Alienware M11x R2: A Legend Reborn
by Jarred Walton on July 9, 2010 4:05 AM ESTApplication Performance: Arrandale ULV beats OCed CULV
While the gaming performance was generally a wash, application performance shows some clear improvements. Granted, we have the more expensive model with an i7-640UM instead of the i5-520UM, so besides a 133MHz higher base clock it also comes with Turbo Boost that up to 333MHz faster. Subjectively, the M11x R2 feels plenty fast, though the use of a conventional hard drive makes it less snappy than it otherwise could be. In fact, the R2 takes longer to boot than most other laptops, clearly hindered by the various Alienware applications that control the lighting and other features. Once in Windows, though, things settle down and the laptop runs well, launching applications and games noticeably faster than CULV laptops. We ran through our standard application benchmarks just to confirm our impression.
Both PCMark results improve by 15%, but they're at the lower end of the improvement scale. Peacekeeper shows the benefit of Turbo Boost, with 51% faster scores on the R2. Likewise, Cinebench is 56% faster on the 1CPU test, and Hyper-Threading plus Turbo Boost improve the multi-core rendering score by 68%. Rounding things out, x264 encoding also benefits from HTT and Turbo modes, with 39% and 45% faster encoding in pass one and two respectively. If you opt for the standard i5-520UM model, we expect scores will drop at least 10%, and perhaps as much as 20%, so keep that in mind.
A quick look at 3DMark results confirms our gaming scores. 05, 06, and Vantage all have the R2 leading by a small amount—11%, 7%, and 2% respectively. Meanwhile, again we have a situation where an older application with higher frame rates runs slower on the R2. 3DMark03 is 17% faster on the original M11x, and while we don't "play" 3DMark it suggests that the process of transferring frames over the PCI-E bus to the IGP frame buffer is likely limiting performance. If you recall, Optimus doesn't have any direct connections to the displays, letting all of those go through the IGP. It's what allows the instantaneous switch between IGP and dGPU with no screen flicker. The catch is that all the frames go over the PCI-E bus. That's not a problem when you run at reasonable settings and get frame rates of under 60FPS, as you're only looking at around 250MB/s of data on a bus capable of handling 8000MB/s. However, theoretical performance and practical performance are different matters, and with the game tests on 3DMark03 running at anywhere from 110 to 350 FPS congestion seems likely.
We looked at the detailed results for 3DMark03, and sure enough it's the Game 1 test that shows the biggest drop. On the original it ran at 348FPS while it gets just 179FPS on the R2. The other results are closer; Game 2 runs at 136 vs. 128, Game 3 at 112 vs. 110, and Game 4 at 135 vs. 108—with the R1 beating the R2 in all four tests. This also appears to confirm that the lower scores in our Empire: Total War and STALKER: Call of Pripyat games (at minimum detail where frame rates are high) are not a driver issue so much as a PCI-E congestion issue. Again, this isn't a problem when you're playing games at reasonable frame rates (you don't really need more than 60FPS on typical LCDs), but we found it interesting nonetheless.
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Stokestack - Sunday, July 11, 2010 - link
"For everyone who complains about glossy displays there is someone who prefers them. I am one of those people. And if the majority disliked glossy displays the industry as a whole wouldn't use them."Not true, apparently:
http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2006/10/8022....
Glossy screens were shoved down buyers' throats by third-tier vendors at Best Buy with lies about "deeper blacks and richer colors." Sadly, so-called "leaders" like Apple followed the precedent set by plastic, fake-chromed Toshiba laptops with their tails between their legs. Most consumers, not being capable of critical thinking on these matters, accepted that. But the fact is that glossy screens suck in EVERY lighting condition. It doesn't matter if you're in a pitch-black room, because the light from the screen will illuminate YOU and create a reflection anyway.
Your "deep blacks" aren't black at all with the sheen of a reflected image overlaying them, and that's a fact. Rich colors? Which ones, the ones contained in the scene behind you?
And I hope we're not to take that strawman about matte screens being hard to keep clean seriously.
plewis00 - Monday, July 12, 2010 - link
I don't try and force my opinion on others I just tell you what I feel and how I see things. I find matte screens harder to keep clean, you may not, and frankly as you were a total asshat anyway I don't care - for all I know you can't afford an LCD and are still using a CRT. At least -some- people who came back and countered my opinion did it politely and with a modicum of decency about it stating their opinion.I have had good matte screens, I have had bad glossy screens.
