How well will this laptop perform?

I have the R1 m14x and it is great, but I can't run bf3 on low anymore, my friend recently bought a laptop from ibuypower for 1k flat and runs bf3 on ultra just fine. this makes me want to leave alienware all together, if you can, try and convince me to stay with alienware, I'm really close to saving myself some money by getting a different laptop.

Question is, how will this laptop perform playing bf3 or crysis (pretty much modern games)
Dell Alienware M14x R2 Laptop i5 3230M

From what I hear you can change the BIOS and overclock to run on high for bf3 at a decent fps... if that is so, I'm sold.

 

I am note sure which laptop your friend bought, but I do not see anything on their website that would max BF3 our for $1000. You would likely get pretty close to max with a 650m @1366x768 on their Battalion 101
W110ER, but I would never spend that kind of money on a laptop with that low resolution. If you pick up the M14x with the 1600x900 display, i7-3630 and the 650m 2gb you will be able to play on high settings plus have a much better display. I live in Canada and right now I am able to build one with great specs for $1249.99 using a couple of coupons.

I am thinking about ordering one of these for myself.

Here are the specs

Alienware M14X R2
Operating System Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
Processor 3rd generation Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz w/Turbo Boost 2.0)
Memory 12GB (1 X 4GB, 1 X 8GB) DDR3 at 1600MHz
Display Panels 14.0" High Def+ (900p/1600x900) with WLED backlight
Video Card 2 GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M with Optimus™
Hard Drive 500GB 7,200 RPM SATA + 64GB mSATA Caching SSD
Optical Driver Slot-Loading Dual Layer DVD Burner, DVD+-RW
Sound Creative Sound Blaster Recon3Di with THX TruStudio Pro Software
Wireless Networking Killer Wireless-N 1202 a/g/n 2x2 MIMO for Gaming & Video and Bluetooth 4.0

 

turns out he got it it for around 1200, still though that's pretty crazy to run ultra for that low of a price, I have tried it myself. Are you sure it can run high at native? from what I hear that is kind of a longshot...

 

This guy does some great tests with a bunch of different graphics settings. If you turn AA deferred off and ambient occlusion to SSAO you will get pretty close to leaving everything else at ultra. I would think if you put shadows to high and effects to high you could put ambient occlusion to HBAO. If all comes down to what FPS you like playing at. I used to always want 60fps, but I am now happy playing with anything above 30-30fps.

There are 10 parts to this series if you click show more. It is worth watching if you are thinking about an r2.
ALIENWARE m14x R2 - PART 1/10 - BATTLEFIELD 3 - ULTIMATE PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS - YouTube

What size is your buddies laptop? Are you set on a 14" ?

If you are ok with 1366x768 then you may want to look at the Y400 or the G46VW (you can get this one with 1600x900), but the one thing you will get by sticking with AW and in my opinion the most important is the amazing warranty support. No other company can compete with next day in house service which is what you get with an AW.

 

yes either a 14 inch or a 15.6 inch, anything in that ballpark. I cannot do low res either, no way lol. I like to play at at least 40 fps, thanks for the lengthy response!

 

When I was really tight on budget I found a barebone on ebay and built it up myself.

 

A barebone laptop... maybe... I'm pretty close to grabbing an m14x, the build quality is just so good it kinda makes up for the not so great specs...

 

I am biased in such things as I NEED an MXM slot.....

 

You NEED a Quad core to play BF3.

With my m14x R2 bios clocked at 3.9Ghz on a 3740QM and the GT 650m at 1100Mhz Core and 1200Mhz memory i get 60-80 FPS at 900P on ultra
Minus
Low shadows
No AA
No HBAO.


Note this has ZERO FPS dips. With the laptop propped on a DVD Box CPU hits 79C and GPU hits 63C



Edit: I'm sure you can get by with a i7 3630QM you don't need a i7 3740QM @ 3.9 It just happened to be a deal i came across from failwheeldrive.

With my clocks you can compare it to a Desktop GTX 650 (Non Ti) to see how it would run.

 

Thanks for the reply! I did not see this had the i5, I was just using it as an example. I tend to play on these settings, if anyone has an R2 and has the time and is willing to do so, please try these settings for me ?


set it to hboa
no AA
medium shadows
mesh high
high texture quality

play around with the others, these are my key components in making the game look good

if anyone ends up doing this test, I love you lol

I'm eyeballing these:
Dell Alienware M14x R2 i7 3630 GT650 1600x900 128GB SSD 500HD 8GB 14 0" | eBay
Dell Alienware M14x R2 i7 3630 1600x900 32GB mSATA 750GB 8GB Win7 GT650 | eBay
Dell Alienware M14x R2 i7 3740QM 8GB 750GB HD NVIDIA 650M 900P Bluetooth | eBay
Dell Alienware M14x R2 i7 3740QM 8GB 500GB HD NVIDIA 2G 650M 900P Killer WiFi | eBay

my budget is around 1-1.1k, I might be able to splurge, don't really want to though :l

I think the 1st one is the best deal, the last few have the 3740QM

 

Those are the best setting possible for the game, it runs pretty smooth. (Just tried it myself)

 

Do you get to test the laptops while answering on these forums all day, and do you work from home?

Just curious as that would be totally awesome.

 

We do have a lab with most of the laptops and desktops to test at our will. All agents have access to those if they need to do any troubleshooting.