Alienware M15X

Alienware has long been a name associated with high-end gaming machines, especially in the notebook domain. Extreme performance, reliability and distinctive visual designs have maintained the popularity of the brand, despite their going from ‘indie’ to ‘mainstream’ via acquisition by computing giant Dell.

I’d personally never had a chance to test an Alienware machine so when the M15X came up on our radar, I just had to get one in. Could these machines really be that good, or is it all just a clever exercise in branding?
The M15X is certainly distinctive, shaped like a cross between a sports car and a Transformer’s breastplate. The Alienware logo is prominent on the case, lighting up in your user-selected colour to inspire fear in the hearts of your LAN-party enemies across the table. It’s a love-it-or-hate-it design, and I must admit I fall into the former category.

The model we received for review is – as often happens with Dell’s elaborate system of customisations – not actually available for purchase. Ours featured an Intel Core i7-720QM 1.6GHz quad-core CPU and 6GB of RAM. The lowest you can now choose is an i7-740QM 1.73GHz quad-core, with 8GB of RAM – this setup, with all other specs identical to our review model – will set you back $3,354.

Unfortunately this means our benchmarks are tenuous – the extra RAM is unlikely to make a difference, but the higher-speed CPU in the production model should give better results than we got.

Using the same benchmarks as we did for Multimedia Monsters in August’s issue (Just Cause 2 and STALKER: Call of Pripyat), our M15X still managed to beat every notebook in that test – including the PC World Platinum Award-winning HP ENVY 17. However, the M15X scored below-average in Mass Effect 2 gameplay tests, pumping out just 29.9fps at 720p resolution and a questionably playable 23.04fps at 1080p.

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