Pros & Cons
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- Slim and sturdy design with aluminum lid
- Fast Intel processor and capable RTX 5060 GPU
- Bright and sharp 240Hz 1600p display
- Wide port selection
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- A touch expensive for an RTX 5060
- No OLED option
- Single-zone RGB keyboard
Alienware 16X Aurora Specs
| Boot Drive Capacity (as Tested) | 1 |
| Boot Drive Type | SSD |
| Class | Gaming |
| Dimensions (HWD) | 0.92 by 14.05 by 10.45 inches |
| Graphics Memory | 8 |
| Graphics Processor | Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Laptop GPU |
| Native Display Resolution | 2560 by 1600 |
| Operating System | Windows 11 Home |
| Panel Technology | IPS |
| Processor | Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX |
| RAM (as Tested) | 16 |
| Screen Refresh Rate | 240 |
| Screen Size | 16 |
| Tested Battery Life (Hours:Minutes) | 5:39 |
| Variable Refresh Support | G-Sync |
| Weight | 5.66 |
| Wireless Networking | Bluetooth |
| Wireless Networking | Wi-Fi 7 |
Alienware’s laptop lineup has a new look in 2025, as seen with the Alienware 16 Area-51 and now the 16X Aurora (starts at $1,649.99). For a 16-inch gaming laptop, the 16X is thin and trim, with a sturdy build and vibrant 1600p display, as well as decidedly midrange baseline components. An Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX ensures speedy processing, and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 GPU (with the help of DLSS 4 as needed) delivers smooth gaming performance in most scenarios. The system is a touch on the pricey side for the core parts alone, but considering the whole package (and the steep discounts Dell occasionally offers), the 16X delivers a welcome midrange option for mainstream gamers. The entry-level Editors’ Choice MSI Katana 15 HX is a better performance-per-dollar pick, but the 16X is more potent.
Configurations and Components: The Higher-End Aurora Option
Alienware machines have generally cost more than your average gaming laptops, but the new Aurora line changes the math somewhat. One key distinction: The laptop comes in 16X Aurora and 16 Aurora (non-X) variants. The 16X, which I’ve reviewed here, has a moderately higher starting price and different component options.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)Meanwhile, the non-X Aurora starts off a lot budget-friendlier than the usual Alienware. The lowest configuration hits just $1,099.99 with a last-generation GPU, so you should consider it if you like the look of the 16X and want a less expensive option.
But let's get back to the 16X Aurora. I reviewed the $1,649.99 base model, with an Intel “Arrow Lake” Core Ultra 7 255HX processor, 16GB of memory, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 graphics processor (the lowest option on the 16X), and a 1TB solid-state drive. This loadout matches its midrange price point, though maybe you’d hope for a better GPU when approaching $1,700—some of the added cost comes from the laptop's build quality and 1TB SSD. Every 16X model comes with the same 240Hz 1600p display with G-Sync support.
I should note that Dell’s website frequently discounts PCs: The base 16X model is on sale for $1,299.99 at the time of writing, which is much more palatable. (However, it’s the same price that Nvidia itself promised back at launch for a beefier RTX 5070 laptop.) These discounts are subject to change, and you can’t bank on them, so you’ll have to just keep an eye out.
If you want a lesser GPU than this to cut costs, once again, you’ll need to look at the Alienware 16 (non-X) Aurora; it comes with an RTX 4050 or RTX 5050. If you want more power, the 16X can be outfitted with the Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, an RTX 5070 GPU, up to 64GB of memory, and a 4TB SSD. Some of these parts are locked together in the configurator: You can order the Ultra 9 processor with the RTX 5060, but if you want the RTX 5070, you have to upgrade the processor to Ultra 9.
