Alienware M11x: World’s Smallest Gaming Laptop
by Jarred Walton on March 30, 2010 8:16 AM ESTM11x: Ultraportable Gaming Goodness
For the gaming tests, we’ve standardized on a comparison at 1366x768 and minimum detail settings, but the M11x can obviously do better than that. We'll include results at Medium (gold), High (red), and Very High (orange, where applicable) settings to show just how far the M11x can go before frame rates start to choke. Given the specs of the M11x, the closest competition in terms of performance comes from the ASUS N61Jv, which we've colored black for comparison.
There's no problem running games at minimum details and the native 1366x768 resolution—and in fact the GPU could easily handle the 23% megapixel increase of a 1440x900 LCD. Medium detail gaming is also plenty fast, with Far Cry 2 and Crysis: Warhead being the only titles to dip near the 30FPS mark. Move to High settings and Crysis is no longer playable, which is hardly surprising considering it can tax even the fastest desktop GPUs. Far Cry 2 and DiRT 2 also fall below 30FPS (barely) at High/Very High settings, while Empire: Total War and Stalker: Call of Pripyat flirt with 30FPS. Batman has no problem running at maximum detail settings, provided you leave off PhysX and antialiasing, and the same goes for Mass Effect 2 and Left 4 Dead 2. In general, you'll want to run games at Medium to High detail settings to get fluid frame rates.
What about the GT325M paired with a much faster CPU? The N61Jv routinely outperforms the M11x at low detail settings, but that's hardly the target market for either laptop. We did a second comparison with both laptops running at "reasonable" settings—the target was to go as high as we could on the M11x while maintaining 30FPS. We chose Very High for Batman and Mainstream for Crysis; we used Medium for Empire: Total War (High wasn't supported on the N61Jv with the current Optimus drivers), Far Cry 2, and DiRT 2; Stalker is run at High + Enhanced DX10 lighting; and finally we maxed out the settings on Left 4 Dead 2 and Mass Effect 2. Note that we disable antialiasing on all of these tests; we feel AA is great when you have a fast enough GPU, but few laptops are at the point where you can run High Quality settings and still have enough GPU performance left for AA.
With the above settings, the M11x manages to outperform the N61Jv in every test except for Far Cry 2—and we should note that FC2 at High/Very High does run faster on the M11x, but we skipped that setting in order to stay above 30FPS. We mentioned earlier that the two GPUs have the same memory bandwidth but the GT335M has 63% more shader processing power. Stalker: Call of Pripyat makes the best use of the extra shader performance, with most of the other titles close enough that the difference isn't particularly important. Of course, considering the N61Jv is a 16" chassis we again have to question why ASUS didn't give us a bit more GPU power. And likewise, we can only scratch our heads about the lack of Optimus Technology on the M11x.
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Ryan Smith - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Congrats Jarred.May I suggest the name Ryan for your child? It works equally well as both as a girl's name and a boy's name.;-)
KaarlisK - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
When Intel mobile CPUs are overclocked by doing BSEL mods (basically, shorting some pins to tell the chipset that the CPU requires a higher FSB clock), the CPUs fall back and are locked to their lowest multiplier - 6x. Maybe ASUS bypassed this protection and Alienware did not...cknobman - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
to include the Sony CW (VPCCW26FX) laptop in your reviews, it would have been a much better choice than the Asus for comparison sake. The sony is a 14' chassis with a core i5-520 and a 330m nvidia and only costs $899. Much closer in size and price to the Alienware.Why is there no one giving the Sony any attention at all? Its not just anand its everyone that seems to be totally disregarding this laptop.
NICOXIS - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
I'll second that, its like the only 14" laptop with a decent GPU, less than 2.5KG, Arrandale CPU, DDR3, good battery life and under 1000.I haven't seen any decent Vaio CW review out there.
xFlankerx - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
The Alienware may be the cheapest, smallest laptop, but there is one more expensive competitor:The Sony Vaio Z is a 13.3" laptop that outperforms the Alienware in almost every single area, including aesthetics. The only downside is that the Vaio Z costs upwards of $2000.
erple2 - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
The Sony Z series has the 330m processor, which has 24 fewer Unified shaders (48 vs. 72). The graphical capabilities of the 335m could be up to about 50% faster in the best case scenario.To be fair, that's still more than in the tested ASUS notebook...
But the Z series starts at 1900 dollars, which is about 1000 more than the M11x...
The CW series has the 310m processor, which has a total of 16 unified shaders. That's 1/6th the total number of the M11x. Sure it starts at about the same price.
However, that would answer the side question of whether the GPU in the Sony is significantly slower than the one in the M11x - I'm betting the answer is "yes". I don't think that there's any comparison, honestly. Though, perhaps that's the whole point of the article - how much does the GPU matter, and how much does the CPU matter? For gaming, I think that this article showed quite clearly that the GPU was "king".
cknobman - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
Not sure what CW your looking at but there are CW models with a 330m in them - I own one.NICOXIS - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
The point is that the Vaio CW is a LOT more comparable to the M11x than the Asus that was chosen in the article. It is similar in size 13" vs 14" (size not display), M11x has slightly better GPU but CW has arrandale and price wise they are in the same level.JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - link
You'll notice that I specifically mentioned this in the conclusion:"The only competing laptops in terms of performance are going to need something like the GT330M, GT240M, GeForce 9700M GTS, or a faster GPU. Finding laptops with those GPUs for a reasonable price is fairly easy—the ASUS N61Jv is one example, and the Sony VAIO VPCCW22FX/R is another—but the VAIO is the smallest reasonable competitor we can find and it still has a 14" chassis and significantly less battery life."
The VAIO is advertised as 4 hours of battery life, and it sounds about right. The ASUS N61Jv is similar and with Optimus (i.e. IGP) it still gets about 4 hours idle. Yes, the Sony will definitely be faster in the CPU department, and GPU performance will be close. It has only 48 SPs but as pointed out the clocks are quite a bit higher than the 335M--net difference is that the 335 has 28% more shader potential; I don't know if they have the same number of ROPs or not, but the 330 has a 575 core clock vs. 450, so that's another are of comparison. RAM bandwidth is the same. If you're more interested in performance than battery life, I'd recommend an i3-330M over the overclocked CULV laptops without hesitation.
EDev - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - link
I currently possess the M11x. I pick the unit for the lite keyboard as well as the form factor.Battery life is great, better than my other Gateway lt3103 (gave to Girlfriend). Speed is great, video speed is what I love on the unit.
I do agree about the keyboard being an oddity, actually I find it slippery. If you have any form of skin oil, food oil, etc., my fingers slip easier than on the Gateway.
Also, I dislike the plastic cover/protector on the screen, not only for the glare, but also like other platforms it touches the keyboard and puts lines on the screen which needs to be wiped off.
Other than that, it is a netbook on steroids with battery life and power.