WEBVTT

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I almost titled this video the best gaming laptop money can buy but I just

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can't do that it's infuriating because the cooling the screen the keyboard and

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the build quality almost everything about this new Alienware X17 is

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exceptional except for one massive flaw that makes it perform worse in this

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Lenovo that's $600 cheaper

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side by side it is hard to tell the difference between the outgoing m17 and

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the new X17 but the first couple things

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I noticed weren't great the numpad is gone which isn't fantastic on a modern

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desktop replacement and the trackpad has become smaller I was in the process of

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angrily typing about how alien wear is going backwards but then the fans on the

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m17 kicked in while I was installing a program at which point I realized the

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X17 had yet to make a sound this is when

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I started to appreciate just how much cooling there is in this laptop like

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look there's vents vents vents uh vents

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back here and vents down here like how else are you going to cool 165 wat RTX

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380 in a laptop that's this thin without

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starting a fishing reaction I've said in previous videos that because turbo boost

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has gotten so good if your laptop isn't thermal throttling you're leaving

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performance on the table but Alienware has done something incredible with this

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X17 giving the RTX 380 and the 8 core i7

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every single watt it possibly could and we're still not seeing 100° on the CPU

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even more impressively the X17 manages these temps without sounding like an

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audio immersion mod for flight simulator I can confidently say that this is the

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best cool laptop on the market that isn't as chunky as thick and nugget so

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it should be able to handily outperform the identically spec Lenovo Legion 7

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should in practice it's more of a mixed

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bag with the legion and the alien wear trading blows in our gaming benchmarks

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even more humiliating the X17 was unable

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to consistently beat the m17 it's supposed to be replacing now to be clear

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it isn't like the X17 is slow the gaming experience on this thing is Sublime but

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for the exact same spec this one's $600

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less and I want the performance to be able to back up the price tag on this

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thing so why isn't this laptop that's

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clearly better cooled and just running faster not running faster in games well

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it all comes to a little do hookie called a Muk switch see in laptops with

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both a discret GPU and a CPU with integrated Graphics the discret GPU

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signal is routed through the igpu before being routed to the display this allows

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the CPU to decide whether or not it needs high efficiency or high

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performance but well this is great great for saving battery life it also results

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in a 5 to 10% performance hit a Muk

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switch performs the same basic function but without requiring the dedicated GPU

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to be routed through the igpu eliminating that performance hit while

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keeping the battery life benefits and also allowing you to use g-sync as a

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cherry on top clearly you want a mck switch in your laptop not so clearly

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Alienware has only included one in the 1080p 360 HZ screen option for the X17

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the leaving the 165 HZ and 4K panel options high and dry normally the reason

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to not include a Muk switch is cost but Dell this is a

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$3600 laptop give it aing Muk switch I

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retested the games connected to an external display and yep 5 to 10% more

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performance making the X17 the Undisputed King by the way if you want

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to look like a king check out our new dad hats they're brand new but they look

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like they're dropped in the ocean LTD store.com anyway the main reason I'm so

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annoyed about a relatively small amount of performance is that everything else

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on this machine is nearly perfect the X17 is undeniably wellb built magnesium

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chassis is just incredibly stiff and their silky smooth

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finish it really lives up to its name even if it is a bit of a fingerprint

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magnet sure rigidity alone does not justify the premium but this keyboard

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just might in here we have the optional Cherry mechanical keyboard and it is

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fantastic like it is a $50 add-on but if

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you're looking at this laptop you're clearly not concerned with getting the

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most bang FB we've already done a full video on this keyboard so I won't Rave

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about it for too long but simply put this is the first mechanical keyboard in

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a laptop that is actually good there's

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loads of travel a very distinct tacti bump and the keys are shockingly well

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supported like it's a gaming laptop but you could totally right an novel on it

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the trackpad on the other hand is just fine it's glass topped RGB the feel

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while using it is incredible but I just wish we had more of it I understand they

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had to do this for the sake of cooling but it just can't compare to the

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zephyris M16 another area I was concerned Alienware had fallen behind

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the pack was the screen I absolutely love 16 X10 displays for productivity

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especially on smaller laptops but the 17-in size on here more than makes up

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for it and with a 4 K 120 HZ panel it is

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possibly the most immersive gaming experience I've ever had on a laptop

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there are only a handful of laptops out there where this panel makes any sense

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you need the grunt from a proper 165 wat

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RTX 380 to get modern games past 60 FPS

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at 4K and a laptop and if you plan on

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getting super sweaty just get the 360 HZ

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panel but man with this GPU this 4K

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panel it looks so good good from here we

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don't really have a script but I want to do crab

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raave yeah it's not as

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good yeah that's way better D just take

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the speakers from this one and put it in this one what are you doing I honestly

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thought it would be better moving on the io that you get in this guy is very

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solid like there's nothing that I really want back here except for just knowing

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what is back here it's really difficult to reach around and plug in your stuff

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and Lenovo has a really simple solution for this where they just simply have

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some text that lights up that allows you to know exactly where to plug in your

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stuff excellent solution I want to take it apart now

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though I haven't cuz I'm a bit scared of the insides the first bit of disassembly

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is super easy eight Phillips head screws and boom bottom panel comes off and we

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have access to two RAM slots and two

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ssds awesome love to see it that's

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realistically all that I'd expect to be able to upgrade in something like this

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oh and the battery 87 wat hours which is

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good for maybe 5 hours if you're lucky I

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do wish that they had an AMD CPU option cuz then probably get like two maybe

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even three more hours and like 9 hours

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of battery life is way different feeling than five let's disconnect the battery

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speaking of that Dell was so proud of the cooling that they put in this like

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you can see these four fans the heat sinks go all the way along the side and

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they're up here and apparently with some cfd stuff they

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optimized it so that the air flow would not just go over these fins but also

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around all the components in here so your RAM and ssds and vrms and such are

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also pretty well

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cooled two more fillip screws and this comes off with a bit of effort if the

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laptop is not on and the b-roll shots you now know

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why that was in no way easy but it is

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really convenient that Dell has only two types of screws in here and it's m2x 4

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and m2x 3 and all of them are marked

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oh we have done it and oh that's not

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what I was expecting at all but that is really impressive holy frig look at

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those heat pipes so I think that we have like Vapor chamber Vapor chamber and

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then big chungus maybe there's like 12

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mm heat pipes uh one two three four of

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them plus five one on the other side for

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some probably vrms this is why I'm so

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annoyed they have this beautiful cooling system four fans 12 phase vrms for the

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GPU this is seriously impressive crap

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and then they just don't have a Muk switch on it alien wear come

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on so then in almost every way the

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Alienware X17 is the best gaming laptop

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money can buy and you can tell your friends all about the keyboard and the

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screen and the chassis and the cooling system but you'll have that one friend

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that watched this video and knows that you paid a metric buttload of money for

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a laptop that could have easily been 10% more powerful if Dell had just simply

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included a freaking mck switch well

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would be even more embarrassing is if this

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thing right here ends up being more powerful it's a blade and Alienware

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ripoff but it does have a Muk switch and an AMD CPU so get subscribed I'm

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starting to work on this tomorrow what can't wait until tomorrow

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store only thanks for watching this video if you're still unsure what laptop

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to get check out a review of the zephrus g15 it's not quite as powerful but it's

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way easier to live with every day