Alienware’s m18 R2 is their biggest and most powerful gaming laptop.
But we all know that Alienware laptops aren’t exactly known for being cheap.
So let’s find out if this new m18 is worth it
and see how it compares against the 18 inch competition in this review!
The m18 comes in Alienware’s dark metallic moon finish with an anodized aluminum build,
and it wouldn’t be an Alienware laptop without the RGB light ring on the back.
The interior has a black soft touch finish,
which attracts more fingerprints than the lid, but both were easy to clean with a microfiber cloth.
There’s only minor flex to the lid and keyboard when pushing
down hard. Overall build quality feels good.
There’s a groove along the entire front,
making it easy to get your finger in and open. The screen goes back fairly far,
and the hinges feel smooth and sturdy even when ripping the lid open hard and fast.
The m18 R2 is wider and deeper compared to other 18 inch models like
MSI’s Titan 18 and ASUS’s Scar 18. Alienware’s m18 is a little thinner, but it’s also heavier
than those others too, coming in at 5kg or 11lb with the 360 watt charger.
So although the m18 is technically thinner, that’s just not as important with a larger 18
inch laptop, because you’re going to need a bigger bag to accommodate the
bigger width and depth, and it’s just more weight to carry around with you.
My configuration has Intel’s Core i9-14900HX CPU,
Nvidia’s RTX 4090 graphics, 64 gigs of RAM and an 18 inch screen, so maxed out specs.
But it’s available for less money depending on how you configure it with the link below.
You can upgrade to a cherry mechanical keyboard for $50,
for example, which is what mine has. All keys are mechanical except for the top function row.
The keys feel nice and clicky to press with 1.8mm of key travel,
and typing is quieter compared to MSI’s Titan 18.
It’s got customizable per-key RGB backlighting, and all keys and secondary functions get lit up.
Brightness can be adjusted between 2 levels or turned off with the F7 shortcut key,
but this does not affect the light ring on the back or the Alienware logo on the
lid. Those are controlled through the AlienFX section of Alienware’s Command Center software.
The touchpad is large, centered to the letter keys, and works well, no problems there.
The power button is separate to the keyboard and lights up. The AlienFX
software shows you what the different colors mean. Personally I’d prefer if
it changed color based on the performance mode like other laptops as I find that more useful,
but hey low battery colors might be useful if you’re in a game.
As for ports, the left side has 5 gigabit ethernet - the first laptop I’ve ever had
with ethernet that fast - followed by two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports and a 3.5mm audio combo jack.
The right just has a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C port,
but it’s down the front and cables would get in the way for right handed mouse users.
The rest is on the back, from left to right there are two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports,
a third USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, HDMI 2.1 output, Mini DisplayPort 1.4,
an SD card slot, and the power input on the right.
Unfortunately there aren’t any rear port icons,
making it harder to see where you’re plugging cables in without turning the laptop around.
But the Type-C port on the right and the three Type-A ports are all USB 3.2 Gen 1
rather than the faster Gen 2. So not too impressive for such an expensive
machine. And none of those Type-C ports can be used to charge the laptop either. Again,
I was surprised that this feature was missing in a more premium gaming laptop,
as it’s a great way to reduce weight if you don’t need full performance when on the go.
The two Type-C ports on the back have DisplayPort support for connecting screens,
but the right one does not. And those two Type-C’s on the back as well as HDMI and
Mini DisplayPort all connect directly to the Nvidia graphics, whether optimus is on or off.
We also confirmed the HDMI port could run our LG B9 TV at 4K 120Hz 12-bit with G-Sync.
Getting inside requires unscrewing 8 Phillips head screws, all the same
length. The two down the front corners don’t come out and instead lift the panel up a bit,
making opening easier. The tools I use are linked below, but pry tools weren’t necessary.
Inside we’ve got the battery down the front, two memory slots in the middle, the installed 2280
M.2 drive to the right, with a second 2280 slot just below, and two 2230 M.2 slots on the left,
so up to 4 SSDs is possible. The Wi-Fi 7 card is between the RAM and installed SSD.
