It seems to be a common problem. The link below bears that out. You could pick up a decent cooling pad. At least that should help keep the temps a bit lower.

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General-Read-Only/Acceptable-Temps-for-new-ALIENWARE-17-Laptop/td-p/5572845

Hi @Joe1984PS,

Send me a private message with the Service Tag so I can review your case. 

I don't think everyone can carry around a cooling pad all the time.

Temps are the same for myself and my wife. Tons of throttling from the cpu, gpu isn't breaking a sweat. I'm tempted to send them both back this is crazy for temps the cpu is causing massive stutters in Forza Horizon 4 and GTA V.

I thought was a driver issue but yes the same it's happening to me, no matter what I try the laptop is running hot 75 Celsius for single task and jumps to 100 Celsius in matter of seconds I even getting graphical artifacts in forza, we are at winter at 74 F whats going to happen in summer where the temperature goes up 120 F here at palm springs. 

 I love the design the materials but I think I got a defective unit, it is uncomfortable to use its hot and noisy as "inferno".

and I agree I didn't pay over $2000 to be carrying a cooling pad everywhere.  

I going to send it back, one of the main adverting of this laptop was the cooling system that is not working at all, maybe or heatsinks are defective.

well at the end I called tech support they ran some stress test and indeed my laptop was overheating, they are going to replace my heat sink and and fans I hope this solve the problem. 

Seems normal for this model, I have one too and I been strugling with it. I have reached like 105 playing battlfield V. I been using an usb fan to help to take the hot air out of the computer. So you say they are going to switch? Support have not helped me with mine. 

One question, when the laptop is so hot, does your wireless keeps working? Mine doesn't work if the computer is so hot. I need to wait until it cool downs.

I have this post open and I contacted support the next day I received. I been talking through email and private message. At least my main issue seems to be fixed by itself, so my only issue is the wireless so far. I am going to try a solution they gave me today, hope it works

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware/Alienware-m15-2018-performance/m-p/6222356

SolidStateSR71 the tech who evaluated my laptop created a new power management profile after that was overheating even faster. Ironically I'm a certified dell tech at my job but I don't want to mess anything on this computer like re-paste because its brand new an should be working without any issues.

I have a hunch that I am encountering the same issue. Although I do not have any concrete proof as I was busy setting up and updating everything last night, I was having a very difficult time trying to work out a performance issue that I'm having. I may have found part of the issue with some of the power management options but I'm still only getting about 50-60 FPS in Overwatch at 1080p with Ultra settings. I believe with the specs of the machine, that it would be able to run it much better. I have a hunch the issue could be Thermal related as I do find the laptop gets very warn but I'm going to do some more investigation tonight.