Alienware 15 Notebook Review

[Redaktion]

Galactic? A bit late, but Alienware now also upgrades its premium laptops with the GeForce 900M line. As one of the first editorial offices, we had the opportunity to test the 15-inch model and the graphics amplifier. These are our impressions.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Alienware-15-Notebook-Review.136667.0.html

[180W Power Supply]

Just a quick note, while you say that the 180W power supply is adequate for the 970M version of this laptop, it is not adequate for the 980M version.  For the 980M version the supplied 180W is not enough, and it has been proven that benchmark and gaming performance is better when attaching a 240W power supply to the laptop as discussed in the following thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-alienware-17-r2-benchmark-thread.770320/page-22#post-9936562
You can ask for a 240W power supply to be shipped with your laptop rather than the 180W version - you have to ask as a special request, and this has been promised by a senior manager of Alienware in his postings on notebookreview.com forums.

[JeffM]

Are the graphics amp benchmarks using the laptop lcd or external monitor? I have not been able to figure out if the display signal from the graphics amp gpu to the laptop lcd is using optimus/enduro through the intel gpu. If that is the case, the display signal has to be through the same 4x pci-e lanes. With the 4x pci-e already a significant bandwidth reduction over 16x, adding 1080p or 4k display signal to that would hurt the performance even more so. If it is true, we would be seeing a noticeable drop in performance when using the internal lcd over an external monitor with the graphics amp.

Can you clarify on this in your review? Perhaps you can run test when both using the internal lcd and an external monitor. Much appreciated.

[Lord K]

This is possibly the lowest configuration of the Alienware 15. Please do a review for the high end model with 980M and 4K touchscreen. Need to see if they got the 4K scaling correctly and performance of a 980M at 4K resolution.

[cc]

Does the m.2 interface for SDD support PCIe? Or is it only mSATA for both m.2 interfaces?

Thanks!

[Thin & Light Garbage]

@Lord K:  gaming performance at 4K resolution will be pathetic!  980M is not good enough, neither is 980M sli for a 4K resolution - unless you're talking about really old games where you'd get 100s of fps at 1080p.  With a 4K screen you'd end up doing all your gaming at a lower than native resolution, which decreases picture quality, e.g. 1080p on a 4K screen looks worse than 1080p on a 1080p screen - more blurriness.

[Kommando]

@Lord K:  gaming performance at 4K resolution will be pathetic!  980M is not good enough, neither is 980M sli for a 4K resolution - unless you're talking about really old games where you'd get 100s of fps at 1080p.  With a 4K screen you'd end up doing all your gaming at a lower than native resolution, which decreases picture quality, e.g. 1080p on a 4K screen looks worse than 1080p on a 1080p screen - more blurriness.

Thats simply not true. In fact nearly every modern title can be played in 4K with high details. Most of these 4K tests have been done with Anti-Aliasing enabled. But tell me: What do i need AA for while playing in 4K? ;)

[Thin & Light Garbage]

@Lord K:  gaming performance at 4K resolution will be pathetic!  980M is not good enough, neither is 980M sli for a 4K resolution - unless you're talking about really old games where you'd get 100s of fps at 1080p.  With a 4K screen you'd end up doing all your gaming at a lower than native resolution, which decreases picture quality, e.g. 1080p on a 4K screen looks worse than 1080p on a 1080p screen - more blurriness.

Thats simply not true. In fact nearly every modern title can be played in 4K with high details. Most of these 4K tests have been done with Anti-Aliasing enabled. But tell me: What do i need AA for while playing in 4K? ;)

It simply is true, at least provide some evidence to support what you say.  Desktop GTX 970sli isn't even enough for good 4K gaming in modern titles, see the following graphs (no taxing forms of AA used in those examples):
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/geforce-gtx-970-sli-review,22.html
GTX 980M sli is nowhere near as fast as desktop GTX 970 sli, therefore 980M sli isn't enough for  modern gaming at good frame rates at 4K.  Simple as that really.

4K gaming is really demanding, even for desktop hardware, and properly decent 4K gaming isn't possible even with desktop hardware if you want high details and high frame rates.  With desktop GTX 980 tri sli you can get pretty close to a consistent 60fps at 4K in most games, but 980M sli is far far away from that kind of performance level:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/geforce-gtx-980-sli-review,23.html

980M sli is not sufficient for good frame rate in modern games at 4K resolution.

[Lord K]

@ Thin & Light Garbage: I am aware of that fact, I merely wish to know the performance specifics at 4k resolution.
As for 4k screen option itself, I'm still in favour of it. With an Alienware Graphics Amplifier, desktop GPUs 2 generations from now would more than likely support 4k gaming. In addition to that, the upcoming Windows 10 is being fitted for proper resolution scaling, courtesy of high-res tablets and hybrids nowadays. I see no reason to choose 1080p over 4k if one has the money to splurge.

Please explain exactly why 1080p@4k < 1080p@1080p.