I suppose if you really wanted to, it might be possible to take out this fan,
grind down the stand offs, and fit in longer 2280 drives, but I won’t be trying that.
The speeds from the 2TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD were great,
and the SD card slot was fairly fast too. It doesn’t click in for security
and sticks out a bit, but it’ll be harder to bump as it’s on the back.
It’s got the fastest Wi-Fi 7 we’ve tested so far,
but we only just upgraded to a Wi-Fi 7 router and don’t have too many other results just yet.
The upgradeability score is well above average due to the extra M.2 slots. I
normally give a full point per 2280 M.2 slot, so I went with half a point for the smaller
2230 slots. The m18 has more M.2 slots than any other 18 inch gaming laptop I’ve tested
in the last 2 years. MSI’s Titan’s are ahead as those also have 4 memory slots.
The speakers are found underneath on the left and right sides towards the front.
They don’t sound very good, they’re tinny without any real bass. MSI’s
Titan 18 sounds a bit better, while ASUS’s Scar 18 sounds much better.
The latencymon results weren’t great,
but still better compared to a lot of laptops we tested last year.
The m18 is powered by a 6-Cell 97Wh battery - almost as big as you can get in a laptop.
But battery life isn’t great, lasting for less than 5 hours at stock. I’ve got two results
because by default, there isn’t any software to automatically lower the screen’s refresh rate down
to 60Hz when you unplug the charger. Most other laptops offer this, so I manually changed it just
to see what the difference would be. That simple change gets you an extra 45 minutes of run time,
so not sure why Dell doesn’t offer this feature, as this makes it pretty clear that it’s useful.
Let’s check out thermals next. The m18 has 4 fans inside, but the vapor chamber cooler is
hidden underneath the motherboard, and only available on RTX 4080 and 4090 configs. Their
element 31 liquid metal is used on both the CPU and GPU, but again, only for RTX
4080 and 4090 configs. There are holes in the bottom panel above all fans for air intake,
as well as intake holes in a honeycomb pattern above the keyboard. Air gets
exhausted out of the left and right sides and out from the back corners.
The Alienware Command Center software lets us change between different performance modes,
which from lowest to highest are quiet, balanced, performance, and overdrive. There’s also custom
mode which can be used for modifying voltage and temperature limits, but we haven’t tested with
that. You can also press the F1 key to enable high performance mode, which maxes out the fan.
Performance, High Performance, and Overdrive modes automatically apply
the following overclocks to the GPU. These can only be controlled in Custom mode.
The software doesn’t take anywhere near as long to open compared to older models,
but there is still some delay changing between performance modes - more than most other laptops.
The internal temps weren’t too hot when sitting there idle. The rest of the results are from
combined CPU and GPU stress tests which aim to represent a worst case full load
scenario. Thermal throttling was happening on the CPU in the highest overdrive mode,
but interestingly the CPU temperature lowered a bit with the lid closed. The
cooling pad I test with, linked below, was able to lower temps quite a bit.
The clock speeds are basically the same with the lid closed or open,
so there’s no problem here if you want to close the lid and dock the laptop
during heavy work. Clock speeds are a little better with the cooling pad
as it was able to remove the thermal throttling. High performance mode with the keyboard shortcut
was clocking a little higher than performance mode through the software while also running cooler,
but that’s because high performance mode maxes out the fans like overdrive mode.
The Nvidia control panel reports the RTX 4090 mobile GPU as having a 175 watt power limit,
and even with the CPU running at 95 watts in overdrive mode it’s still running at
around 170 watts, an impressive result, and similar to MSI’s thicker Titan 18.
Here’s how an actual game performs with the different performance modes. Overdrive and high
performance modes were close. High performance mode applies a higher GPU overclock, but I suspect
overdrive gets the higher 1% low result due to the much higher CPU power limit which I think
will be more beneficial in most games, so this is the mode we’ve done most of our testing in.
The CPU can use much more power if the GPU is idle, like in Cinebench,
but there wasn’t much of a difference in terms of raw CPU performance between
the different performance modes. Overdrive and high performance modes were more or less tied.
