The Alienware M17x-R4 is clearly an exceptional and exclusive piece of kit. It’s not the fastest thing around, as there are some SLI and Crossfire systems that can outpace it in terms of sheer GPU brawn.

However, our tests prove that it can cope with all hot gaming titles, in many cases with maxed out detail settings. It is possible to get playable framerates at 1920x1080, although in some cases the detail levels will have to be adjusted.

Aside from gaming, we must say that we were fascinated by the system responsiveness in multitasking, even when dealing with relatively demanding applications. Simply switching from a game to another application is very fast indeed.

The M17x R4 is available in a range of configurations, so getting more performance, or less performance for less money, is possible as well. We didn’t get the fastest model, but it was close. With a top notch quad core processor, a very fast single GPU and SSD storage it practically had not bottlenecks.

Build quality is excellent, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given the price, and the price ranges between €2000 and €3000 for most configurations. However, we are dealing with a notebook that can outpace most desktops out there. The high price means that the Alienware M17x R4 will be a rare sight, but it is almost the ultimate notebook for power users.

Of course, although it is primarily designed for gaming, it looks like a good choice for anyone in need of a lot of mobile performance, professionals who need to run a lot of virtual machines, 3D modeling software or do some video editing on the go.