Alienware SLI laptop rocks the games

AURORA MUSIS AMICA. This is what I learned quite few years ago in the Latin class, back in high school. I didn't think it will ever come handy but it actually did.

In English it literaly means dawn is friend of the muses but, in more understandable English, it actually means the early bird catches the worm. This is a nice way to start explaining what this early bird is all about.

Alienware - or should we call it Dellienware these days? - made a quite nice machine and called it Aurora M9700. It is what the Alienware brands as a gamers laptop. To make it even more interesting Alienware managed to put two graphic cards under the hood of this nice and large 17 inch notebook.

The specification is more than impressive. It hides Turion 64 ML 40 CPU single core that works at 2.2GHz, it uses Nforce 4 SLI chipset. The test unit came with 1GB DDR 400 memory. You can store your date on 80GB Hitachi 5400 RPM SATA HDD but you can even plug two times 100GB in RAID if you want and can afford to.

The graphic interface uses two MXM modules with two Nvidia Geforce Go 7900 GS 256MBs. The machine is also equipped with 8x Dual-Layer DVD+/-RW, 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet, Realtek 802.11b/geWireless LAN and good old 56K v.90 Fax/modem.

The display natively supports 1920 x 1200 resolution and it is based on TFT LCD marchitecture. Audio system includes Stereo speakers with integrated subwoofer and a high definition audio card.

The back of machine hides VGA out, DVI out, S Video in, USB and power port. The other side includes a modem, S Video out, coaxial cable and the audio in. The left-hand side hides an express card slot, a memory card reader that wants to read SD, MMC, MS and Memory stick pro cards, Firewire 1394 small port, two USB ports, LAN, and security Kensington lock. The right-hand side hides a volume scroll control wheel, headphone and a microphone plug, three analogue speaker outs for 5.1, optical in and the additional USB.

The front of the machine sports two speakers divided with a DVD burner in the middle. A nice metal-plated touch pad and the power button. Let's not forget about 1.3 M pixel integrated camera. Once you turn the machine on you can see that the eyes on Alienware's logo will glow and make the laptop look cool.

The machine is for gamers and the one we tested at press time costs €2.448,76 including VAT, excluding some €100+ shipping, in the United Kingdom it costs £1,808.32 including 17.5 % percent VAT and excluding delivery and in the USA it costs $2,699.00 I guess including everything. All the machines had estimated date of shipping either 3rd of 4th of October which is not bad at all. Let's say early next week.

Once you open up the machine you can see bunch of buttons that will play and control your music, DVD's or TV and a few of LED drives that tells a lot about the machine status. The lithium ion battery is rated 6450mAh and that can last for some time it will get you some hour and a half in you don't play games.

The Aurora m9700 brand name reminds us of the built-in Radeon 9700 card, one of the most successful ATI ever, based on the R300 chip and bringing back the dark clouds of Nvidia's NV30. Anyway, Alienware includes the numerical keyboard on this model so you will finally have the full keyboard on this massive notebook.

It is interesting to report that the machine is not that warm when you play games. You can even have it in your lap for up to half an hour, 'til your legs fall asleep. The fans are not that noisy either and the notebook is quite quiet in 2Dmode and acceptably noisy in 3D mode while playing games.

I don't think you will want to take this heavy notebook on the road but if you do the battery will hold some hour to hour and a half depending what are you doing. The more 3D games you play the shorter the battery life is. It is not that bad for this super high-end machine.

The power adaptor is big and heavy, looks like a small brick but smaller the one that Shuttle use for its Pentium M based XPC. During testing the machine was always plugged in the power cord. This is the only way to be able to run the notebook for hours and have top performance out of it all the time. While testing the performance you have to forget about the Cool and Quiet and Nvidia power mizer marchitectures.

The Geforce 7900 GS works at 375MHz core clock and 1000MHz memory, it supports 256-Bit memory interface, Shader model 3.0 and forty Shader and seven geometry processors. It's enough to drive any game today and when you get two of them it will sure get you going.

