 I almost titled this video the best gaming laptop money can buy. But I just can't do that. It's infuriating because the cooling, the screen, the keyboard, and the build quality, almost everything about this new Alienware X17 is exceptional. Except for one massive flaw that makes it perform worse. And this Lenovo that's $600 cheaper. Do you know what never underperforms though? My segues to our sponsor, Honey. Honey is the free to use shopping tool that helps search for some of the best promo codes on loads of your favorite sites. Get it today at joinhoney.com slash ltt. Side by side, it is hard to tell the difference between the outgoing M17 and the new X17. But the first couple things I noticed weren't great. The numpad is gone, which isn't fantastic on a modern desktop replacement. And the trackpad has become smaller. I was in the process of angrily typing about how Alienware is going backwards. But then the fans on the M17 kicked in while I was installing a program. At which point I realized the X17 had yet to make a sound. This is when I started to appreciate just how much cooling there is in this laptop. Like look, there's vents, vents, vents, vents back here and vents down here. Like how else are you going to cool a 165 watt RTX 3080 in a laptop that's this thin without starting efficient reaction? I've said in previous videos that because Turbo Boost has gotten so good, if your laptop isn't thermal throttling, you're leaving performance on the table. But Alienware has done something incredible with this X17, giving the RTX 3080 and the 8 core i7 every single watt it possibly could. And we're still not seeing 100 degrees on the CPU. Even more impressively, the X17 manages these temps without sounding like an audio immersion mod for Flight Simulator. I can confidently say that this is the best cool laptop on the market that isn't as chunky as Thicken Nugget. So it should be able to handily outperform the identically specced Lenovo Legion 7. Should. In practice, it's more of a mixed bag with the Legion and the Alienware trading blows in our gaming benchmarks. Even more humiliating, the X17 was unable to consistently beat the M17 it's supposed to be replacing. Now, to be clear, it isn't like the X17 is slow. The gaming experience on this thing is sublime. But for the exact same spec, this one's $600 less. And I want the performance to be able to back up the price tag on this thing. So why isn't this laptop that's clearly better cooled and just running faster, not running faster in games? Well, it all comes to a little doohookie called a muck switch. See, in laptops with both a discrete GPU and a CPU with integrated graphics, the discrete GPU signal is routed through the iGPU before being routed to the display. This allows the CPU to decide whether or not it needs high efficiency or high performance. But while this is great for saving battery life, it also results in a 5 to 10% performance hit. A muck switch performs the same basic function, but without requiring the dedicated GPU to be routed through the iGPU, eliminating that performance hit while keeping the battery life benefits and also allowing you to use G-Sync as a cherry on top. Clearly, you want a muck switch in your laptop. Not so clearly, Alienware has only included one in the 1080p 360Hz screen option for the X17, leaving the 165Hz and 4K panel options high and dry. Normally, the reason to not include a muck switch is cost, but Dell, this is a $3600 laptop. Give it a f***ing muck switch. I retested the games connected to an external display and yep, 5 to 10% more performance, making the X17 the undisputed king. By the way, if you want to look like a king, check out our new dad hats. They're brand new, but they look like they were dropped in the ocean. LTTstore.com. Anyway, the main reason I'm so annoyed about a relatively small amount of performance is that everything else on this machine is nearly perfect. The X17 is undeniably well built. Magnesium chassis is just incredibly stiff, and their silky smooth finish, it really lives up to its name, even if it is a bit of a fingerprint magnet. Sure, rigidity alone does not justify the premium, but this keyboard just might. In here we have the optional Cherry Mechanical keyboard and it is fantastic. Like it is a $50 add-on, but if you're looking at this laptop, you're clearly not concerned with getting the most bang for your buck. I've already done a full video on this keyboard so I won't rave about it for too long, but simply put, this is the first mechanical keyboard in a laptop that is actually good. There's loads of travel, a very distinct tactile bump, and the keys are shockingly well supported. Like it's a gaming laptop, but you could totally write a novel on it. The trackpad on the other hand is just fine. It's glass topped, RGB, the feel while using it is credible, but I just wish we had more of it. I understand they had to do this for the