Asus TUF Gaming F16 (2025) FX608 16" (Core i7-14650HX / RTX 5050 Laptop / 16GB RAM / 1TB) VS Dell Alienware 18 Area-51 (2025) 18"

The Asus TUF Gaming F16 (2025) FX608 and the Dell Alienware 18 Area-51 (2025) are both gaming laptops, but they differ significantly in design and size. The Asus laptop has a more compact design, with a width of 354 mm, a height of 269 mm, and a thickness of just 17 mm. In contrast, the Dell Alienware 18 is much larger, measuring 410 mm in width, 320 mm in height, and 24 mm in thickness. As a result, the Alienware 18 has a significantly larger volume of 3148.8 cm³, compared to the Asus' 1618.842 cm³.

In terms of weight, the Dell Alienware 18 is much heavier, weighing 4340 g, while the Asus TUF Gaming F16 is notably lighter at 2200 g. Both laptops feature backlit keyboards, but neither uses a fanless design. Neither of the two laptops is weather-sealed or ruggedly built, which may be a consideration for those looking for more durable devices.

Overall, the Asus TUF Gaming F16 (2025) is more portable, with a smaller footprint and lighter weight, whereas the Dell Alienware 18 offers a more expansive form factor and is significantly heavier and bulkier.

The Asus TUF Gaming F16 (2025) FX608 and the Dell Alienware 18 Area-51 (2025) have different display specifications, although both are equipped with similar resolution and supported display features. The Asus TUF Gaming F16 has a 16″ display with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 px, offering a pixel density of 188 ppi. In comparison, the Dell Alienware 18 features a larger 18″ display, also with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 px, but its pixel density is slightly lower at 167 ppi.

Both laptops lack a touchscreen, but their refresh rates differ. The Asus has a refresh rate of 165Hz, while the Dell Alienware 18 offers a higher 300Hz refresh rate. The Asus model also includes an anti-reflection coating, which the Dell model does not have. Both laptops support up to 4 external displays.

In summary, while both displays share the same resolution, the Asus offers a higher pixel density and an anti-reflection coating, whereas the Dell boasts a larger screen and a much higher refresh rate, making it potentially better suited for high-speed gaming scenarios.

The Asus TUF Gaming F16 (2025) FX608 and the Dell Alienware 18 Area-51 (2025) offer similar core performance specs, but there are some notable differences. Both laptops have a 24-thread CPU, with the Asus featuring a Core i7-14650HX processor with a base speed of 2.2 GHz (boosting to 5.2 GHz) and the Dell equipped with a faster CPU, running at 2.7 GHz for 8 cores and 2.1 GHz for 16 cores, with a turbo clock speed of 5.4 GHz.

In terms of RAM, the Asus TUF Gaming F16 comes with 16GB of RAM running at 5600 MHz, while the Alienware 18 doubles this to 32GB of RAM running at 6400 MHz. Both devices use flash storage and are equipped with an NVMe SSD, but neither offers more than 64GB of maximum RAM. Both laptops also have the same VRAM amount of 8GB, using GDDR7 memory, and feature the same GPU clock speed of 2235 MHz and GPU turbo of 2520 MHz.

The Dell Alienware 18 excels in certain areas like floating-point performance (23.22 TFLOPS vs 12.9 TFLOPS on the Asus) and texture and pixel rates (362.9 GTexels/s and 121 GPixel/s, respectively, compared to 201.6 GTexels/s and 80.64 GPixel/s on the Asus). Both laptops support multithreading and DirectX 12 Ultimate, and both use PCI Express (PCIe) version 4, but the Dell uses a slightly smaller 4 nm semiconductor size compared to the Asus’ 5 nm. Neither supports XeSS (XMX) nor explicitly mentions any difference in 64-bit support.

The Asus TUF Gaming F16 (2025) FX608 and the Dell Alienware 18 Area-51 (2025) both show impressive benchmark results, with a few key differences in their overall performance. Both laptops share the same PassMark (G3D) result of 19987, indicating that their 3D graphics performance is identical. However, the overall system performance, measured by the PassMark result, differs significantly: the Asus scores 34910, while the Dell scores 56426.

