The M15 is a new thinner and lighter gaming laptop from Alienware, at least compared to
their previous models. In this review we’ll take an in depth look and see just how well
it performs and if there are any issues with packing so much power into a smaller machine.
These are the specs we’re dealing with, a 6 core i7-8750H CPU, 16GB of memory running
in dual channel, Nvidia 1070 Max-Q graphics, 15.6” 1080p IPS screen, 256GB NVMe M.2 SSD
and 1TB hard drive. For network connectivity we’ve got killer gigabit ethernet as well
as WiFi version 5 with Bluetooth 5 support.
The lid of my model is silver plastic, but it’s also available in red. The interior
is matte black with a sort of rubberised material, it will be interesting to see how that holds
up longer term. The M15 otherwise felt very well built and had no sharp edges or corners.
The dimensions of the M15 are 36.3cm in width, 27.5cm in depth, and 2.1cm in height, and
they note that it’s 5% thinner and 20% lighter compared to the Alienware 13.
The weight is listed as starting at 2.16KG on Dell’s website, and I found mine to weigh
2.3KG, or just over 3KG with the 180 watt power brick and cables included.
I’ve got an AUO 15.6” 1080p 60Hz IPS panel, although you’ve got the option of getting
it with 1080p 144Hz or 4K 60Hz screen instead. No issues at all for me with viewing angles
due to the IPS panel, and the side bezels are about 1cm thick, though still a fair bit
larger on the top and bottom with a glossy material that will easily show up dirt and
smudges.
I’ve measured the current colour gamut using the Spyder 5 Pro, and my results returned
96% of sRGB, 68% of NTSC and 73% of AdobeRGB, so fairly good results for a gaming laptop.
At 100% brightness I measured the panel at 315 nits in the center, and with a 900:1 contrast
ratio, again not bad for a gaming laptop, although the 4K panel is rated at 400 nits
with higher colour gamut if you want something better.
I’ve taken a long exposure photo in a dark room as a worst case backlight bleed test,
and there was a little picked up by the camera. To my own eyes this wasn’t viewable, but
this will vary between laptops and panels.
Screen flex was on the lower side while intentionally moving it, the fairly wide hinges towards
the center felt quite sturdy. It can’t quite be opened up with one finger, as more of the
weight seems to be up towards the back, it felt stable on my lap though.
Above the display in the center is a 1080p camera.
Both the camera and microphone quality are pretty good, definitely above average, although
there is a bit of sound picked up even with the fans quiet.
The keyboard was ok to type with and has a 1.4mm travel distance, it wasn’t impressive
but it gets the job done, the only thing that annoyed me was the smaller arrow keys which
seems to be typical in Dell and Alienware laptops. The keyboard has zoned RGB backlighting
which can be controlled in 4 separate zones through the Alienware Command Center software,
and there are 7 different effects available. We can also control the lighting of the power
button in the middle up the back, by default it’s blue and flashes yellow if the laptop
is charging.
Anyway back to the keyboard, here’s how typing sounds to give you an idea of what
to expect.
There was a little keyboard flex while pushing down hard, but overall it felt quite solid.
The touchpad uses precision drivers and was very smooth to the touch, it worked fine but
was perhaps a little small. The touchpad clicks down anywhere and has left and right buttons
down the bottom.
Fingerprints show up fairly easily on the interior, and as some sort of rubberised material
they were a little difficult to wipe off.
On the left there’s a Noble lock port, air exhaust vent, gigabit ethernet port, USB 3.1
Type-A port, 3.5mm audio combo jack, and the left speaker.
On the right there’s the right speaker, two more USB 3.1 Type-A ports and air exhaust
vent.
The rest of the I/O is on the back, from left to right there are HDMI 2.0 and mini DisplayPort
1.3 outputs, Type-C Thunderbolt 3 port, Alienware Graphics Amplifier port, and the power input.
I’ve got the Alienware Graphics Amplifier here for testing too and will be comparing
it with a Thunderbolt eGPU enclosure, so get subscribed for the results in a future video.
There’s nothing on the front, just smooth plastic.
On the lid there’s the Alienware Logo in the center, and it’s got RGB lighting which
can be controlled through the command center software, just like the keyboard and power
button.
Underneath is pretty clean looking, and the rubber feet did an ok job of preventing movement
while the air vents are found towards the back. The speaker vents are open both towards
the sides and underneath, and they sound pretty good for laptop speakers, definitely above
average and still clear at high volumes.
Opening the laptop was easy, just take out the 9 screws with a Phillips head screwdriver
and remove the bottom panel. Inside from left to right we’ve got two M.2 slots, 2.5 inch
drive bay, 60 watt hour battery, two memory slots and WiFi card above the shared heatpipes.
Powering the laptop is that 60 watt hour battery, however you’ve also got the option of upgrading
to a larger 90 watt hour battery too, but you’ll lose the 2.5 inch drive bay. With
a full charge and just watching YouTube videos with the screen on half brightness, all lighting
effects off and background apps disabled, I was able to use it for 5 hours and 50 minutes,
a pretty good result compared to other gaming laptops I’ve tested, and that’s not even
with the battery upgrade.
