Alienware Area-51 m9750: Power Gaming on the Go
by Jarred Walton on August 24, 2007 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Conclusion
Anyone familiar with Alienware as a company could have probably guessed at the conclusion without even reading the article. This is one of the fastest notebooks currently available, with pretty much every high-performance option possible if you're willing to spend the money. If the primary concern is raw CPU performance, there are certainly faster notebooks out there, but if all you really want is the ultimate gaming notebook the Alienware Area-51 m9750 delivers the goods. Until NVIDIA or AMD comes out with a faster DirectX 10 mobile graphics chip, GeForce Go 7950 GTX SLI is as fast as notebook graphics come. However, there are some major snags that interested buyers will need to get past.
First, you need to be willing to spend this much money on a laptop. The version we tested costs about $5,000, although you could still keep the SLI graphics and make a few other compromises in order to get the price closer to $4000 if desired. That's still about twice as expensive as a good upper-midrange notebook, and a modern $2000 desktop PC should still be able to outperform the m9750. Let's just assume that money isn't a major concern, however. Is the notebook still worth a look?
SLI has always been on the bleeding edge of gaming performance; while things have become a little better on the desktop, SLI notebooks have a ways to go. The biggest problem is drivers. We didn't encounter any difficulties with any of the older games that we've tested on the notebook, and most recent titles work as well. However, Bioshock definitely has some graphical glitches and SLI pretty much doesn't work right at present. We're certain that there are other titles out there - or there will be in the near future - that will encounter similar problems. A driver update is probably all that will be necessary, but when that will actually come out is anyone's guess.
We're still not sure how big of a demand there is for high-powered gaming notebooks. Yes, Alienware and several other vendors make some very powerful notebooks, but is there really that much interest from consumers? For most people, spending this much money on a computer is more than just a little frivolous. Then again, there are certainly gaming enthusiasts that have money to spare.
One thing we're sure of is that we will continue to see a lot of growth in the notebook industry, and while notebooks likely will always remain a year or two behind their desktop siblings in terms of raw performance, we are fast reaching the point where more processing power really isn't necessary. We can still come up with situations where quad core processors are useful, but stretching that to octal cores requires a lot more imagination. When a decent notebook is more than fast enough for anything you might want to do with a computer, the choice becomes spending the same amount of money on a faster desktop or else getting a portable computer instead. With companies like Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD all working on creating faster parts, perhaps we're not far off from Alienware releasing an Ono-Sendai Cyberspace VII that we can all use to jack into the matrix. Just watch out for the ICE....
Anyone familiar with Alienware as a company could have probably guessed at the conclusion without even reading the article. This is one of the fastest notebooks currently available, with pretty much every high-performance option possible if you're willing to spend the money. If the primary concern is raw CPU performance, there are certainly faster notebooks out there, but if all you really want is the ultimate gaming notebook the Alienware Area-51 m9750 delivers the goods. Until NVIDIA or AMD comes out with a faster DirectX 10 mobile graphics chip, GeForce Go 7950 GTX SLI is as fast as notebook graphics come. However, there are some major snags that interested buyers will need to get past.
First, you need to be willing to spend this much money on a laptop. The version we tested costs about $5,000, although you could still keep the SLI graphics and make a few other compromises in order to get the price closer to $4000 if desired. That's still about twice as expensive as a good upper-midrange notebook, and a modern $2000 desktop PC should still be able to outperform the m9750. Let's just assume that money isn't a major concern, however. Is the notebook still worth a look?
SLI has always been on the bleeding edge of gaming performance; while things have become a little better on the desktop, SLI notebooks have a ways to go. The biggest problem is drivers. We didn't encounter any difficulties with any of the older games that we've tested on the notebook, and most recent titles work as well. However, Bioshock definitely has some graphical glitches and SLI pretty much doesn't work right at present. We're certain that there are other titles out there - or there will be in the near future - that will encounter similar problems. A driver update is probably all that will be necessary, but when that will actually come out is anyone's guess.
We're still not sure how big of a demand there is for high-powered gaming notebooks. Yes, Alienware and several other vendors make some very powerful notebooks, but is there really that much interest from consumers? For most people, spending this much money on a computer is more than just a little frivolous. Then again, there are certainly gaming enthusiasts that have money to spare.
One thing we're sure of is that we will continue to see a lot of growth in the notebook industry, and while notebooks likely will always remain a year or two behind their desktop siblings in terms of raw performance, we are fast reaching the point where more processing power really isn't necessary. We can still come up with situations where quad core processors are useful, but stretching that to octal cores requires a lot more imagination. When a decent notebook is more than fast enough for anything you might want to do with a computer, the choice becomes spending the same amount of money on a faster desktop or else getting a portable computer instead. With companies like Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD all working on creating faster parts, perhaps we're not far off from Alienware releasing an Ono-Sendai Cyberspace VII that we can all use to jack into the matrix. Just watch out for the ICE....