sake of cooling, but it just can't compare to the Zephyrus M16. Another area I was concerned Alienware had fallen behind the pack was the screen. I absolutely love 16x10 displays for productivity, especially on smaller laptops, but the 17-inch size on here more than makes up for it. And with a 4K 120Hz panel, it is possibly the most immersive gaming experience I've ever had on a laptop. There are only a handful of laptops out there where this panel makes any sense. You need the grant from a proper 165W RTX 3080 to get modern games past 60fps at 4K on a laptop, and if you plan on getting super sweaty, just get the 360Hz panel. But man, with this GPU, this 4K panel, it looks so good. From here we don't really have a script, but I want to do crab rave. Yeah it's not as good. Yeah that's way better. Dill! Just take the speakers from this one and put it in this one! What are you doing? I honestly thought it would be better. Moving on, the I.O. that you get in this guy is very solid. Like, there's nothing that I really want back here, except for just knowing what is back here. It's really difficult to reach around and plug in your stuff. And Lenovo has a really simple solution for this, where they just simply have some text that lights up. That allows you to know exactly where to plug in your stuff. Excellent solution. I want to take it apart now though. I haven't because I'm a bit scared of the insides. The first bit of disassembly is super easy. 8 Phillips head screws and boom. Bottom panel comes off and we have access to two RAM slots and two SSDs. Awesome, love to see it. That's realistically all that I'd expect to be able to upgrade in something like this. Oh, and the battery. 87 watt hours, which is good for maybe five hours if you're lucky. I do wish that they had an AMD CPU option because then probably at like two, maybe even three more hours and like nine hours of battery life is way different feeling than five. Disconnect the battery, speaking of that. Dell was so proud of the cooling that they put in this. Like, you can see these four fans, the heat sinks go all the way along the side and they're up here and apparently with some CFD stuff, they optimized it so that the airflow would not just go over these fins, but also around all of the components in here. So your RAM and SSDs and VRMs and such are also pretty well cooled. Two more Phillips screws and this comes off with a bit of effort. If the laptop is not on and all of the B roll shots, you now know why. That was in no way easy, but it is really convenient that Dell has only two types of screws in here and it's M2X4 and M2X3 and all of them are marked. Ha ha ha ha. We have done it. And oh, that's not what I was expecting at all, but that is really impressive. Holy frig, look at those heat pipes. So I think that we have like vapor chamber, vapor chamber, and then big Chungus. Maybe there's like 12 millimeter heat pipes. One, two, three, four of them plus five. One on the other side for some probably VRMs. This is why I'm so annoyed. They have this beautiful cooling system for fans, 12 phase VRMs for the GPU. This is seriously impressive crap. And then they just don't have a muck switch on it. Alienware, come on. Oh, so then in almost every way, the Alienware X17 is the best gaming laptop money can buy. And you can tell your friends all about the keyboard and the screen and the chassis and the cooling system. But you'll have that one friend that watched this video and knows that you paid a metric buttload of money for laptop that could have easily been 10% more powerful if Dell had just simply included a fricking muck switch. What would be even more embarrassing is if this thing right here ends up being more powerful. It's a blatant Alienware ripoff, but it does have a muck switch and an AMD CPU. So get subscribed. I'm starting to work on this tomorrow. What can't wait until tomorrow though, is a segue to our sponsor Micro Center. Micro Center is one of the best places to shop for all of your technology needs. With the best prices and the best selection on computer hardware and everything else, technology related, at one of Micro Center's 25 locations across the US. Micro Center has a growing lineup of business solutions for small and medium sized businesses featuring workstation computers from Dell Precision and Supermicro. They have experts on staff who will advise and make recommendations as to why a server, business desktop or workstation is the right choice for you. They offer services around repairing business systems, replacing components and any related technical support issues. New customers can check the link in the video description for coupon code for a free 240GB SSD. No purchase necessary in-store only. Thanks for watching this video. If you're still unsure what laptop to get, check out a review of the Zephyrus G15. It's not quite as powerful, but it's way easier to live with every day.