PAX West | Dell announces two Alienware 34-inch gaming monitors

Dell's Alienware gaming brand is one of the most recognizable gaming focused laptop and desktop brands in the world, but it wasn't until earlier this year that they finally released an Alienware monitor. Their first attempt was a 25-inch panel with an impressive 240 Hz refresh rate. While 25-inches can't be considered small, especially compared to gaming notebooks in the range of 14 to 17-inches, if you want the game you're playing to fill your vision you will need something bigger.

Dell has announced two new 34-inch Alienware gaming monitors, with one available today and the other coming "later this holiday season." Both are ultra-wide 21:9 curved screens to help with immersion, and have an undeniably Alienware look to them. They feature G-Sync to reduce tearing, 4 ms response times, and have ultra-thin bezels along the lines of Dell's infinity display, which improves the multi-monitor experience. Of course these wouldn't be gaming products if they lacked RGB lighting, and dell has seen fit to equip these with 'AlienFX' lighting in four different control zones.

The more expensive AW3418DW, which releases today, has a resolution of 3440 x 1440, a 120 Hz refresh rate (overclocked), and a 1900R curve. The cheaper AW3418HW, which is expected later this holiday season, has a lower 2560 x 1080 resolution, an increased 160 Hz refresh rate (overclocked), and a 3800R curve. Since AMD has now released Vega, and both Dell and Alienware have desktops with Polaris GPUs, we thought it was strange that there is no FreeSync offering like in their 25-inch product.

The AW3418DW has an MSRP of US$1499, while the AW3418HW is a few hundred dollars cheaper at US$1199.