And you posted ONE link to a loaded survey anyway (from Lenovo/IBM users - who have been using matte screens as long as I can remember) where the article even states the reason why we are moving to glossy screens - where's the stuff about Best Buy come from? A demo glossy unit in a store sounds like the one place I would definitely rather NOT have a glossy display (bright lights and fingerprints and smudges everywhere).
Unlike you, I'm not going to demand or ask that everyone bows down to my opinion, it was, for what it's worth an opinion. I like my M11x and if I had the choice of both displays I'd have to see both to make a decision but I don't have any complaints about the glossy finish.
Take me seriously or not - am I bothered? No. Am I more bothered about how a self-opinionated jerk gets through life without getting the crap kicked out of him? Somewhat, but probably not as much as you'd hope...
mrjminer - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
I'm with you. This glossy phase that all manufacturers have entered is extremely annoying. I don't want a laptop that I have to position based on whether or not I have a light on, and I don't want a screen that's reflecting everything around me.I think the reason manufacturer's switched to this is because it looks better in the store. For practical purposes, though, glossy is inferior to matte.
And to the guy below that says "matte displays attract dirt and fingerprints," that claim is outright false:
1. Fingerprints barely show up on matte screens and they're almost always unnoticeable when the screen is on.
2. Matte screens attract less fingerprints than glossy? Please, let me know who manufactures the screens on the laptops you've used because I'd like to invest in their non-existent company.
3. Attract dirt / dust more than glossy screens? No. You merely spend more time cleaning off your glossy screen because you have to do so any time you accidentally give it the slightest touch.
4. Take more time to clean than glossy screens? Um... I guess if you're comparing a larger matte screen size to a smaller glossy screen size.
All of these things taken into account, matte screens need to be cleaned less and are not limited in position by the light/furniture setup.
The only practical use I see for glossy screens are for touchscreens / tablets because it avoids the push-down effect (whatever it's called) and would largely negate the possibility of damaging the screen by pressing too hard.
plewis00 - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
If you get dirt on a matte screen and try to clean it, it smears more, whereas on a glossy it tends to come off easier - that was my point, nothing more. All my computers use glossy screens for better or worse (Dell M1530, 1750, M11x and Sony UX1XN) and I don't take issue or offence with them.The only LCD using a matte display is my TV and I do have a harder time cleaning that off - and you're right, I barely see dirt on it when it's on but knowing it's there, I find annoying.
Glossy screens don't avoid that pushdown effect (do you mean the ripple) - the only way to fix that is the glass plate on top of capacitive displays i.e. iPhones.
blyndy - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
I'll add that I have vertical blinds behind me. I found a borrowed Macbook to be frustrating to use as the daylight leaked through the closed blinds and left glaring vertical reflections for me to have to look through.mrjminer - Saturday, July 10, 2010 - link
Oops... slight correction, #2 is supposed to read "Matte screens attract more fingerprints than glossy?" I accidentally put less :Ophreax9802 - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
I have an R2. Can you give details on how you achieve such long battery life? Just curious, because the maximum idle time that I get is around 4 hours. If possible maybe you can do a general guide for optimizing battery life for laptops. Thanks for the good job! :)JarredWalton - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
Use Power Saver profile first, set brightness for 60% second, disable AlienFX (on battery -- use the Go Dark option), and make sure to disable any extra crap processes (especially the rogue Dell WLAN tray icon). Doing just those items got me to nearly the listed results. Going in and halting all the additional processes/services got me the rest of the way, but that was only an extra ~20 minutes idle.JarredWalton - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
Oh, and turn off Firewall, Windows Defender, and any Update services.FYI, the problem service with the wireless is called "DW WLAN Tray Service", as well as the WLTRAY.exe process.
koscica - Friday, July 9, 2010 - link
I am going abroad in a couple of weeks and I would like to buy M11x before I leave. Therefore my only available choices are original m11x at best buy or the fast track i5 version from alienware. Is the i5 worth 150$ extra?