[Thin & Light Garbage]

@Lord K:

(You weren't really aware of it, because you said 4K gaming would be possible at High Details with a 980M, which I then showed you was not possible.)

You asked me about why 1080p on a 4K screen is going to look worse than 1080p on a 1080p screen.  Even with the 4K screen being a perfect multiple of 1080p, due to the way the pixels are mapped it won't maintain the same clarity, there is still a level of 'approximation' that occurs, it doesn't just multiply each pixel by 4 like you might expect.  This has also been reported in forums where people have compared a native 1080p image vs a 1080p image displayed on a 4K screen.  An enthusiast on notebookreview forums who had looked into the technical details of 1080p being displayed on 4K explained that it's not the simple quadrupling of pixels that you would expect - if it did that then it would look the same as native 1080p, which would have been OK.  He used a specific technical term to describe the process of this upscaling, which I can't remember now, but it involved approximation & averaging within the upscaling process which resulted in some blurriness being introduced into the image in comparison to a native 1080p image.  Long & short of it is that 1080p image looks better on a 1080p screen than it does on a 4K screen, and for a gaming laptop so it would follow a 1080p screen would be the best buy for most people.

[Kommando]

If you define 60 fps as Entry-Condition, THEN its tough. But... errr... i just need 30+.

So thanks for providing evidence for my statement. :)
I just need to disable AAA and Metro would run smooth in +30 fps. Additionally i'd disable Motion Blur (don't like the effect) and would get very good framerates even on an GTX 970M. The need for 16xAF is questionable, too.

[Lord K]

@Thin & Light Garbage:
"(You weren't really aware of it, because you said 4K gaming would be possible at High Details with a 980M, which I then showed you was not possible.)"
^ Yes, I was aware of it. I wanted to know the performance of a 980M on 4k. This includes its graphical performance in games as well as editing 4k videos and photo editing software rendering. It is definitely not the same as "4K gaming would be possible at High Details with a 980M". Stop putting words in my mouth, and forming incorrect conjectures from your personal misinterpretations.

"You asked me about why 1080p on a 4K screen is going to look worse than 1080p on a 1080p screen.  Even with the 4K screen being a perfect multiple of 1080p, due to the way the pixels are mapped it won't maintain the same clarity, there is still a level of 'approximation' that occurs, it doesn't just multiply each pixel by 4 like you might expect.  This has also been reported in forums where people have compared a native 1080p image vs a 1080p image displayed on a 4K screen.  An enthusiast on notebookreview forums who had looked into the technical details of 1080p being displayed on 4K explained that it's not the simple quadrupling of pixels that you would expect - if it did that then it would look the same as native 1080p, which would have been OK.  He used a specific technical term to describe the process of this upscaling, which I can't remember now, but it involved approximation & averaging within the upscaling process which resulted in some blurriness being introduced into the image in comparison to a native 1080p image. Long & short of it is that 1080p image looks better on a 1080p screen than it does on a 4K screen, and for a gaming laptop so it would follow a 1080p screen would be the best buy for most people."
^ Your argument has a fallacy of circular reasoning: Since a 1080p image looks better on a 1080p screen than a 4k one (you still don't have a technical argument for this LOL), it follows that 1080p gaming sequence also automatically looks better. Ridiculous actually, considering that motion blur effect makes it look the same. The background visuals are on a completely different level when playing at 4k. Your argument lacks authenticity and only depicts quite clearly that you haven't played at 4k yourself. As such, I don't think you're qualified to comment about 4k gaming.

Additionally, you jump to conclusions too quickly, without gathering all the knowledge necessary to make a sound and balanced judgement. It is quite obvious to me that your judgement can be deemed 'irrational' and hence has zero value on a tech website.


@Kommando:
That's exactly what I find so ridiculous. It seems people don't think that they can dial down the settings at 4k as well. On top of that, they have an unhealthy obsession for 60fps. Seriously, I once encountered a dumbass who was moaning about how his machine plays Bioshock Infinite at "only 55fps", LOL.

[Thin & Light Garbage]

@anyone thinking of buying a 4K gaming notebook:  don't do it unless you want 4K for work applications, for gaming it's not a viable option unless you're playing old games like counter strike source of something - let alone for games of the future - the GPU just does not have enough power to run games properly at 4K.  Save your money and buy a 1080p gaming notebook if you want the laptop just for gaming.

[Kommando]

Yeah, if you have no arguments, just repeat your statement. Best reaction possible!  ???

Best arguments against 4K on a 15" Laptop:
They just cost too much, may lead to some bigger or minor scaling problems in windows and have no real benefit if you have a decent distance to your laptop (Compare to 4K @ mobile phones). Additionally they draw a significantly more power than FHD-Screens.

and (to add a joke) you really cant use 4xDSR on a 4K-Display. :)

[Fix]

I wish someone could do the test between the Alienware 15 @1080p display versus AW 15 @4k display downscales to 1080p in a gaming session

I want to buy the 4k version but I also want to be sure that downscale (with perfect multiple like 1080 and 720) doesn't cause any trouble.