Design: The Area-51’s Younger Sibling
Over the past few years, the Alienware M-series laptops have largely set the brand’s style—now comes a revamp. The push for a new look started with the Alienware 16 Area-51, the flagship high-end choice for enthusiasts, which swapped the old white-and-grey, honeycomb-heavy style for an iridescent blueish color scheme and a translucent LED rear block. It’s not too far of a departure from the previous design language, keeping a similar shape and feel, but it is distinctive.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)With the 16X, you get a toned-down counterpart to the Area-51. You’ll find no rear block, which reduces the overall footprint—0.92 by 14.05 by 10.45 inches (HWD)—and contributes to its comparably lower power ceiling. But the 16X shares the Area-51’s blueish hue, with an anodized aluminum lid and bottom panel for a high-quality feel. The redesigned cooling system (three heat pipes across the CPU and GPU, with doubled-up top-and-bottom cool-air intake) helps keep everything running efficiently inside the thin chassis. As for portability, the 16X weighs about five and a half pounds, so while it’s not exactly light, it will hardly prevent you from taking it on the go.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)The plastic keyboard deck isn't as nice as the metal portions, but it feels fine: reasonably comfortable, with enough noticeable travel in the keys. That said, the keys do feel a touch small overall (blame the number pad that Alienware squeezed in). While the 16X offers RGB key lighting, which you can customize with Alienware’s Command Center software, it's just across one zone and not per key. The touchpad delivers responsive action and pans smoothly, but is otherwise unremarkable.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)I have more straightforward praise for the sharp, bright display. A 240Hz refresh rate is excellent for gaming, with crisp resolution for both games and general use without pushing up to an extremely demanding 4K pixel count. Still, I’d like to see more panel options, particularly OLED.
The 16X delivers a slick, generous feel and feature set, though it is definitely a step down from the higher-end Area-51, which adds even more optional features like a mechanical keyboard, and flair extras like the bottom window and RGB touchpad.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)Dell distributed the ports across the laptop well, with plenty of options onboard. The left edge holds a USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 port, an Ethernet jack, and the audio jack, but no connections on the right side. You'll find the rest of them in the rear: another of the same USB Type-A port, dual USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 connections, and an HDMI port alongside the power connector.
Performance Testing: Midrange Graphics Power and Fast Processing
I ran the 16X Aurora through our usual benchmark suite to test its performance against the following systems.
You’ll notice a wide range of RTX 50-series GPUs in this group, to demonstrate the spectrum of graphics power for the current generation, and a mix of processors, too. At the low end, the MSI Katana 15 HX ($999.99 as tested) and Lenovo LOQ 15 ($1,299 as tested) bring an RTX 5050 and another RTX 5060 to the party, respectively, while the Intel-based Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 ($2,799.99 as tested) steps up with an RTX 5070 Ti. The Alienware 16 Area-51 ($3,399.99 as tested) is the top dog, with a powerful RTX 5080 GPU to show what a far more expensive laptop can do.
Productivity and Content Creation Tests
Our primary overall benchmark, UL's PCMark 10, puts a system through its paces in productivity apps ranging from web browsing to word processing and spreadsheet work. Its Full System Drive subtest measures a PC's storage throughput.
Three more tests are CPU-centric or processor-intensive: Maxon's Cinebench 2024 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene; Primate Labs' Geekbench 6.3 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning; and we see how long it takes the video transcoder HandBrake 1.8 to convert a 12-minute clip from 4K to 1080p resolution.
Finally, workstation maker Puget Systems' PugetBench for Creators rates a PC's image editing prowess with a variety of automated operations in Adobe Photoshop 25.
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The 16X proved to be a snappy laptop for productivity and general use. The “H” processor series denotes higher performance, and it lived up to its name even without the Core Ultra 9 upgrade: The 16X finished notably close to the superior Area-51 in Cinebench and HandBrake, and outpaced the higher-end Asus laptop, likely due to its thin-and-light thermal constraints. The 16X also scored respectably in Photoshop, suggesting decent photo editing chops.
We’ll get to the gaming numbers, but if you also want a daily driver or even a media editing machine for work, the 16X is up to the task between gaming sessions.
Graphics and Gaming Tests
We challenge all systems’ graphics with a quintet of animations or gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark test suite. The first two we use, Wild Life (1440p) and Wild Life Extreme (4K), stress the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds. The next pair, Steel Nomad's regular and Light subtests, focuses on APIs more commonly used for game development, like Metal and DirectX 12, to assess gaming geometry and particle effects. Last, we turn to Solar Bay to measure ray-tracing performance in a synthetic environment.
Our real-world gaming testing comes from the in-game benchmarks of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and F1 2024. These three games—all benchmarked at the system’s full HD (1080p or 1200p native) resolution—represent competitive shooter, open-world, and simulation games, respectively. If the screen is capable of a higher resolution, we rerun the tests at the QHD equivalent of 1440p or 1600p. Each game runs at two sets of graphics settings per resolution for up to four runs total on each game.
