The Alienware 51m gaming laptop is packing some serious power, including an 8 core desktop
CPU, the i9-9900K and Nvidia RTX 2080 graphics, so let’s find out just how well this beast
smashes games at 4K, 1440p and 1080p resolutions.
Just quickly before we jump into the benchmark results I’ll cover off the specs in my unit.
As mentioned there’s the desktop grade overclockable 9900K CPU, RTX 2080 graphics, definitely no
Max-Q in this thick boy, and 64gb of memory running in dual channel. The 51m is available
with different specs though, you can find examples and updated prices linked in the
description.
I was running Windows 10 with the latest Nvidia drivers available. By default the 51m offers
two levels of overclock profiles with the following settings. As this honestly is an
enthusiast grade machine, I’ve used a combination of the two along with a CPU undervolt that
was not being applied by default to boost performance.
We’re only covering gaming performance here, so if you’re new to the channel you’ll
want to get subscribed for the thermal testing and full review. We’ll start off by going
through all 15 games at all setting levels at three resolutions, then afterwards see
how the Alienware 51m compares with some other gaming laptops.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode rather than multiplayer. At 1080p even RTX
was playing alright, with 60 FPS averages still reached at ultra settings, while with
RTX off, shown by the purple bars, we’re getting much higher frame rates compared to
other machines. Stepping up to 1440p and we’re still getting results better than what most
other gaming laptops are able to provide at 1080p, though the RTX results are now about
inline with 1080p results from those other machines. At 4K RTX is pretty much a write
off regardless of setting level, however 60 FPS averages were still achieved with it disabled
at high setting.
Apex Legends was tested with either all settings at maximum, or all settings on the lowest
possible values, as it doesn’t have predefined setting presets. This game seems to cap out
at 144 FPS, and we were able to average this at 1080p and minimum settings. Stepping up
to 1440p still saw around 140 FPS averages at minimum settings, while maxed out was still
scoring above 100 FPS. At 4K minimum settings were still playable with above 100 FPS, however
for some reason maxed out the game would chug badly and wasn’t really playable, so not
exactly sure what happened there, that’s the only game this happened in.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was tested with the built in benchmark, and as a CPU heavy
game seems to benefit well from the 9900K. Granted at higher settings the frame rate
isn’t that high, but the difference is clearer at lower settings. Moving up to 1440p and
the results are still better than most other gaming laptops I’ve tested at 1080p, very
nice results. At 4K the frame rates are much lower as you’d expect, however I don’t
think this game needs a mega high frame rate to enjoy, so you could still easily play it
with lower settings.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was also tested with the built in benchmark, and again it’s
no surprise that these are some of the best results I’ve ever seen from a laptop, with
120 FPS averages even at highest settings. Even at 1440p, again like the other games,
we’re seeing performance greater than what most other gaming laptops can reach at 1080p,
so very nice. Things drop off quite a bit once we go up to 4K, however 60 FPS averages
were still possible in this test at medium settings, with not much difference at high.
CS:GO is a game that loves CPU performance, and was tested using the Ulletical FPS benchmark.
At 1080p we’re seeing crazy performance for a laptop, well I guess it’s not really
a laptop when it will crush your legs. Anyway, 500 FPS averages with all settings at minimum.
At 1440p there was a larger decrease at higher settings, however still above 300 FPS and
not too far below 500 at minimum settings. At 4K we’re still getting better performance
than most other laptops at 1080p, again because of that insane CPU performance.
Far Cry New Dawn was tested with the built in benchmark, and as a game that likes CPU
performance we’re seeing quite high results for this test, with 100 FPS reached at ultra.
1440p was still giving performance above most other gaming laptops at 1080p, while 4K was
still capable of 60 FPS averages at ultra settings, with not too much of a difference
at lower settings.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature, and as a game that runs on pretty much anything
when we give it top end specs we’re getting pretty crazy results, with 400 FPS averages
at low settings and still over 200 at epic. At 1440p 400 FPS averages were still achieved
at low where we’re more CPU bound, while epic was still sitting comfortably at 130
FPS. 4K was still able to reach 60 FPS averages at epic settings and was actually playable,
with much higher frame rates possible depending on how far you’re willing to lower the settings.
Overwatch was tested in the practice range and is another well optimized game, so it’s
not too surprising that we’re smashing the 300 FPS frame cap at all setting levels except
epic, which is still very high. At 1440p the frame cap was still being hit at low and medium
settings, while epic settings was still extremely high. 4K still played perfectly smoothly at
epic settings with above 90 FPS averages, though it was possible to boost this quite
substantially with lower settings.
