I Test a Lot of Gaming Laptops, and Alienware’s Midranger Strikes a Fine Balance of Power and Pizazz

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.