While playing the Witcher 3 with medium settings it was running at 60 FPS on battery, I wasn’t
able to cap it to 30 FPS like I usually do with Nvidia’s battery boost, I had other
issues getting GeForce experience working which I had to abandon. Despite this the battery
was able to provide a solid 60 FPS for the entire test, but this did mean it only lasted
for 36 minutes and it got quite hot while discharging power, I’m sure you could probably
get an hour in this test at 30 FPS though.
I’ll also note that with the 180 watt power brick in some games I did see the battery
start to drain while plugged in. Stephen from Own or Disown mentioned in his review that
with a larger power brick this wasn’t a problem, so I’m not sure why it comes with
the 180 watt brick. Overall the battery seemed quite good, you could definitely improve battery
life on gaming if you’re able to get the frame rate properly capped, and of course
there’s the optional 90 watt hour battery upgrade too, but I think we need a larger
power brick.
Thermal testing was completed with an ambient room temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. It’s
worth noting that there are heatpipes shared between processor and graphics, so a change
in one component may affect the other.
Starting at the bottom of the graph, at idle the temperatures are a little warm, although
the fan was completely silent as you’ll soon hear. The gaming test was done with Watch
Dogs 2, as I find that to use a good amount of combined CPU and GPU resources, and we
didn’t quite hit sustained CPU throttling while playing this one, as we did with the
stress tests, shown by the CPU sitting at 99 degrees Celsius.
The stress tests were done by running Aida64 and the Heaven benchmark at the same time
in order to attempt to fully utilize both the processor and graphics. No change in CPU
temperature even with the CPU undervolted by -0.12v, but we’ll see in the next graph
how this helped with performance. With my cooling pad in use I was able to drop the
GPU temperature by around 10 degrees Celsius, and with the cooling pad plus CPU undervolt
right at the top we went from constant thermal throttling to intermittent thermal throttling,
and for the first time hit power limit throttling instead.
I haven’t tested with the fans manually maxed out through the Alienware Command Center
software as there was no need, during these tests it was hot enough that it was always
running with 100% fan speed anyway.
These are the average clock speeds for the same tests just shown. Down the bottom in
the gaming tests we can see a slight GPU clock speed bump with a 200MHz overclock applied,
but a larger 300MHz boost to CPU clock speed with the -0.12v CPU undervolt applied. With
the stress tests running the CPU clock speed rises steadily as we make improvements. With
the cooling pad in use we’re getting better results on the CPU compared to undervolting
only as thermal throttling is the enemy here, then finally at the top with the combination
of cooling pad and CPU undervolt we’re not too far behind the full 3.9GHz all core turbo
speed of the 8750H in this worst case scenario.
These are the clock speeds I got while just running CPU only stress tests without any
GPU load. Even with a CPU only stress test there was thermal throttling taking place
which prevented the full 3.9GHz all core turbo speed of the i7-8750H, though we were able
to achieve full performance with the -0.12v undervolt applied to the CPU. These are the
temperatures for the same test, so thermal throttling at stock at 99 and then this lowered
by 7 degrees Celsius while undervolted while giving us more performance.
To demonstrate how this translates into performance I’ve got some Cinebench CPU benchmarks here,
with the older 7th gen i7-7700HQ just down the bottom for comparison, check the card
in the top right if you want to see a detailed comparison between these two CPUs. There’s
no change with or without the CPU undervolt in single core speeds as that’s not enough
to cause any throttling, but we can see a 110 point boost in multicore due to the thermal
throttling being removed while undervolted.
Here are the GPU only clock speeds while under a graphical only stress test, and with a 200MHz
core overclock applied we’re seeing a 127MHz improvement, and we’ll see how this affects
game performance later. With the graphics overclock applied the temperatures rise by
a couple of degrees, and I’ll note that this is a fair bit higher than most other
graphics only testing I’ve done with other laptops, though no thermal throttling in this
test.
As for the external temperatures where you’ll actually be putting your hands, at idle it
was in the high 30s in the center of the keyboard, most others are closer to the 30 mark. While
gaming the center of the keyboard is in the mid 50s, fairly hot for this area, though
closer to 40 degrees for the WASD area, then similar results with the stress tests running,
again up to the mid 50s towards the back.
As for the fan noise produced by the laptop, I’ll let you have a listen to some of these
tests.
At idle it was completely silent, I used the silent profile which is why the temperatures
were in the 50s, but this does show we can run it quieter. While gaming and under stress
test it was actually a little quieter than most other gaming laptops I’ve tested, despite
the fans running at 100%, at least according to Alienware’s Control Center software.
I feel like the fans should be able to go faster, given the thermal throttling issues
we just saw, and considering the fan noise isn’t really too loud, it seems like they
may have prioritized fan noise over cooling.