The m18 stacks up well compared to others in this CPU test. The top 4 results are all
larger 18 inch laptops with 24 core processors. So Alienware’s competition is slightly ahead.
But CPU Performance lowers if we unplug the charger and instead run off of battery power.
Both MSI’s Titan 18 and ASUS’s Scar 18 were running better on battery power,
while Acer’s cheaper Helios 18 fell flat in comparison.
Most laptops I test are in the low 30 degrees Celsius range on the keyboard at idle, and the m18
was a little above this, but it still felt fine. It gets warmer with the stress tests running,
but the middle section of the keyboard was only a little warm. Balanced mode was much the same,
the wrist rest is still cool. Performance mode isn’t too different, as the fans get
louder to compensate for the higher power limits and better performance. Overdrive
mode wasn’t too different either. The middle is a bit warm and not great,
but the WASD area feels fine. Unfortunately it’s also super loud now, let’s have a listen.
The fans were completely silent when sitting there idle, and then got louder under load with
the higher performance modes. Overdrive and high performance were quite loud,
as the fans got maxed out. Considering game FPS wasn’t much lower in performance or even
balanced mode, you could definitely have much quieter fans without losing too much FPS.
This year’s new m18 R2 has the same screen options as last year’s m18 R1.
There’s the 165Hz 2560 by 1600 panel that mine has,
or you can pay $50 more for 1920 by 1200 at 480Hz.
At this larger 18 inch size, I don’t think that almost 1080p panel option is
going to look very good. 1080p already doesn’t look good to me at 17 inches,
I can just see the pixels. So it’s probably only worth considering
if you’re serious about competitive esports and also want a larger screen.
The screen offers nice colors, but it doesn’t get super bright. It’s still above 300 nits,
but that’s the minimum I want to see, and it’s not impressive for such an expensive laptop.
It’s brighter compared to last year’s x16,
but there are still much brighter 18 inch panels out there.
Backlight bleed wasn’t a problem, but this will vary between laptops.
Screen response time is quite good. Ideally a 165Hz screen needs transitions to occur within a
6ms refresh window, but even the lowest transition was under this, so no issues with ghosting.
It stacks up well compared to most other laptops. Much better compared to MSI’s Titan 18, about the
same as ASUS’s competing Scar 18, but not quite as good as Acer’s Helios 18 or Razer’s Blade 18 from
last year - granted the difference is quite small and probably not one you would be able to notice.
The total system latency is the amount of time between a mouse click and when a gunshot fire
appears on the screen in Counter-Strike 2. The m18 R2 is one of the fastest results
we’ve measured so far, and close to the other high-end 18 inch laptops tested.
The m18 has a MUX switch, but it’s a little hidden in the software. That needs a reboot to use, so
you’d be better off using advanced optimus instead through the Nvidia control panel, as that does not
need a reboot. G-Sync is available when optimus is off, and adaptive sync when optimus is on.
There’s a 1080p camera above the screen and it has IR for Windows Hello face unlock.
Here’s how the camera and microphones look and sound,
and this is what it sounds like while typing on the mechanical keyboard.
Now let’s find out how well Alienware’s
m18 R2 performs in games. We’ve tested with these settings for best results.
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested with our own custom test run, and I’ve got the m18 shown by the red
highlight. It’s close to a number of other RTX 4090 gaming laptops, but on the lower side at
1080p. This surprised me, considering overdrive mode can run the CPU above 90 watts in our stress
tests. I checked and during this test the CPU was running at 93 watts, while the GPU was at
140. It moves up a few positions out of the same selection of laptops at the higher 1440p
resolution. The difference between the top 10 or so results is mostly within the margin of error
range and not something you’d actually notice when playing, and that goes for 4K too. We’re
talking about a 2-3 FPS difference between the 11 best 4090 results. That’s just not significant.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the game’s benchmark. Again there’s not really much
difference between many of the 4090 laptops, but that said the m18 R2 was right next to one of
the best 4080 results, as the GPU just matters less at lower resolutions like 1080p. 1440p on
the other hand is a bit closer to the native 2560 by 1600 resolution of the screen, though some of
the 4080 results weren’t that much behind. There’s only a bigger difference between 4080 and 4090 at
the higher 4K resolution, though Lenovo’s smaller and lighter Legion 9i was able to perform better.