Metro Exodus was tested using the built in benchmark, most parts of the game perform
a fair bit better than this, so don’t take these results as a good indication of what
to expect throughout the entire game, it’s more of a worst case but does let you perform
the same test to compare against. Like most other games even in this resource intensive
test the 1440p results are ahead of what many other gaming laptops reach at 1080p.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the built in benchmark, and with a 1080p resolution
ultra settings were still able to reach above 200 FPS no problem, with over 350 at low settings.
The 1440p results were excellent too, still able to reach 150 FPS at ultra settings with
high 200s possible at low settings. At 4K while the results are lower, it should still
be usable without issue, even low settings were reaching 144 FPS.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature, and the results were great for this test.
At 1080p the ultra settings were higher than most other machines at low settings. At 1440p
we see minimal change at the lower levels as we’re more CPU bound, however ultra settings
were still able to hang on to an above 100 average. At 4K high settings was needed for
60 FPS, though very low settings still gave excellent performance, with results higher
than some well specced gaming laptops at 1080p.
Watch Dogs 2 loves CPU power, so no surprise that we’re seeing excellent results at 1080p,
with 90 FPS reached at ultra settings, and 100 plus at high and lower. At 1440p high
settings was now only just below 100 FPS, while ultra was still running extremely well
without any issues. Honestly even 4K ran alright for me, I find a stable 30 FPS in this game
fine, so 32 for the 1% low is at least playable, though you can still hit 60 FPS averages at
high settings.
Ghost Recon is another resource intensive game and was tested using the built in benchmark.
I usually say that you need a thick and powerful laptop to hit 60 FPS in this test at ultra,
well even our 1% low is above that with the 51m. At 1440p it’s still capable of reaching
a 60 FPS average, really impressive stuff, while high settings was able to get us to
100 FPS. Things take a hit at 4K as expected, however 60 FPS in this test was still achieved
at high settings.
The Witcher 3 was tested with hairworks disabled, and while it doesn’t need a crazy high frame
rate we’re still getting one here, with over 150 FPS at ultra settings at 1080p. At
1440p ultra settings were still reaching more than 100 FPS, so it was playing perfectly
fine while looking excellent. At 4K the frame rates drop back quite a bit, however even
ultra settings still maintained a stable 60 FPS in this game.
Strange brigade is my only Vulkan title, and was tested using the built in benchmark. At
1080p the results are pretty crazy, approaching 200 FPS at ultra settings. At 1440p the average
frame rates are still extremely high and it’s running very well, then at 4K still capable
of hitting 100 FPS at medium settings.
Let’s also take a look at how this config of the Alienware 51m compares with other laptops
to see how it stacks up, use these results as a rough guide only as they were tested
at different times with different drivers.
In Battlefield 5 I’ve got the Alienware 51m highlighted in red, and as expected it’s
smashing the competition due to the desktop grade hardware. Both the 1% low and average
frame rate are significantly ahead of even the closest competition, this thing is literally
on another level.
Here are the results from Far Cry 5 with ultra settings in the built in benchmark. Again
the 51m is way out ahead, even the 92 1% low is ahead of the average frame rate most of
these machines are able to provide, with the average at least 30 FPS higher than the closest
neighbour.
These are the results from Shadow of the Tomb raider with the built in benchmark at highest
settings, and once more there’s a significant gap between the 51m and the other machines
due to the crazy specs inside.
So as we’ve seen the Alienware 51m is offering serious levels of performance, which is to
be expected, it’s a thick machine with a desktop overclockable 8 core CPU and full
on RTX 2080 graphics capable of running up to 190 watts. 1080p and 1440p gaming was no
problem at all, while many titles at 4K ran alright too depending on setting level.
Unfortunately I don’t have data for higher resolutions with the other machines, I only
tested the 51m at 1440p and 4K because with these specs the extra time spent is well justified
as it can actually run them. I believe you can only buy the 51m with a 144Hz 1080p panel
at the moment which is unfortunate, so 1440p and 4K testing was done with an external monitor,
while the 1080p tests were done with G-Sync.
There are definitely some compromises to be made with a machine like this, mainly in terms
of size, battery life portability and price. It’s more of a desktop replacement that
can still be moved than a gaming laptop.
As for thermals, well I’ve still got to test that, so keep an eye out for my detailed
thermal testing video which will be coming soon. If you’re new to the channel you’ll
definitely want to get subscribed for that, as well as for the full review of the Alienware
51m gaming laptop slash desktop replacement.