The M15 gets hot when under load, despite what Alienware’s product page says about
cooling, there’s more thermal throttling here compared to many other laptops with the
same specs in similar sizes that I’ve tested.
Finally let’s take a look at some gaming benchmarks, all games were run at 1080p with
the latest Windows updates and these Nvidia drivers, the latest Alienware provided at
the time of recording.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature, and even with epic settings I was able to
average above 100 FPS and it was playing perfectly fine for me, though much higher frame rates
were possible with lower settings.
Overwatch was tested playing in the practice range, and once again very nice results for
this well optimized game. Even epic settings gets us 144 FPS, perfect for a 144Hz panel,
with 100 averages for the 1% low.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode and not in multiplayer mode, as it’s easier
to consistently reproduce the test run. Even with ultra settings 60 FPS averages were possible
in this test.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark, and this test was
able to average just under 60 FPS with highest settings, and up to 100 at minimum, so should
work pretty well.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature, and although this is a less optimized game
it still went alright with higher settings, I didn’t see too much of a frame rate difference
in my test, with 100 FPS just possible at very low settings.
CS:GO was tested using the Ulletical benchmark, and with all settings maxed out the test was
still getting fairly high frame rates, and just able to hit 200 FPS with medium settings,
and a bit more at low settings.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the built in benchmark, and this test always results
in high frame rates with modern hardware. Even at ultra settings we’re getting 150
FPS averages, with up to 200 possible at low settings.
Far Cry 5 was also tested with the built in benchmark, and the results were alright from
this test, still above 80 FPS averages even at ultra settings here, with above 100 seen
at low settings.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was another that was tested with the built in benchmark, I
was getting fairly normal average frame rates for this game though the 1% lows were quite
poor due to thermal throttling on the CPU, as discussed earlier.
Dota 2 was tested using a fairly intensive replay, so this should be a worst case scenario,
these results are not the same as actually playing the game which would result in higher
performance. I did play a quick game with ultra settings just for comparison, and it
was averaging around 110 FPS with not much going on.
I’ve got more games covered in the dedicated gaming benchmark video if you’re interested,
just check the card in the top right corner.
The i7-8750H, GTX 1070 Max-Q and dual channel memory configuration are giving us pretty
nice results in all games, these were easily playable with high settings at 1080p, despite
the high thermals. The M15 is also available with 1060 graphics, so expect different results
with different hardware.
Now for the benchmarking tools, I’ve tested Heaven, Valley, and Superposition from Unigine,
as well as Firestrike, Timespy, and VRMark from 3DMark, just pause the video if you want
a detailed look at these results.
As we saw earlier we’ve got the option of overclocking the graphics and undervolting
the CPU to boost performance, so let’s see how this actually helps in gaming.
Far Cry 5 was retested using the built in benchmark, the average frame rates at ultra
settings were 7.3% better compared to stock speeds, and there was a 7% improvement to
1% low, so we are able to get a decent performance boost from overclocking the graphics and undervolting
the CPU, though results will of course vary between game.
For storage I’ve got a 256GB NVMe M.2 SSD installed, and this was providing very nice
read speeds and pretty good write speeds, though this will differ depending on what
SSD you get. The 1TB 5,400RPM SSHD on the other hand was a bit lower in this test considering
it should have a faster cache. The M15 has two M.2 slots too, so you can always upgrade
with a second M.2 NVMe or SATA drive later.
For updated pricing check the links in the description, as prices will change over time.
At the time of recording, in the US with these same specs it’s going for around $2000 USD.
Here in Australia they seem to only have the 1070 Max-Q version with double the RAM I’ve
got here, which goes for about $3500 AUD.
It will be interesting to see if prices changes, with these current Nvidia 10 series models,
as the M15 is going to be updated with RTX 20 series graphics from the 29th of January,
so get subscribed to see my comparisons between this 10 series model with the newer one.
So what do you guys think about the Alienware M15 gaming laptop? When I first heard about
it I thought that it was nice that Alienware was coming to the thinner and lighter gaming
laptop space, unfortunately it looks like this comes at the expense of heat. While this
isn’t too surprising, other laptops with the same specs in similar form factors I’ve
tested didn’t quite get as hot. Thermal throttling was often happening during my testing
resulting in reduced performance, however as we’ve seen we can take some steps to
improve this. Otherwise the M15 felt like a solid premium device that comes for a price
as you’d expect from Alienware, it’s got decent specs for a gaming machine and in my
opinion looks quite nice, aside from the thicker top and bottom screen bezels. The only other
issue I had with it personally was the smaller arrow keys that Dell and Alienware tend to
use, and I think it would have been nice for them to include a larger power brick to avoid
battery drain while gaming.
Let me know what you guys thought about the Alienware M15 gaming laptop down in the comments,
and leave a like to let me know if you found the review useful. Thanks for watching, and
don’t forget to subscribe for future tech videos like this one.