Menu

Alienware celebrates 20 years by launching OLED laptop and new Alpha console

Alienware is celebrating its 20th anniversary and coming to E3 with an assortment of new gamer-centric machines. If we’re taking a 10,000-foot view, what Alienware is showcasing runs the gamut of PC gaming experiences, from a laptop with OLED to a new Alpha console — and of course, some desktop towers ranging from "kind of big" to "very big and powerful."

While the sleeker machines won't be "VR ready" at launch — a benchmark that very few laptops can (or maybe should) meet right now — they will be compatible with Alienware Graphics Amplifier, which indeed promotes the idea that gaming laptops can exist.

All the computers below will be available from Alienware beginning this week.

Alienware 13 OLED laptop

Originally announced at CES and just now getting released. Above all else, what matters here is the OLED touchscreen. The 13-inch, 2560 x 1400 display has 100,000:1 contrast ratio and a 1–2ms response time.

Specs range from a 6th generation Intel Core i5 / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 with 2GB GDDR5 all the way up to Core i7 and GTX 965 with 4GB GDDR5. Prices start at $1,299.

Pictured with Alienware Graphics Amplifier and... for some reason... a CG scorpion

Alpha R2 ("the console")

Ostensibly its most compact desktop — it's about the size of the original Nintendo Wii U — Alienware boasts that the new Alpha has 60 percent higher performance than the original model (which launched in 2014).

Like the OLED laptop, the Alpha uses 6th generation Intel Core processor. (Note that only select models have the Graphics Amplifier Port, which can enable 4K video output.) It also has Alienware's own "big screen" mode for use in the living room. Prices start at $599.

Aurora ("the tower")

The new Aurora desktop is smaller than previous versions but now with some of the design aesthetics of the massive Area-51 machines. Alienware says this is its first chassis with tool-less access for easy GPU swapping as well as up to three storage slots (there are five in all). Given that it's not trying for compactness, the range of spec options is pretty wide.

Area-51 R2 ("the behemoth")

The ginormous desktop now supports Intel's 10-core Broadwell-E processors and and Nvidia's "irresponsibly powerful" Pascal GPUs. It honestly just as important to mention it's dimensions, so let's take this moment to remind you that the Area-51 is more than 25 inches wide, more than 22 inches tall, and starts at 61 pounds. Prices "start" at $1,699 but can go considerably higher.