It’s soldered for the m series of laptops except the area-51m r1 and R2.

but if you talk about the last laptop with upgradable ram, that’s the m15 and m17 r1.

Hello, thank you for your answer


I am looking at 17'' laptops. So if I understand correctly, the RAM is soldered to the motherboard in m17R3, but not in area-51mR2. Why do you say that RAM is not upgradable on area-51mR2 though please?

And what about other components? Can we still easily change SSDs/GPU/thermal paste etc on these machines?

Thanks!

The RAM in the Area 51m-R2 is socketed and replaceable.

The GPU is also socketed, but it's a proprietary Dell GPU card design that will limit you to what Dell offers.

If you're looking for true GPU upgradeability (i.e., standard MXM 3.0 card) in a notebook using a socketed desktop processor, there's just about only one game left in town:  the Clevo X170SM-G.  Clevo is a Taiwan-based ODM that markets to "boutique" brands that go by the names Falcon Northwest, Sager, Eurocom, AVA, Origin and a host of others.

Thank you both for replying and sorry about that. I meant the later m17 and m15 series after the m15 r1 and m17 r2 were upgradeble also including both area51m's.

If you're in need of gpu replacements these are DGFF or Dell Graphics Form Factor and only specific laptops from alienware or clove like ejn said are rare.

I got the last one as I have the Alienware 18 r1 from 2015 (Dual 980ms) and upgraded that one to a single RTX 2080 with 11 Gbs of GDDR6 and it only draws at max 210watts when overclocked.

I see, thank you both for the interesting answers

You’re welcome and please,

come and ask us any question you want and if you want a video explanation I can make a YouTube video?