Dell doesn't usually waste much time integrating new processors into its gaming products, but just in time, the company's Alienware division has announced a top-to-bottom refresh of its notebook and desktop PCs with Intel's recently announced 10th generation "Comet Lake" CPUs. The company announced a bottom-to-bottom refresh of its products.

For laptops, the Area-51m R2 is the fastest in Alienware's lineup. It has a 17.3" display with several resolution and refresh rate options (4K at 60Hz, 1080p at 144Hz or 300Hz, and G-Sync options).

But it's not just the screen that is large. At 15.85" deep and 12.66" wide, it is a rather chunky laptop that is 1.7" at its tallest point (1.09" at its lowest). It weighs between 9.04 and 10.04 pounds, depending on the hardware configuration.

Part of the reason for the relatively large and heavy profile is to accommodate Alienware's new "Cryo-Tech" cooling scheme.

"This innovative design includes a new honeycomb air intake panel above the keyboard, larger fan blades, and feet for better height," Alienware says, "For the first time, vapor chamber cooling and up to 12 phase HyperEfficient Voltage Regulation in select configurations to help maintain power levels during long, uninterrupted gaming sessions."

Cooling has always been a challenge for laptops, especially performance models such as those targeted at gamers. Laptops throttle CPUs and GPUs faster than a typical desktop, and the faster you fight this tendency with fast spinning fans, the louder they get.

We won't know what the refreshed Area-51m will look like until we get it in our hands. Cooling aside, the Area-51m packs quite a bit of firepower.

In addition to the Nvidia Turing GPU options (RTX 2080 Super, RTX 2070 Super, RTX 2060, GTX 1660 Ti), Alienware also offers the AMD Radeon RX 5700M option.

The Area-51m will be available on June 9 starting at $3,049.99.

An interesting aside to all this (and another reason why the Area-51m is so big) is the prospect of upgrading key components, including CPU and GPU. For the most part, laptop upgrades are limited to RAM and storage, and a few other components if you can get your hands on them (such as batteries and Wi-Fi modules).

The Area-51m is essentially a desktop replacement in that it uses a replaceable desktop CPU. Dell has also released GPU upgrade modules for the previous generation Area-51m, which is an excellent prospect, at least in theory.

However, as The Verge noted, there is a major caveat. Dell states that it will only offer GPU upgrades for the Area-51m to the same generation of GPUs that were available when the Area-51m was released. In other words, last year's models are stuck with the regular RTX 2080 and RTX 2070 graphics and cannot be upgraded to the same Super variants available in Area-51m R2. Too bad, because the CPUs are not available in the same variants as the Area-51m R2.

The same goes for CPUs, with last year's models not supporting Intel's 10th generation CPUs due to Intel's introduction of the new LGA 1200 socket. In short, the Area-51m is upgradeable to some degree, but it is not a good idea to buy it for that purpose.

Next, Alienware's 17.3-inch m17 and 15.6-inch m15 stick to the traditional laptop mold with non-upgradable mobile CPUs and GPUs. Both have 1080p panels offered at up to 300 Hz (with a 4K 60 Hz option) and are much lighter than the Area-51m (4.65 pounds for the m15 and 5.5 pounds for the m17).

On the CPU side, it can be equipped with up to a Core i9 10980HK CPU and up to a GeForce RTX 2080 Super GPU. The only AMD option, the Radeon RX 5500M, is also available.

They will be available on May 21, with prices starting at $1,499.99 for the m15 and $1,549.99 for the m17.

Finally, on the desktop, Alienware's refreshed Aurora PC receives the same Comet Lake treatment (up to Core i9 10980HK), with up to 64GB HyperX Fury RAM and up to 4TB (2TB SSD + 2TB HDD) of storage

For graphics, there is a wider range of GPUs to choose from: from Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1650 to GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, and on the AMD side, the Radeon RX 5600, 5700, 5700 XT, or Radeon VII.

Liquid cooling is also an option for some GPUs. If you choose the liquid-cooled 2080 Super, Alienware claims that temperatures will drop up to 19.5 percent and noise will be significantly reduced (69.2 percent).

The upgraded Aurora starts at $879.99 with an affordable setup (Core i5-10400F, GTX 1650, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD). This is a reasonable price for a pre-built system. For example, doubling the RAM, replacing the HDD with a 512GB NVMe SSD, and upgrading the GPU to a 2060 Super would cost $1,359.99. You can do better if you build it yourself, but it is still relatively affordable for hardware (and a custom case).