We decided to compare the machine with two 256MB Nvidia Geforce Go 7900 GS cards in SLI versus the same machine with just one 7900 GS card enabled. Just in a single test we included the results from the FX62 powered desktop machine featuring Gainward 7900 GS desktop card, just for a comparison, and we were surprised with the outcome.

Benchmarketing

The tested Alienware Aurora m9700 machine that included:

AMD Turion64 ML-40 at 2.4GHz
Nvidia nForce4 SLI Chipset
1GB DDR 400MHz memory
Two 256MB NVIDIA Geforce Go 7900 GS
8x DVD+/-RW dual-layer drive
Hitachi 80GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
17" WUXGA display with native 1920x1200 resolution
Realtek 802.11b/g WiFi card
10/100/1000 Ethernet
12 cell Li-Ion battery

Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	3DMark 03	Game2	Game3	Game3
Alienware 7800GS SLI	21353	189.1	158.2	130.0
Alienware 7800GS	13135	106.5	88.3	74.8
?	?	?	?	?
CPU Test	CPU Score ?	CPU Test 1 ?	CPU Test 2
Alienware 7800GS SLI	855	101.9	14.1
Alienware 7800GS	907	108.3	14.9
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Vertex Shader	Pixel Shader 2.0
Alienware 7800GS SLI	6644.8	14385.5	62.7	486.1
Alienware 7800GS	3366.2	7294.4	34.4	277.8
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	3DMark 05	Game1	Game2	Game2
Alienware 7800GS SLI	9477	35.4	28.7	53.7
Alienware 7800GS	6099	26.7	18.3	29.7
?	?	?	?	?
CPU Test	CPU Score ?	CPU Test 1 ?	CPU Test 2
Alienware 7800GS SLI	4181	2.0	3.8
Alienware 7800GS	4118	1.9	3.9
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Pixel Shader	VS/VS complex
Alienware 7800GS SLI	7719.7	14495.4	425.4	99.2/74.0
Alienware 7800GS	3931.5	7468.8	220.0	49.9/37.9
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 06	3DMark 06	?	?
Gainward BLISS 7900GS 450/1320 MHz PCX	4290	?	?	?
Alienware 7800GS SLI	4899	?	?	?
Alienware 7800GS	3121	?	?	?
?	?	?	?	?
SM2.0 Test	Score	GT1	GT2
Gainward BLISS 7900GS 450/1320 MHz PCX	1667	13.457	14.322	?
Alienware 7800GS SLI	2580	20.607	22.388
Alienware 7800GS	1372	12.084	11.786
?	?	?	?	?
HDR/SM3.0 Test	Score	HDR1	HDR2
Gainward BLISS 7900GS 450/1320 MHz PCX	1663	14.631	18.628	?
Alienware 7800GS SLI	2487	21.615	28.116
Alienware 7800GS	1343	11.832	15.033
?	?	?	?	?
CPU Test	Score	CPU1	CPU2
Gainward BLISS 7900GS 450/1320 MHz PCX	2080	0.664	1.043	?
Alienware 7800GS SLI	858	0.271	0.436
Alienware 7800GS	857	0.269	0.436
?	?	?	?	?
PC Mark 2005	CPU	Memory	HDD	Total
Alienware 7800GS SLI	3178	2970	3440	3559
Alienware 7800GS	3182	2935	3444	3539
?	?	?	?	?
Sandra 2007	CPU	Memory	Multimedia
Alienware 7800GS SLI	7994/6733	2722/2721	20766/22547
Alienware 7800GS	8011/6742	2732/2732	20812/22590	?
?	?	?	?	?
Doom 3	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
Alienware 7800GS SLI	75.4	75.7	74.6
Alienware 7800GS	77.9	76.2	70.3
?	?	?	?	?
Doom 3 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	?
Alienware 7800GS SLI	75.7	72.6	65.8	?
Alienware 7800GS	73.2	58.7	43.6	?
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4	OK 1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	?
Alienware 7800GS SLI	98.5	94.4	91.9	?
Alienware 7800GS	96.9	89.2	88.4	?
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	?
Alienware 7800GS SLI	91.7	89.9	81.4	?
Alienware 7800GS	85.8	83.9	71.6	?
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR	1024x768	1400x1050	1600x1200	?
Alienware 7800GS SLI	92	80	70	?
Alienware 7800GS	79	52	43	?
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 16X	1024x768	1400x1050	1600x1200	?
Alienware 7800GS SLI	82	57	46	?
Alienware 7800GS	54	33	26	?
?	?	?	?	?
Serious Sam 2 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	1920x1200
Alienware 7800GS SLI	90.4	85.0	83.6	72.3
Alienware 7800GS	87.6	69.9	49.9	45.6