We run the Call of Duty benchmark at the Minimum graphics preset—aimed at maximizing frame rates to test display refresh rates—and again at the Extreme preset. Our Cyberpunk 2077 test settings aim to push PCs fully, so we run it on the Ultra graphics preset and again at the all-out Ray Tracing Overdrive preset without DLSS or FSR. Finally, F1 2024 represents our DLSS effectiveness (or FSR on AMD systems) test, demonstrating a GPU’s capacity for frame-boosting upscaling technologies. The capacity of these frame-rate boosts changes with the version of frame-generation tech available, with DLSS 2 and 3 stitching in one AI-generated frame for every originally rendered frame, and DLSS 4 inserting up to three additional frames. (FSR can generate up to four new frames per original, while XeSS can only stitch in one new frame per original frame.)
Also, the Lenovo LOQ 15 and MSI Katana 15 HX were not tested at 1440p or 1600p since they both have just 1080p displays, so they’re not included in those charts below.
The test results generally stack up as expected from these GPUs—the RTX 5060 is decent, but the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 are superior. The RTX 5060 did deliver some positives—particularly the Call of Duty frame rates at all settings—and you can enjoy high-refresh-rate gaming at most settings. Plus, our maxed-out native-resolution run still posted over 60fps.
At the same time, the RTX 5060 clearly has limited horsepower before bringing DLSS into the equation. F1 barely passed 60 fps even at 1200p, and it couldn’t crack a 40-fps average at 1600p; Cyberpunk similarly only saw 50 fps at native resolution at Ultra settings without ray tracing active. When it was active, frame rates didn’t even approach 30 fps. (Granted, we expect even top-end GPUs to struggle with Cyberpunk.)
Those are important caveats, since they show the general muscle of the GPU. But here's where DLSS 4 steps in to make up the difference. While some enthusiasts buck against the upscaling technology, it’s where you'll find the most room for performance gains, and it’s too useful to ignore for entry-level and midrange systems. At most settings, DLSS has much less of a negative visual impact than it used to, and mainstream shoppers will mostly enjoy the smooth frame rates far more than they notice any fuzziness or ghosting. It’s sharp and effective enough to recommend in most cases—only at extreme performance-focused settings does DLSS really show its cracks.
That’s especially true with frame generation (FG), which inserts artificial frames between traditionally rendered frames. The F1 results above with DLSS active included frame generation; you can see its impact. While it’s not part of our usual suite, I also ran Cyberpunk tests with DLSS and FG active. I kept the same ray-tracing overdrive settings at 1600p (the 4 fps result above), then activated DLSS (set to transformer model, automatic quality), and did three runs with FG off, FG active, and multi-frame generation active (listed as 4X FG in game). These runs improved the original result to 27 fps, 34 fps, and 46 fps, respectively. Even the 4X run looked visually sharp enough to pass muster.
I’m sympathetic to the idea that a laptop at this price shouldn’t need to boost frame rates as much as possible, but remember that the path tracing done at Cyberpunk’s Overdrive visual setting is cutting-edge stuff; look at the 16X's 134-fps result from F1 (up from 39 fps) for evidence of the difference in less strenuous games. Top-end laptops would fare better, and desktop graphics cards are better-equipped for these demands.
If all that seems too far into the weeds for you, just know that flipping on the 16X's DLSS will improve frame rates without much of a visual-quality hit. If you also ramp up a game’s available frame generation setting, you can make even the most demanding gaming scenarios playable, getting far higher frame rates in most titles—which is ultimately the goal. Less demanding and older games won’t need DLSS at all to achieve 60 fps and beyond. Long story short, the RTX 5060 isn’t a beast in terms of raw power, but it has the tools to make this a fully capable gaming laptop.
Battery Life and Display Tests
We test each laptop's battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie "Tears of Steel") with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.
To gauge display performance, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
The 16X delivers decent battery life, neither too short nor very impressive, but we don’t typically expect extended run-time from power-hungry gaming laptops. Things only get dire when battery life slips below 4 hours.
The display proved as bright in the testing as it did to my eyes, with one of the better results in the bunch. It’s luminous at both 50% and 100% brightness, with broad color coverage, too.