The M15 is a new thin gaming laptop from Alienware with some nice specs, but how well does it
perform in games? I’ve benchmarked 15 different games at all setting levels to show you how
well it runs and help you decide if it’s worth it.
Just quickly before we jump into the benchmark results I’ll cover off the specs in my unit.
There’s an Intel i7-8750H CPU, Nvidia GTX 1070 Max-Q graphics and 16GB of memory running
in dual channel.
I was running Windows 10 with the latest Nvidia drivers available from Alienware, so let’s
see how well it runs!
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 that 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, more on this in a future thermal testing video
so get subscribed for that.
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.
Watch Dogs 2 is a demanding game, but it doesn’t need a high frame rate to play. I can play
it just fine with a solid 30 FPS, so ultra settings worked flawlessly for me on the M15,
although I don’t think you get too much of a difference visually dropping down to
very high.
Ghost Recon is another demanding game and was tested using the built in benchmark, as
usual not great results at ultra for this intensive game, but more than playable at
very high or below without issue.
The Witcher 3 played well enough at ultra settings, although I’d probably stick to
high settings as it did feel noticeably smoother with not too much of a difference in terms
of how the game looked.
DOOM was tested using Vulkan, and this game generally runs quite well on anything. Even
at ultra settings 120 FPS averages were easily possible with higher achievable at lower settings
if needed.
Shadow of War was tested with the built in benchmark, yet again pretty good results,
with over 70 FPS averages still possible at ultra settings, and frame rates above the
refresh rate of the display at lowest settings.
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. The
M15 is also available with 1060 graphics, so expect different results with different
hardware.
I’ve also got Alienware’s Graphics Amplifier here too, so get subscribed to see how this
helps improve gaming performance in a future video.
As mentioned I did notice some thermal throttling present while testing the Alienware M15 gaming
laptop, I’ll be testing that in depth in a future video too to see how hot this thin
machine gets. I’ll also be looking at how we can improve gaming performance through
overclocking and undervolting there too, this is just how the laptop performs out of the
box in a number of different games, which is likely how most people will probably end
up using it. The new RTX models are also just around the corner, so I can’t wait to compare
this with the newer M15 in future.
So how do you guys think the Alienware M15 gaming laptop did in these games? As we’ve
seen the GTX 1070 Max-Q with i7-8750H is a a fairly powerful combination, we’re able
to get pretty good results from this laptop.
Let me know what you guys thought down in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe
for the full review of the Alienware M15 gaming laptop, temperature testing, graphics amplifier
testing and of course future tech videos like this one.