Gaming Laptop Analysis

Is the Dell Alienware M15 R3 i7-10750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 256GB M.2 good as a gaming laptop? Excellent

Processor - The Core i7-10750H 6-Core 2.60GHz is an excellent gaming CPU for 2021. Games are beginning to lean on more CPU cores for extra processing. Fortunately this CPU has 6 cores, making it an excellent gamers processor choice.

Graphics Card - The GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile is an excellent gaming GPU for 2021. Loaded up with a huge amount of VRAM, this GPU has 8GB, which makes it excellent for AAA gaming.

System Memory - The 16GB RAM found in this machine is considered an excellent 2021 amount for modern AAA titles and a solid gaming machine.

Screen Size - This laptops screen dimensions create a good balance between portable and visually suitable, when considering your next gaming laptop. With 17 inch currently being the more preferable for gaming, a lot of people will prefer the smaller form factor on offer with this 15.6" screen. Look to the 17 inch laptops for a better physical screen size, so you can enjoy the games more clearly. That is our normal ideal gaming laptop screen size.

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. We can see this laptop can support high gaming refresh rates, with 144Hz screen panel built in. This is excellent refresh rates for gaming. More than 60Hz would still be suitable for gaming.

GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile graphics card gaming performance in the Dell Alienware M15 R3 i7-10750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 256GB M.2 laptop

A key choice in any gaming laptop is making sure we identify the right graphics card in the laptop and know what it is capable of in today's gaming landscape. With this laptop we are taking a closer look at how its total laptop value compares to its capability when it comes to running modern demanding games. Also lets take a look at it when running modern popular games like, Far Cry 6 or Battlefield 2042 in ultra graphics settings on its native screen resolution of 1080p. Now this comes with the GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile installed as the mobile graphics card, and at the moment it is capable of running 495 games at their minimum graphics system specs and then running 425 recommended specs of today’s top 500 most demanding games.

Comparing Dell Alienware M15 R3 i7-10750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 256GB M.2 to today’s best price to performance laptop ranges

During your research for your next laptop, you have probably seen that the laptops reviewed are often the top permutation of the range and even then they were reviewed some time back against games that were released around the time of the review. Today we will be working to provide an up to date value assessment on this Dell Alienware M15 R3 i7-10750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 256GB M.2 hardware performance against today’s games and then consider how it compares to all other laptops and how it sits within its own Alienware M15 R3 range.

This laptop gets a 8.4 for P2P. This laptop’s configuration, when compared to its own Alienware M15 R3 lineup, is currently placed at 4th once we order it by the price to performance figure. Obviously scoring towards the 1st position is preferable.

Our Alienware M15 R3 laptop should also be compared to today’s best Price to Performance model, the ASUS TUF A15 R7 4800H GTX 1660 Ti 16GB RAM 512GB M.2. When stacked up against this, our laptop has 90% worse rating difference on its P2P. It's worth noting that the very best P2P model has a recorded price of $999 to consider and of course this is purely a value for performance basis. 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 66% 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 R3 i7-10750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 256GB M.2 laptop compare to the best CPU performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

Now the processing power is one of the primary areas that we will pay for in any PC and so let's see how our Alienware M15 R3 laptop is when compared against CPU performance with a top CPU focused laptop thats available today. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R9 4900HS RTX 2060 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 is today’s best performer in the laptop CPU department. It has a Ryzen 9 4900HS 8-Core 3.0GHz processor in it, which currently has 35% better performance than our laptop’s Core i7-10750H 6-Core 2.60GHz.

Today there are 451 games recommended system requirements that are worse than our CPU’s performance capability, this is when we look at the top 500 most demanding games right now. This figure becomes 499 games, when we look at the 500 demanding games for minimum processor system requirements.

Let's take a look and see how well our Core i7-10750H 6-Core 2.60GHz compares against today’s most popular games. Against the recommended CPU specs for Far Cry 6 our laptop is 9% better, and compared to New World it is 41% better , where as against Battlefield 2042 it delivers 28% better performance.

How does the Dell Alienware M15 R3 i7-10750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 256GB M.2 laptop compare to the best graphics card performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

Now lets see how well our review laptop holds up compared against graphical performance with the top performing GPU laptop available today. We have the MSI GT76 Titan i9-10900K RTX 2080 Super 64GB RAM 2.0TB M.2 4K as one of today’s best graphics crunching laptop. It comes with a GeForce RTX 2080 Super 8GB video card in it, which currently has 35% better performance compared to our laptop’s GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile.

Our laptop GPU beats 425 games recommended system requirements when looking at today’s top 500 most demanding games. This number changes to 495 games if we compare to the top 500 most demanding games for minimum system requirements.

A game’s listed recommended GPU requirements are a good way to compare the performance of our laptop graphics card. Lets see today's popular titles up against our laptop graphics. First off let's look at New World which shows our laptop video card has 53% better performance than it. How about Battlefield 2042, where we see our GPU is 17% worse. Then there is 5% worse performance when compared against today’s most popular title, Far Cry 6.

