Alienware's M18x, Part 1: NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580M in SLI
by Dustin Sklavos on October 3, 2011 11:50 AM ESTApplication and Futuremark Performance
In our Alienware M18x review unit, we're basically dealing with a notebook sporting a desktop-class processor. Four cores, eight threads, and clocks well above 3GHz, all on the architecture with the fastest IPC in the desktop space. So how does it do?
SSD-equipped systems like the HP EliteBook 8760w and Clevo X7200 are able to leverage those advantages in some of these tests, but PCMark doesn't really tell the whole story. Notice how in some tasks the otherwise considerably slower ASUS G73SW is able to take the lead over the M18x and its overclocked i7-2920XM. So let's see what happens when we shift the bulk of our testing to the CPU proper.
And "boom" goes the dynamite. Unless a task can really leverage the additional two execution cores of the desktop i7-990X in the Clevo X7200, the overclocked i7-2920XM dominates the charts just like we'd expect. Sandy Bridge's increased IPC over Gulftown makes opting for the desktop-CPU-based Clevo X7200 only more questionable, while the high overclocks on the i7-2920XM question the necessity for a desktop-CPU-based notebook at all.
Meanwhile the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M dukes it out with the AMD Radeon HD 6970M in 3DMark. In single-GPU configurations NVIDIA seems to have the advantage, but once you get to dual-GPU configurations that advantage narrows substantially. The pair of 580Ms seem ever so slightly faster than the two 6970Ms, but we won't know for sure until we take a look at the gaming results.
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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=...