Great RTX 4080 gaming laptops are hard to find under $2,000, but this Alienware M16 is a whole lot of horsepower for $1,900

Alienware M16 RTX 4080 gaming laptop — (Image credit: Alienware)

Alienware M16 | RTX 4080 | Ryzen 9 7845HX | 16-inch | 1600p | 240 Hz | 32GB DDR5-5200 | 1TB SSD | $2,699.99 $1,899.99 at Best Buy (save $800)
This Alienware is a bit of a chonky machine, but for this price its got some serious components that are well worth looking at. There's a 175 W TGP RTX 4080 for proper graphics horsepower, 32 GB of decently fast DDR5, and a 12-core Ryzen 9 processor with plenty of gaming grunt. A 240 Hz 1600p panel rounds off a high-performance laptop with proper credentials.

Alienware is a brand that many associate with distinctive chassis designs, speedy components, and a high price tag. While this Alienware M16 gaming laptop has the first two covered, I've spotted it for $1,900 at Best Buy, and at that price it's one of the best RTX 4080 gaming laptop deals I've seen in a while.

It's a bit of a chonky chassis design this, what with a fairly substantial rear lip and a significantly large lower deck, but it does manage to cram some truly high-performance components into that frame. For a start, let's talk about the GPU. Here you're getting the mobile RTX 4080 with a 175 W TDP, and that's a much better shout for a mobile GPU than the RTX 4090 laptops we test on the regular.

It's got a much better chance of delivering high performance without throttling back, and it shaves a significant amount off the price. In fact, it's about as high as we recommend you go in Nvidia's mobile GPU range, and should have no problem at all scything through the most demanding games, especially with DLSS 3 and Frame Generation to push those frame rates up into the stratosphere.

The 16-inch 240 Hz 1600p panel should have no problem displaying as many of those frames as possible, too. Plus with 32 GB of DDR5-5200, you won't have to do the browser-tab-dance every time you boot into a game either—unlike a lot of other gaming laptops that are still getting away with 16 GB, which is a little on the tight side these days for a modern gaming system.

Sitting at the heart of this machine is an AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX CPU with 12 cores, 24 threads and a 5.2 GHz boost clock. That's a Zen 4 chip that'll have no problems at all speeding through the most demanding of tasks, and while it's not as much of a multi-tasking productivity wonder as some of Intel's top-end offerings, it'll still chew through just about anything you can throw at it with relative ease.

So what's not to like? Well, that chassis design isn't for everyone, and it's only $200 away from the best RTX 4080 gaming laptop we've ever tested—the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i—which is currently available for $2,099 at B&H photo.

I'd also stick a bigger SSD in it, as 1 TB is fine to get started with, but a cheap 2 TB Gen 4 NVMe drive would really round it out into something special.

Still, if you want comparable specs for less, this Alienware M16 really does have a lot going for it. It might be from a brand that often commands a very high price, but for here you're getting a laptop that can keep up with some of the very best, for money that makes a whole lot of sense.

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Andy built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 12, when IDE cables were a thing and high resolution wasn't—and he hasn't stopped since. Now working as a hardware writer for PC Gamer, Andy spends his time jumping around the world attending product launches and trade shows, all the while reviewing every bit of PC gaming hardware he can get his hands on. You name it, if it's interesting hardware he'll write words about it, with opinions and everything.