In the move towards thinner and lighter builds whilst retaining desktop-like performance, one might think that the days of the larger and beefier gaming laptop are numbered. Well, not so says Alienware. The new Alienware Area-51m, announced at CES 2019, is not only one of the most powerful portable gaming machines ever created it also features a design that will allow for switching out the GPU and CPU. Desktop style.

And all while still looking and behaving like a gaming laptop and wrapped up in the latest Alienware "Legend" design.







Alienware, which is a company that has been pushing gaming hardware for a few decade now, first released a modular laptop almost twenty years ago - where you could swap out the GPU. So there is precedent. But, it's only been in recent years where the gaming laptop has reached its true potential - that being true portable desktop performance. With that in mind even though you can swap out the GPU or CPU with the new Area-51m, that's probably a decision to shelve for a few years - as at launch it'll feature both NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics as well as 9th generation Intel Core i7 and i9 processors.

How it manages to support this ability to change out parts is due to the implementation of Intel’s Z390 desktop chipset, which also leads to more advanced cooling and the ability to overclock existing hardware even further. All of this will be handled by the new Alienware Command Center that will give users full control over hardware and cooling in addition to lighting and in-game profile support.

Like with all Alienware laptops the new Area-51m (which is an awesome name by the way) will launch in various CPU/memory/GPU revisions - but as of yet there's no firm local release date or pricing.

UPDATE: The new Alienware Area-51m will start from $3999 and be available starting January 30.