Alienware's M18x, Part 1: NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580M in SLI
by Dustin Sklavos on October 3, 2011 11:50 AM ESTHeat, Noise, and Battery Life
Now we get to the fun part. Alienware uses muxes to allow you to switch the dedicated GPUs off completely in the M18x (and AMD-equipped M17x R3s), but our NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M-equipped M17x R3 gets to leverage Optimus. Our net result? Gaming notebooks that can be used for non-gaming tasks off the mains.
Unfortunately, all is not sunshine and roses in the land of M18x switchable graphics. As we discussed in our Dynamic Switchable Graphics article, the use of muxed graphics switching means things aren't as seamless, as you have to wait for the discrete GPUs to power off, the drivers unload, and then the Intel drivers load. All of this takes about 15 seconds, but there's a bright side to the Alienware implementation: even with muxed switchable graphics, the M18x is still part of NVIDIA's Verde Driver program, so you can get up-to-date drivers regardless. You still lose out on Optimus' dynamic switching with SLI notebooks (for now?), but at least you can still get good battery life and up-to-date drivers. Check out the battery life results:
Optimus may still have some teething problems from time to time, but they're rare, and the benefits are undeniable. Meanwhile, the M18x's switchable graphics mean that despite being a 12 pound land monster, you can still take it to Starbucks and check up on your e-mail or watch a movie during a massive flight layover if you're so inclined. Of course, Toshiba's lighter Qosmio X775 winds up really stealing the show, offering nearly as much battery life on just half the battery.
We have our two sets of thermal results side-by-side, with the single GPU enabled on the left and SLI enabled on the right. You can see that having SLI enabled generates enough heat to push the overclocked i7-2920XM just a little bit too toasty, although the surface temperatures of the M18x remained relatively comfortable. Noise levels also increased noticeably in SLI mode, commensurate with the second GPU pulling its weight and thus increasing substantially the amount of heat being generated. Component temperatures remain reasonably low outside of the CPU getting such a good workout, and actually the M18x does keep these two high-end GPUs remarkably cool. End users may want to back down ever so slightly on the overclock.
Subjectively (sorry, my equipment and location isn't good for testing noise levels), the M18x still feels quieter than the Clevo X7200, but an M17x R3 under load is quieter still. Alienware's cooling system in the M18x is remarkably efficient given how much heat it has to remove.
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Meaker10 - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link
Not when you unlock the higher core voltage, bump up the core speed to GTX560Ti speeds =Dbennyg - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
At least the XM offers overclocking. The 2820/2860 compared with 2720/2760 just offers a couple hundred MHz for hundreds extra... and I challenge ANYONE to feel the difference a few % in CPU speed makes.However very few laptops use the HM67 chipset which is required to OC with multipliers, most (like my P150HM) have HM65 which can't. So unless you're willing to fork out for a top end model it is meaningless to you, but not to those who are the target market
Amrosorma - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link
Would it be possible to get a quick and dirty look at how the notebook performs with the Battlefield 3 open beta?I imagine that's the game everyone is wondering about with regards to performance.
AmdInside - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link
Agreed. As soon as I saw this, jumped straight to the Gaming Performance section in hopes of finding BF3 benchmarks.JarredWalton - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link
The BF3 beta is pretty bad in terms of working properly. When there are all sorts of bugs (falling through the world floor, for instance), I'd wager performance won't be optimal either. We're planning to add the full BF3 release to our mobile benchmarks when it becomes available, along with Rage, Skyrim, and some other updates, but that will probably be another two months before we make the switch.Stuka87 - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link
Yes the beta is buggy. But I would have loved to see an unoffcial benchmark. Doesnt have to be in the graphics. But just a line or two that says "I tried the BF3 Beta, and FRAPs reported these results with these settings". Just so we would have an idea as to if this machine would run BF3.jrs77 - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link
C'mon, for that amount of money a matte screen should be standard. :facepalm:BTW... why are glossy screens even manufactured anymore these days? They should get dumped alltogether.
Darkstone - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link
Because some people, including me, like glossy screens for the deep white they provide? I don't like matte because of the noise.JojoKracko - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
Damn right. Matte should be standard on laptops. Ban the glossy crap. I would never pay this much for a laptop with a glossy screen. (sadly) I'll be sticking with single GPU MSI laptops.yelped - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link
Although you mentioned that Metro 2033 is a un-optimized title, you failed to mention that Crysis 2 with DX11 is even worse. Check out this article for more details. http://techreport.com/articles.x/21404&source=...