M17 Review - Maximum PC - March 09

Did anyone else see the review of the M17 in Maximum PC Magazine? It was in the March issue on page 76. They totally ripped on it giving it a 5 out of a 10. Alot of what they said seemed false to me. They said that the performance of the unit sucks and they could only get a average of 26fps on Fear. I get that many FPS second on Crysis for God sakes and I am using the P8400 CPU. The review just seems totally off.


Here's the article.

http://maximumpc.coverleaf.com/maximumpc/200903/?pg=78

 

A link Would be helpful.

 

I think he's talking about the magazine.

 

They got it totally wrong there.

 

There's no sign of the review on MPC's website, and I'm not feeling motivated enough to purchase a hard copy. From the sound of it, Alienware forgot to pay their monthly 'protection' money to the magazine.

 

Maybe they should have supplied them with a few babes in bikini's that would possible given an 11 out of 10.

 

hahahahh awesomely said!

 

Well if they tested games with AW drivers which are clearly outdated then what they said should be expected. Since with newer drivers the performance almost doubles in a lot of games.

 

Mainstream publications don't know how to test notebooks. I haven't read the Maximum PC review, but based on what you said they didn't bother to change settings or explore options. This is a PC gaming machine, not a dumbed-down console.

Also, based on my own experience with the OCZ Whitebook/M17, I'd say a review that bashes the notebook for performance couldn't be further from the truth.

Do you remember what they listed as the pros/cons?

Alienware does not pay anyone to give a good review - I personally can attest to this since I have been testing their products over the last three years.

 

+Ethel M: hip finish, luscious display, cool backlit keyboard
-Cold Ethel: heavy, unimpressive gaming performance, terrible speakers

 

heavy ?!

Lets all buy a Ferrari and complain it uses too much petrol... Seriously i dont get people sometimes.

 

I wasn't implying that AW paid for reviews, but that Maximum PC only gives good reviews to those who pay for ad space.

Of course I have no evidence to support that, it's just my grumpy opinion.

 

Added article to previous post.

 

Maximum PC is a great product reviewer, but they review products as shipped. If you ask me, this is a reasonable policy when you consider the average computer buyer's tech level. Most people don't spend their first week updating, bechmarking, and otherwise scrutinizing their new computers. They turn them on and use them. As for weight complaints, when you review all notebooks the same way, an eight pound notebook is a fatty.

Oh, and the idea that they favor companies' products that advertise among their pages... Well first off, AW has ads in MPC from time to time, and more importantly, a prime example of this falsehood would be the first "Ultra" brand modular PSU that advertised on the back cover (the most expensive ad space on a mag usually) of MPC for a few months. Including the month that MPC reviewed it and gave it like a 2 or a 3 outta 10. After that, I think Ultra likely opted to spend their ad money elsewhere.

Any blame for the bad review should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the AW staffers that shipped an imperfect product for review. But hey, at least we know AW doesn't send "pick of the litter" PCs out for review, or maybe they're just really bad at getting them ready to ship.

 

Yeah, I, too, agree most end users will tear open the box, install their games, and start playing while using the system as needed.

We're masochistic here on the forums in the fact we like to poke and prod our new toys and tweak them. I'd even guess some would be disappointed if their systems arrived completely tweaked and optimized from head to toe.

 

Of course The whole fun of getting a new laptop is formatting it the moment it arrives so you can set it up the way you want

 

lol i didnt format but i did optimize

 

you can also consider that they built it with min specs. Alienware is not meant to have lowest specs. Thats just me though

 

maybe they were using a logitech mouse with FEAR and thus got the FPS drops

 

I use the alienware drivers that shipped with it and I play TF2 and Left 4 Dead 1900x1200 and maxxed out options without lag =/. Though I will say when I tried playing Empire total war i could barely play with the big battles because it lagged so bad, but I don't think the drivers are to blame for this, i think.

 

Well, for example. The drivers you are using dont have a profile for Fear 2, mirrors edge and some other newer games, which in most cases your crossfire wont work properly. On top of that, you can see a nice fps boost in games like Far cry 2, Crysis, etc which pretty much doubles your fps. So combining those two, they are lucky they got 26-29fps in fear and not 1

 

Max PC is a Great place for reviews as they are honest. In the newest month they gave the Cyberpower Extreme M1, their version of the m17, an 8 out of 10. Maybe there WAS an issue with the AW.

CPU on the Cyberpower was the t9400. Negatives: Pricey, heavy, poor battery life, bad speakers.

On the benchmarks, they do use 1920x1200 for graphics benchmarks i believe.

Here's an interesting quote :

"Gaming was aneven more interesting story. ... But wecertainly werent expecting the M1 to turn out just 28fps in FEAR -- that's 74 percent slower thanGateway's budgetmachine....
With UT3, the M1 surpassed even some gaming desktops with 114fps. Indeed, the overall gaming prowess of the ExtremeM1 convinced us that the FEAR score is likely the result of a driver issue and not any shortcoming."

 

Did anyone notice they wrote the wrong clock speed? They claim it to have a P8400 running at 2.6Ghz? Funny because my P8600 is 2.4... The real spec of a P8400 they tested was 2.26 not 2.6 like they wrote.

While they may have been a typo and had nothing to do with the oddly poor performance they got I wanted to point it out as I believe it shows the quality of their work.

But who cares anyway!? We've got our M17's and I can say I LOVE mine! It's a fantastic gaming machine and I'm really happy I bought it! I know I can get way higher FPS then that in FEAR or FEAR 2 for that matter... Perhaps immature drivers were to blame. But again who cares what they think they found.