Obviously before we start two 7900 GS cards are faster than a single one so no wondering that the SLI will win every single time. In 3Dmark 03 SLI setup scores massively 8200 marks higher. The game three runs fifty six frames faster. We are talking about almost sixty percent performance advantage.

3Dmark05 is again 3100 marks faster with a massive advantage in games as well. The game two is some fifty five percent faster in SLI mode. We included Gainward desktop card in 3Dmark06 tests just for the reference. Single 7900 GS is 1300 marks slower form the SLI but surprise the two Mobile 7900 GS cards can outperform a desktop one for some 600 marks. Not bad for a mobile graphic. In Shader Mode 2.0 test SLI is some 900 faster from the desktop card and almost twice faster compared to a single card. That's a nice score.

Shader mode 3 test is again much faster on the mobile SLI setup. It runs 800 marks faster than the desktop 7900 GS and 1100 faster than the single mobile 7900 GS. As we user FX62 for the desktop testing you can see that the CPU speed runs faster on a dual core compared with a single core.

PCmark05 runs indenticaly with and without SLI and scores a respectable 3560 marks and Sandra 2007 8011/6742 in CPU testing, 2732/2732 in memory testing and 20812/22590 in multimedia tests. It is a single core CPU with good old DDR memory so you can not get better than that.

Back to games. The biggest problem is that not every game supports the displays native 1920x1200 resolution. Doom 3will play till 1600x1200 but we tried it the picture looks good even at this non native resolution. Without effects Doom 3 runs only up to four frames faster than the single card. But once you turn the 4X FSAA and 8X Anisotropic filtering on you can see fourteen frames difference at 12x10 and a massive twenty two frames difference at 16x12. it is fifty point nine percent faster. Now that's a score.

Once again Quake 4 based on Doom 3 engine won't support native 1920x1200 resolution and scores only less than four frames at 16x12 or slower. Quake 4 4X FSAA and 8X Aniso scores twice six frames faster and at more demanding 16x12 some ten frames faster.

FEAR loves mobile SLI. Even at 10x7 the game runs thirteen frames faster a massive twenty eight frames at 12x10 and twenty seven at 16x12. Mobile SLI is 64 percent faster than a single mobile 7900 GS card. FEAR 4X FSAA and 8X Aniso shows even bigger difference. At 10x7 its twenty eight frames faster, at 12x10 it is twenty four frames faster and at the final 16x12 it is twenty frames faster. Two 7900 GS cards are seventy six percent faster than a single card.

Serious Sam 2 was supporting the native 1920x1200 resolution out of the box at and the native resolution we could see the 26.7 frames difference. Mobile SLI is fifty eight percent faster than a single card at a native resolution. It is also faster in all the lower resolutions.

In short
This is the fastest notebook we have seen so far. If you are not happy with a single graphic card you will have an option to buy two of them and really have the great performance in all games. Two cards will get you up to seventy per cent faster and if you want to play games on such a high resolutions you might need two cards to enjoy it.

It is a very well designed machine and if you prefer a 5+ Kilo notebook and at least one + kilo battery machine with 17-inch screen and great gaming performance this is the machine for you.

It is much easier to carry this machine compared to a desktop but it is not the most transportable thing we seen. It is not cheap but at least you know what you are getting for the money.

We would like to see this kind of machine with a dual-core CPU and powered with DDR 2, simply as it sounds good as the dual-core might be able to get you some additional performance. It should happen sooner or later but at this moment you cannot get much better than this. It's great for gaming and it will serve you well for €2500. ?

Reviewed and tested by Sanjin Rados and Fuad Abazovic