When it comes to single-thread performance, the Dell also leads with a higher score of 4723 compared to the Asus' 3862. These differences suggest that the Dell Alienware 18 may have a stronger overall CPU performance, particularly in single-threaded tasks, although the GPU performance remains equal between the two models.

In conclusion, both laptops perform similarly in graphics, but the Dell Alienware 18 has a notable advantage in total system and single-thread performance, indicating it may be better suited for tasks requiring higher processing power.

The Asus TUF Gaming F16 (2025) FX608 and the Dell Alienware 18 Area-51 (2025) offer a variety of connectivity options, with some notable differences. The Asus has a good selection of USB ports, including 1 USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB-C, 3 USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB-A, and 1 USB 4 40Gbps port, in addition to a Thunderbolt 4 port. On the other hand, the Dell features 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports and 2 USB 4 40Gbps ports, but it lacks the USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports found on the Asus.

Both laptops support Wi-Fi connectivity, but the Asus offers Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax), Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac), and Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n), while the Dell supports Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be), Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax), Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac), and Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n), giving the Dell a slight edge in Wi-Fi support with the newer Wi-Fi 7 standard.

Both laptops have 1 RJ45 port and 1 HDMI port with HDMI 2.1 support, and neither has a VGA connector or mini DisplayPort outputs. The Asus lacks an external memory slot, whereas the Dell includes one. Both support AirPlay for wireless streaming. In summary, the Dell offers more Thunderbolt 4 ports and Wi-Fi 7, while the Asus provides more USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB-A ports and has no external memory slot.

Both the Asus TUF Gaming F16 (2025) FX608 and the Dell Alienware 18 Area-51 (2025) come with similar battery-related features. Both laptops include sleep-and-charge USB ports, which allow users to charge devices while the laptop is in sleep mode. Additionally, neither of the two laptops features a MagSafe power adapter, meaning they both rely on traditional power connectors.

As there are no other distinctions in the battery features between the two models, the battery-related connectivity and charging options are identical for both products.

Both the Asus TUF Gaming F16 (2025) FX608 and the Dell Alienware 18 Area-51 (2025) feature stereo speakers and a 3.5 mm audio jack socket, providing similar audio connectivity. They both support ray tracing and DLSS for enhanced gaming graphics, and neither includes Dolby Atmos audio support. Neither laptop comes with a stylus, nor do they have a fingerprint scanner.

Both laptops are equipped with one microphone, and both have a front camera. However, the Asus model uses 3D facial recognition, while the Dell does not. Additionally, the Asus supports voice commands, whereas the Dell does not offer this feature.

For other features, both laptops lack an S/PDIF Out port, a gyroscope, GPS, an accelerometer, a compass, and an optical disc drive. These specs are identical across both devices, with no additional features provided for either model in this category.

The Asus TUF Gaming F16 (2025) FX608 and the Dell Alienware 18 Area-51 (2025) share some key similarities in terms of hardware capabilities but differ in several performance metrics. Both laptops support Intel Resizable BAR, 3D graphics, and multi-display technology, and feature Blackwell GPU architecture. They also support ECC memory and have 128-bit memory bus widths. However, there are several differences in their detailed specifications.

The Asus TUF Gaming F16 has a lower clock multiplier of 22 and an effective memory speed of 14000 MHz, with a maximum memory bandwidth of 224 GB/s. In comparison, the Dell Alienware 18 features a higher clock multiplier of 27, a significantly faster effective memory speed of 25400 MHz, and a higher memory bandwidth of 405.8 GB/s. Additionally, the Dell’s GPU memory speed is 2000 MHz, compared to the Asus’ 1750 MHz. The Dell also has more render output units (48 vs. 32), more texture mapping units (144 vs. 80), and more shading units (4608 vs. 2560), which contribute to its greater graphical capabilities.

In terms of CPU cache, the Dell has a larger L3 cache at 36 MB compared to the Asus’ 30 MB. Both laptops have integrated graphics and utilize big.LITTLE technology. Additionally, while the Asus has a CPU temperature of 100 °C, the Dell runs a bit hotter at 105 °C. The Dell also has an unlocked multiplier, allowing for more flexibility in overclocking, while the Asus does not. Both laptops feature a thermal design power (TDP) of 50W and support the same instruction sets (MMX, F16C, FMA3, AES, AVX, AVX2, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2).