A motherboard is the heart and soul of any PC, whether dekstop or laptop. Now is the time to upgrade to play recent and forthcoming games for 2013.

The $2,000 price point in laptops can be said to be the place to start for serious gamers on the road.  Top-of-the line laptops from various brands are excellent gaming laptops and Dell’s Alienware m17x-R4 is the 2012 iteration of its now-famous m17x line. At $2,048.83, the Dell Alienware M17x R4 AM17xR4-8424BK  in stealth black and soft touch body finish offers desktop-grade computing muscle that leverages on its tradition of being one of the most popular gaming laptops in the world. That should not be a surprise considering that the Alienware m17x has been Dell’s flagship laptop and is considered one of the fastest gaming laptops since 2009, supplanted only by a larger and heavier 18-inch laptops in the m18x series introduced in 2011 and sporting dual GPU engines to become the undisputed gaming laptop kings. Check out the cheapest deal on the market.

The gaming engine

Powered by a 3^rd generation Intel Ivy Bridge quad core i7-3630QM with 6MB L3 cache and clocked at 2.4GHz that can reach 3.4GHz with Turbo boost technology and supported by an 8GB DDR3 system RAM running at 1600MHz, this m17xR4 specimen drives its stunning HD 1920 x 1080 resolution 17.3-inch LED-backlit LCD display with a mid-range Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M GPU considered the fastest single-chip laptop graphics as of March 2012.  It belongs in the high end family of GTX 600M series graphic cards for laptops. With a 2GB GDDR5 video RAM, it can play Crysis 3 and Tomb Raider just recently released at game settings that maximizes the laptop’s high definition display.

Even the highly demanding Metro 2033 released last year has no problem delivering 73fps at high game setting. Needless to say, all the sophisticated RPG and FSP games released last year play seamless at high to highest game settings, making the Alienware m17xR4 one of your best gaming laptops for 2013.  As an added bonus, the i7 comes integrated with the Intel HD Graphics 4000 which gives you the option to go down in graphics processing muscle to play less demanding games, watch an HD movie or run some mundane office productivity tools without draining the batteries early.  NVidia’s 600M series supports Optimus that allows this switching option.

Upscale multimedia features

At its price point, you’d expect a laptop to have nothing less than an excellent set of multimedia features.  And this specimen does not disappoint as it can serve as your entertainment center at home, at the campus or when visiting your friends out of town.  You get superb sound from its high fidelity Klipsch-certified speakers so you can enjoy your games with decent sounds that would normally come for external speakers. You can also connect this to a large 42-inch plasma screen via HDMI and be thrilled with its 7.1 surround audio.

Other high end features

• 750GB SATA II hard drive running  at 7200 rpm with option to use SSD thank to its three bays (2 regular 2.5-inch bays and 1 mSATA bay);
• Slot-load dual layer optical drive;
• Bundled with 64-bit Windows 8 Home Edition;
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n,  Bluetooth 4.0 and Centrino’s wireless N2230;
• 9-in-1 media card reader, HDMI in and out, VGA port and Mini-DisplayPort, four USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 ports; and
• 12-month on-site warranty that can be extended to 3 years and accidental damage coverage you can purchase.

The lowdown

The Alienware m17x may offer the best gaming experience for a laptop, but this comes at the expense of size and heft which, fortunately, serious gamers understand as the tradeoffs for a truly powerful gaming laptop.  Weight is a real back-breaking  9.7 lbs (4.4kg).  You don’t want to lug this around on a backpack, though sedentary gamers who want to lose weight won’t mind. But for most people, it is best carried in your car or SUV and then used on a desk, not on your lap.  Battery life can be considered decent at 2.5 hours for a power-hungry gaming laptop, but below standard as most laptops can now provide twice as much. But it is unlikely serious gamers will want to play their games on battery power.

Conclusion

If you are in the market for a second or backup gaming device that can match your desktop with whatever game you throw in, this is one laptop you shouldn’t miss.  Whatever specific model you get the Alienware m17x is Dell’s premier gaming brand first introduced in 2009 and now owns the gaming laptop markets in 45 countries. In short, the name is synonymous to what a gaming laptop is. Check out the cheapest deal on the market.