Alienware 18 Gaming Notebook Review (with Intel Core i7 4930MX)

Configuration

Our sample of the Alienware 18 is based around the most powerful mobile processor currently on the market, the Intel Core i7 4930MX processor, which has been overclocked to 3.1 GHz, reaching up to 4.3 GHz in Turbo mode.  This is a quad core model which supports Hyper Threading, so there are 8 logical cores available.  Our machine also features 16 GB (4x 4GB) of DDR3 RAM which is clocked at 1600 MHz.

Alienware has chosen to configure this particular machine with dual nVidia GeForce GTX 780M graphics cards which are the most powerful mobile GPUs currently available.  These each features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory and are clocked at 771 MHz.

Testing Methodology

Today we are going to use a combination of synthetic and real world benchmarks to showcase the performance of the Alienware 18.

Specification

• Display: 18.4 inch (467.36mm) WLED FHD (1920 X 1080) TrueLife Display
• Graphics Card: Dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5 (SLI)
• Processor: Intel Core i7-4930MX Processor (8MB Cache Overclocked up to 4.3GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
• Memory: 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
• Hard Drive: 750GB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s
• mSATA Storage: 512GB mSata SSD Boot
• Optical Drive: Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVDRW, CD-RW)
• WIFI Card: 5G WiFi Broadcom 4352 802.11n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0
• Keyboard: Backlit Keyboard UK
• Warranty: 1 Year NBD with Premium Phone Support
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit (Windows 8 available at no extra cost)

Software:

• PCMark 7
• 3DMark
• 3DMark 11
• 3DMark Vantage
• SiSoft Sandra 2013
• Cinebench R11.5
• CrystalDiskMark
• Cyberlink MediaEspresso 6.7
• VLC Media Player
• Performance Monitor
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark
• Super Pi 1.5 Mod
• CPUID Hardware Monitor
• CPU-Z
• GPU-Z
• WinRAR
• DiRT Showdown
• Battlefield 3
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

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