Dell Announce Alienware AW2524H with 24.5″ 1080p IPS Panel and 500Hz Refresh Rate

January 3, 2023December 16, 2022 Simon Baker

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Dell have today announced the forthcoming launch of their new Alienware AW2524H gaming monitor. This is a 24.5″ sized screen with a 1080p resolution IPS panel and a super-high 500Hz refresh rate. It’s firmly aimed at the gaming market of course with an “esports-inspired Legend 2.0” design and new hexagonal base for a smaller desk footprint. There are also familiar Alien FX RGB lights on the rear of the screen. There’s also a new integrated headset hanger on the screen. Read on for a full run down of specs and capabilities.

Dell Alienware AW2524H Specs

The screen is 24.5″ in size and has a 1920 x 1080 resolution AU Optronics “Fast IPS” panel. The native panel refresh rare is 480Hz, but an overclocking mode allows you to push this up to a whopping 500Hz. This is supported via a Native NVIDIA G-sync module for variable refresh rates, and the screen also includes NVIDIA’s Reflex Latency Analyzer built in to the display.

In other specs there is a 0.5ms minimum G2G response time, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 400 cd/m2 brightness, 178/178 viewing angles, 1.07b colour depth and a standard 99% sRGB colour gamut. The screen will come factory calibrated with a dE <1.5.

We will cover video connections below, but there are also 4x USB data ports, an audio output and a headphone jack provided. The stand offers a full range of tilt, height, swivel and rotate adjustments.

Is this a new HDMI 2.1 capable G-sync module, or just misleading branding?

For connectivity there are 1x DisplayPort 1.4 port, and listed on the Dell spec sheet are 2x HDMI 2.1 ports as well. Before you start getting excited that If this finally signals the first time we’ve seen this modern connection from NVIDIA’s G-sync module, we can see that actually this falls under the banner of “misleading and confusing marketing” unfortunately. On the Dell spec sheet and press release they are listed as “2x HDMI ports ver 2.1 (TMDS)”. We have yet to see what gets published publicly on their website and product pages but we would strongly encourage Dell to be clearer on this.

The “ver 2.1” implies that these ports would offer new HDMI 2.1-associated capabilities like higher bandwidth and perhaps features like HDMI-VRR and ALLM for console gaming. Actually the “TMDS” is the giveaway here as those are the older speeds from HDMI 2.0. It looks like the ports lack all the new FRL speeds and bandwidth and actually these are just HDMI 2.0 generation ports, being confusingly branded under the ver 2.1 name. A lot more information on this mess here.

To confirm this further, Dell list the maximum res/refresh rate for HDMI as 1920 x 1080 at 240Hz. If that’s run at an 8-bit colour depth, that falls within the bandwidth capability of HDMI 2.0 generation ports, and wouldn’t need the higher bandwidths of HDMI 2.1 anyway. If it was offering higher FRL bandwidth up to 48Gbps then it would be easily able to support the full 1920 x 1080 @ 500Hz like the DisplayPort connection can. Another tell-tale sign is the lack of mention of any HDMI 2.1-associated features like HDMI-VRR and ALLM for console gaming. This is the same G-sync module we’ve seen before unfortunately, but it’s a poor showing from Dell to label these as HDMI 2.1 if they don’t offer any of the HDMI 2.1 capabilities people expect (even though that’s actually how HDMI-org would direct you!). Please sort this out Dell for your public product page!

Availability and Pricing

The main press pack suggests the screen will be launched in Q1, but elsewhere in the material we were provided it says it will be available on 8 February 2023 in Canada, and on 21 March 2023 in North America. No word on pricing of UK/European launch yet but we’ve asked Dell. Pricing will be announced nearer to shipping date apparently.

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