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Guspaz - Saturday, September 1, 2007 - link
Anybody considering buying a gaming notebook should refuse to purchase one until nVidia gets their act together and starts releasing notebook drivers with regularity.I myself am a notebook gamer, with a modest Dell Inspiron 9400, Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz, and aGeForce Go 7900gs. I run Vista.
Well, nVidia currently DOES NOT OFFER Vista notebook drivers at all. Not a one, nada. Your only options are to either use Dell's driver, which is an ancient beta missing support for most features of the GPU, or a hacked desktop driver (which still is missing many features under Vista, and lacks PowerMizer support).
Under XP, the situation isn't much better. nVidia's latest notebook drivers for XP are 84.63, released over a year ago on July 5, 2006.
Your notebook manufacturer MIGHT provide newer drivers, if you're LUCKY. For Dell's part, their XP drivers are still ancient and stuck in the 90 series, and they only ever released ONE driver for Vista, probably thinking "Well, they have drivers now, that's good enough."
In order to play BioShock on a notebook, you have NO other option but to hack the desktop drivers.
This is NOT an acceptable situation. As notebook gamers, we should REQUIRE nVidia to SUPPORT THEIR PRODUCT and release regular updates for their cards. The fact that their desktop drivers work so well on notebooks with a simple INF tweak should show you how EASY it would be for them to release official notebook drivers. They give us this bullshit story about how driver updates need to come from the notebook manufacturers due to differences between notebooks. This is bullshit. I don't get my desktop graphics drivers from Abit because they happen to have made the motherboard.
So what do I plan to do? I have no choice. I'll keep using hacked desktop drivers for lack of ANY other option.
monitorjbl - Saturday, August 25, 2007 - link
Yay, a William Gibson reference!
JarredWalton - Saturday, August 25, 2007 - link
Bonus points if you actually played the old Neuromancer game by Interplay. Cue Devo...Some
Things
Ne-ver
Change
....
:)
strafejumper - Friday, August 24, 2007 - link
i never understood the concept of all these laptops such as this alienwarethe idea of a laptop to me is it is portable
however if the battery only last 60 mins it is not really that portable
for $5000 i would want to be able to for example watch a dvd
however this cannot even do that seemingly simple task!
battery life to me is so much more useful than the extra cpu and gpu cycles
when watching a dvd, browsing the internet, playing cards, backgammon, chess or other simple games, listening to music, typing documents, emailing, messengering etc. etc. the extra horsepower of the cpu and gpu are not even being used.
battery life > some extra frames in the latest game (which is better on a desktop probably anyway with bigger screen, full keyboard + mouse, desk, speakers, etc.)
Inkjammer - Saturday, August 25, 2007 - link
I am one of the people who have bought, buy and will buy workstations like these. People like me don't buy them as a "laptop" but as a "portable desktop replacement" (DTR).Some of the justifications:
Lugging an entire system to LAN parties can be frustrating, especially since I have a 24" monitor, large keyboard. I'm also using a Coolermaster 830 CM Stacker case, which weighs a ton, and breaking it down, setting it up can take far, far too long.
I also tend to take my DTR notebooks systems with me to work, where I can game during nightshifts. I'm also stationed overseas, so being able to easily transport a FULL system, even if contains in a laptop, is invaluable. I also do high end art and 3D animation, and need the additional power for job and hobby.
The tradeoff for portability and battery life on a notebook is fairly steep, but there's not much in the way of compromise.
And yes, I have a second laptop for my "on the go" needs.
yyrkoon - Friday, August 24, 2007 - link
Some people do not have room for a desktop(or a desk), and use nothing but laptops. Others may travel, staying in hotels nightly, having a plug available, but do not want to tote around a desktop with them. Other people like truckers may be able to use an AC inverter for power, but have limited room in their sleepers for a computer.Having said that, I have been a trucker, and kept a full sized desktop in my sleeper, and I have also worked over the road, staying in a hotel nightly, and used a desktop during this time as well. Not everyone is like me however, and some of these people may preffer something smaller, and easier to carry around, or maybe just smaller to maximize their given 'alotted space' where ever they may be. I wouldnt buy one though . . .
wolfman3k5 - Saturday, August 25, 2007 - link
Well, how about there east bound, you got your ears on? I totally know what you mean, how ever I never had time for gaming. Battery life was always more important to me. I'm also an ex trucker, God, it's a lonely job. Anyway, just wanted to say hi:)yyrkoon - Monday, August 27, 2007 - link
Myself, for 2 years(and around 200k miles) I would typically drive 8HRs/day, 2-3 months at a time. Plenty of down time, and plenty of time to game, even in the early to mid 90's ;) Of course back then, there was nothing like this availible, and I was probably one of the first drivers to have a full blown desktop in their cab(IMB compatable 386SX-25 with 4 MB of ram YEEE HAAW!) lol . . .yyrkoon - Monday, August 27, 2007 - link
IBM compatable . . .JarredWalton - Monday, August 27, 2007 - link
IBM compatible you mean? :)