The Dell Alienware M15 R3 i7-10750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 256GB M.2 has a 1080p screen resolution, should I get a 4K resolution gaming laptop instead?

With 4K monitors being ever present and often talked about in the same breath as the term ‘future proof’, its always worth exploring the idea that you should be looking at 4K instead of this 1080p laptop. Our Dell Alienware M15 R3 i7-10750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 256GB M.2’s physical 15.6" panel delivers 1920 pixels across its width and 1080 pixels tall. We normally see a 60Hz screen refresh rate accompanying most 4K laptop panels. Which means a game would reach a top 60 FPS before it maxed out, even if the laptop’s hardware was powerful enough to deliver frame rates that were better than that. Today’s AAA games are usually too demanding for a 4K resolution anyway. You can find the Dell Alienware M15 R3 i7-10750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 256GB M.2 panel with 144Hz refresh rate variants.

So a quick lowering of a AAA game’s screen resolution, from a native 4K laptop panel down to either 1080p or perhaps 1440p would increase the frame rate. And thus improve the stability of your gameplay. But a laptop display panel has a fixed number of pixels. Moving away from that exact number of pixels in a game lowers the definition quality of the graphics in the game. Making the experience sub par and if you do this often, then this seriously puts into question your choice for a 4K gaming laptop. But if the laptop does have the hardware to run today's AAA titles at 4K resolution, a normal sized portable PC comes with a 15 or 17 inch panel. This might not be physically big enough to make the most of the splendors of your game. It would of course look great still, but perhaps a dedicated monitor for your desk, one that isnt 60Hz restricted would accommodate that gaming scenario.

Maybe you are hoping to enjoy your 4K streamed movies and TV shows while on the move. And if you have access to this 4K content and it's your prime use for your new laptop then perhaps it's worth considering a 4K panel, rather than this 1080p.

At the moment our advice would be, stick to the 1080p laptop panels for now. Your laptop remains portable and 4K laptop’s just aren't quite there yet. The 4K needs to be a no brainer but at the moment you will still have to lower resolution in game to get playable but sub par visuals that still can't raise above 60FPS.

Today’s best 1440p desktop monitor for a laptop is - ASUS ProArt Display PA278QV 27 inch 1440p 75Hz 5ms IPS

Today’s best priced 1440p gaming monitor, to work nicely with our Dell Alienware M15 R3 i7-10750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 256GB M.2, would be the ASUS ProArt Display PA278QV 27 inch 1440p 75Hz 5ms IPS, which is priced at $311.99 and has a refresh rate of 75Hz. We like to price track our favourite laptop hardware and peripherals. And as a point of note the lowest tracked price for this 1440p monitor was recorded on 9th Mar 2021, which was priced at $229.99.

Today’s best 4K desktop monitor for a laptop is - Asus Predator XB273K 27 inch 4K GSYNC IPS 1ms 144Hz

The 4K Asus Predator XB273K 27 inch 4K GSYNC IPS 1ms 144Hz display is our current suggestion if you wanted to grab a desktop monitor. With a $618 price at the moment it also has a 144Hz refresh rate. During these past 2 weeks, this 4K monitor’s price has gone up by $618. The cheapest we have tracked this 4k monitor was for the price of $549.99, on 13th Nov 2020.

[Note - check that monitor display connectors are compatible between a monitor and a laptop before purchase]

If you stream 4K content, films, services like Netflix then perhaps the quality of 4K resolution on a 17inch panel would be better than the 1080p alternative that the majority of laptops provide.

For now in the laptop space, it looks best to stick with 1080p panels. This way your laptop’s physical size remains practical and portable, 17inch laptops are plenty big enough. And at the moment you will still have to lower game resolutions down from 4K, on the bigger hitting AAA titles, that would then get playable, but sub par visuals and you would still hit the 60FPS cap if your hardware could go beyond 60FPS.

Today's Best Priced Mouse and Headset for Dell Alienware M15 R3 i7-10750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 256GB M.2 laptop

You could pick up a mouse to go with the Dell Alienware M15 R3 i7-10750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 256GB M.2. In our spotlight at the moment is the Kayinuo M738 Gaming Mouse 3200DPI wired 6 Buttons, which today is $12.99. This mouse has also dropped its price by $32.26 during the past two weeks, which is a solid reason for us to select it with this laptop. Another point of interest was that we saw this mouse priced at $11.99, which we tracked on 15th Aug 2020.

If you are looking for a good value headset to go with your Dell Alienware M15 R3 i7-10750H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 256GB M.2 laptop, then the Corsair HS45-7.1 Surround is our favourite today, of those we are price tracking. Currently it’s priced at $36.99. Out of interest our lowest price tracked on this headset was on 28th Nov 2019 where we saw it for $34.99.