It’s a similar deal in Control at all three resolutions. The m18 R2 isn’t the
best result despite being one of the biggest laptops we’ve tested,
but there’s not much difference between many of the 4090 laptops, especially at 4K.
Here are the 3DMark results for those that find them useful, now for some content creator tests.
Just like the games, the m18 R2 performs similarly to other laptops with similar
specs. The 14th gen processor doesn’t really give it a clear advantage over
the older 13th gen models, as it’s basically the same CPU.
Dell’s BIOS is only second to MSI when it comes to customization. There are way more options
available here compared to most other laptops, like ASUS’s Scar 18 or Acer’s Helios 18. MSI’s
Titan 18 offers much more tuning for enthusiasts, but you can still do a bit with the Alienware m18.
Linux support was tested with an Ubuntu 23.10 live CD. By default the keyboard, touchpad,
camera and speakers all worked. The 5 gigabit ethernet and Wi-Fi 7 did not work though,
newer drivers than what this OS ships with are probably required. Keyboard
shortcuts for adjusting screen brightness, keyboard brightness and volume all worked,
but the F1 high performance shortcut didn’t do anything.
Pricing and availability will change over time, so check the link below the video for updates
and current sales. And if the m18 does have a good sale, we’ll be sure to add it to our
gaminglaptop.deals website. We update that everyday to include all of the latest sales,
so make sure that you check it out regularly to save money on your next gaming laptop.
At the time of recording, the m18 R2 starts at $1900 USD for the lowest spec RTX 4060 config
without any sales running - definitely not cheap for 4060 level performance.
The near-maxed out configuration we’ve tested in this video goes for $3500 USD. So again
not cheap if we were to compare it against a smaller laptop with a 4090,
but it’s actually cheaper than its 18 inch competition.
ASUS’s Scar 18 costs $400 more with half the memory, but with a much brighter Mini
LED screen. Meanwhile MSI’s Titan 18 is $1900 more than Alienware’s m18 R2,
so you could literally buy a 4090 and 4060 m18 for the same price as a Titan… Acer’s Helios 18
on the other hand is $500 less, but again with half the RAM. Razer’s Blade 18 costs more too,
but we don’t have the 2024 model just yet. But we should be receiving that new laptop in
the next few weeks and that’ll be the first laptop with Thunderbolt 5 as well. Anyway,
I knew that the Helios 18 was the most budget friendly gaming laptop out of the bunch,
but I wasn’t expecting Alienware’s m18 to be cheaper compared to options like ASUS’s Scar
18. I don’t know, I guess I’m just used to thinking Alienware and automatically assuming
the most expensive. But that’s not the case here. And probably because both MSI’s Titan and
ASUS’s Scar have a higher quality Mini LED screen, which contribute to their higher price tags.
Ultimately the m18 R2 isn’t a bad laptop, but it is bigger and heavier compared to its 18
inch competitors. Its screen is alright, but not as bright compared to the competition,
and it doesn’t perform quite as well in CPU workloads. And that’s even more
so the case with the charger unplugged and running on battery power. However,
battery life was a little better with the Alienware despite the fact that it doesn’t
automatically lower the screen’s refresh rate when you unplug the charger. And as
for performance in games, the Alienware was pretty similar to most other 4090 laptops.
Personally for me, if I was spending $3500 USD on a gaming laptop, I’d probably just
spend the extra $400 at that point and get the ASUS Scar 18 with the better screen,
but that’s me. Both are way cheaper than MSI’s Titan 18 in any case, which is really only for
the ultimate enthusiasts that need 4 memory slots. And I’d only consider the Helios 18
if I had a limited budget but really wanted that bigger 18 inch screen.
And if bigger 18 inch gaming laptops are your thing,
then check out one of these reviews next! I recently covered the 2024
versions of ASUS’s Scar 18 and MSI’s Titan 18, so I’ll see you in one of those next.