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The Alienware 16X Aurora with Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 graphics is my favorite gaming laptop for most people. It’s a really solid mid-ranger that offers stellar performance for the money, an incredible 240Hz matte display, and a dreamy keyboard. It’s also not particularly flashy, so if you don’t want a machine that looks like a stereotypical gaming laptop, step right up (though its loud fan will probably give it away).
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The 16X Aurora delivers astonishingly good performance for a laptop that comes in right at $2,000 as tested. Its Geekbench 6 multi-core score of 19,774 means it’s the third-fastest laptop we’ve ever tried after the $3,599.99 Lenovo Legion Pro 7i 16 OLED (20,369) and the $3,649 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M4 Pro chip (22,758). That’s not a huge surprise, considering the 16X Aurora I tried packed a new, high-end Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, but hey, so did that $3,600 Lenovo model. You get comparable oomph for a fraction of the cost.
In 3DMark’s TimeSpy benchmark, which we run on gaming laptops to measure their graphics performance, the 16X Aurora notched a 14,023. That’s the fourth-best score in our database, and 15 percent better than the score of the Alienware m16 R2 with last-gen RTX 4070 graphics. (That’s its predecessor and our previous top pick in this category.) Suffice to say, AAA games run great on it.
The downside of this power is that the 16X Aurora runs loud and warm. Its keyboard and the vent above it were always a little toasty during my testing, even when I was just using the laptop to browse the web. Plugging it in and playing Cyberpunk 2077 made the fans roar, though its surface never developed any truly hot spots, so I suppose they were doing their job. Unplugging the 16X Aurora lessens the fan noise by quite a bit, but the issue there is that the machine doesn’t last very long on battery. When I had it run our video rundown test with its dedicated GPU and RGB keyboard backlighting off, it died after five hours and 40 minutes. (Turning on both features will drain it much faster.) You’re sort of in a tough spot: Either learn to plan your gaming sessions around its charging cycles, or invest in an amazing pair of noise-cancelling headphones.
On a more positive note, I have no major qualms with the 16X Aurora’s design. I don’t see it being very divisive, as gaming laptops’ aesthetics can sometimes be. It’s bathed in a dark navy blue color called “Interstellar Indigo,” and its only accent is an iridescent Alienware logo on its lid. Its top and bottom panels are made from smooth aluminum; it holds onto fingerprints but has an otherwise premium feel. My hands flew over its clicky island-style keyboard, which includes a numpad. Its touchpad is plastic like the rest of its keyboard deck, but it felt nice and smooth. (I will mention that it’s off-center, which might bug some folks.) Its webcam is grainy garbagio, but that’s not dire. Anyone who’s doing serious streaming on this thing will be buying a separate webcam.
My absolute favorite component is probably the 16X Aurora’s display. It has a 240Hz refresh rate, a crisp 2.5K resolution, vibrant colors, and, crucially, a matte finish. I haven’t seen a laptop screen this matte since I tried the Dell XPS 13 (RIP), and I think it makes for a really comfy, pleasant viewing experience.
Like most gaming laptops, the 16X Aurora is bulky and heavy. It weighs close to six pounds on its own, and its 280W charger adds an extra two. Plan on having it parked on a desk.