 500 most demanding games right now. This is basically how many recommended game system requirements our laptop cpu beats in performance today, but we will update this figure as new games come out. This is 500 games when looking at beating minimum system requirements.

When compared to the most popular games around today, against their recommended processor requirements, our laptop CPU performs as follows - Far Cry 6 our laptop CPU is 16% better and then looking at New World our laptop CPU is 46% better and finally compared to Battlefield 2042 it has a performance difference : 35% better.

How does the Dell Alienware M15 R4 (2021) i7-10870H RTX 3080 8GB Mobile 32GB RAM 512GB M.2 4K 60Hz laptop compare to the best graphics card performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

A good comparison in terms of graphical power for our review model would be to compare it to one of the most powerful GPU focused laptop’s around today. This type of comparison can show us what another laptop, with a top end graphics hardware solution, can deliver and in turn provide us a relative point of laptop Graphics Card cost comparison. We have chosen this next laptop for its GPU power, which is the MSI GT76 Titan i9-10900K RTX 2080 Super 64GB RAM 2.0TB M.2 4K, and comes packing a GeForce RTX 2080 Super 8GB video card. That graphics card performs 1% better when compared to our review laptop’s GeForce RTX 3080 8GB Mobile.

The GeForce RTX 3080 8GB Mobile Graphics Card found in this machine can currently run 497 games of the top 500 most demanding games right now. This is basically how many recommended game system requirements our laptop GPU beats in performance today, but we will update this figure as new games come out. This is 500 games when looking at beating minimum system requirements.

But the real test is seeing how well the laptop GPU performs against today's popular games. Our GeForce RTX 3080 8GB Mobile compared against recommended graphics requirements for Far Cry 6 delivers 27% better performance while against New World it’s 106% better and finally compared to Battlefield 2042 it has a performance difference : 11% better.

Today's Best Priced Mouse and Headset for Dell Alienware M15 R4 (2021) i7-10870H RTX 3080 8GB Mobile 32GB RAM 512GB M.2 4K 60Hz laptop

If you are looking for a good value mouse to go with your Dell Alienware M15 R4 (2021) i7-10870H RTX 3080 8GB Mobile 32GB RAM 512GB M.2 4K 60Hz laptop, then the Kayinuo M738 Gaming Mouse 3200DPI wired 6 Buttons is our favourite today, of those we are price tracking. Currently it’s priced at $12.99. Today's best value and good quality mouse has enjoyed a price reduction of $32.26, and provides another reason for us to suggest it to compliment this laptop. Our mice price tracker had this mouse marked at its lowest price on 15th Aug 2020, where it cost $11.99.

You could pick up a headset to go with the Dell Alienware M15 R4 (2021) i7-10870H RTX 3080 8GB Mobile 32GB RAM 512GB M.2 4K 60Hz. In our spotlight at the moment is the Corsair HS45-7.1 Surround, which today is $36.99. Out of interest our lowest price tracked on this headset was on 28th Nov 2019 where we saw it for $34.99.