Alienware Aera 51m Laptop Can be Upgraded Down the Road

One of the big reasons that gamers build their own PCs, rather than saving money, is that they can upgrade their CPU and GPU whenever the need and budget allows. Typically when you buy a laptop the hardware it comes with is what you are stuck with, other than possibly upgrading storage and RAM.

Alienware is changing that with the new Aera 51m gaming laptop supporting an upgradable CPU and GPU so as technology advances you don’t have to throw out your notebook and buy another. The machine runs desktop-class CPUs and supports Alienware Graphics Amplifier for more powerful graphics cards.

The machine has a 17.3-inch screen in either 60Hz base or 144Hz upgraded configurations with the latter supporting Tobi eye tracking. It’s not an ultraportable at 8.5 pounds, but it supports 2.5-inch storage drives and a pair of M.2 drives. One oddity is that the machine ships with and needs two power adapters to power its hardware reports ExtremeTech.

The machine supports up to an Intel Core i9-9900K processor and Dell Graphics Form Factor GPU up to an RTX 2080. Any other desktop grade Intel chip using the same socket can be swapped into the machine. Alienware says that it is committed to offering upgraded GPUs in the required form factor for the computer, but we have no idea what those will cost.