The Alienware 18 Area-51 Gaming Laptop Is on Sale: New Style, More Power, Better Cooling

The Alienware 18 Area-51 is by no means a slim laptop, measuring nearly an inch thick and weighing in at a beefy 10 pounds. It's intended to be more of a mobile desktop replacement than a commuter's laptop for toting around to work or class on a daily basis. The larger form factor carries several major advantages for gamers, like an expansive 18" display, full-sized keyboard with a separate numpad, and a bigger, more robust cooling system.

Both Alienware 18 Area-51 models are equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor. This CPU boasts a max turbo frequency of 5.4GHz with a whopping 24 cores and 40MB total L2 cache. According to Passmark, this is one of the fastest mobile processors on the market, going head to head with the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D.

The RTX 5080 mobile GPU is roughly 15%-20% more powerful than the RTX 4080 mobile GPU that it replaces. It also happens to be about 5% more powerful than the RTX 4090, which was the previous generation's flagship card. The RTX 5080 appears to be a better value than the much pricier RTX 5090 as well. It only lags by about 15% despite being nearly $1,000 cheaper. Since the Alienware Area-51 uses a QHD+ (2560x1600) instead of 4K display, this GPU should be able to run new and upcoming games at high framerates, even more so if the game supports the new DLSS 4 tech.

The Area-51: New Style, More Power, Better Cooling

New for 2025, the Alienware Area-51 gaming laptop features a magnesium alloy chassis with upgraded cooling to tackle the latest and greatest heat generating components. This includes more fans and bigger cutouts enabling greater airflow, more generous use of copper, and a new thermal interface material to better transfer heat away from the core components. Dell claims that the laptop can handle a higher power ceiling of up to 240W TDP without raising acoustics.

Design-wise, the Area 51 emphasizes smooth contours with rounded edges and soft corners. The hinges are also internally positioned so that they're nearly invisible. Like other Alienware laptops, there are ample RGB LED customization options so you know its meant for gaming. Connectivity-wise, you get three USB Type-A 3.2 15Gbps ports (one with PowerShare), two Thunderbolt / USB Type-C ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, card reader, and RJ45 ethernet port.

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