The Alienware brand and PC gaming are synonymous, and with good reason. For the past 15 years the folks at Alienware have been churning out high-end gaming systems, and thankfully they continue to so. Its flagship laptop rig, the M18x ($4,529 direct), is packed with over-the-top components and presented in a sharp-looking chassis complete with tricked-out lighting effects and a killer 18.4-inch display. You'll pay more at the pump for this high-octane notebook and you don't get a lot of battery life, but for gamers seeking LAN party dominance it's an easy decision: The M18x eclipses last year's Alienware M17x as our Editors' Choice among cost-no-object (over $3,000) gaming laptops.
Design and Features
When we reviewed the M17x last June, we were wowed by the laptop's overall design and rubber-like matte finish. This time around the Alienware design team decided to shroud the M18x in an anodized aluminum housing with a Space Black finish that is actually more of a metallic dark gray than black. The familiar illuminated alien head adorns the lid, while the front of the base sports two ominous-looking backlit grilles. The front end has a Corvette-like shape that makes the notebook look fast standing still.
With a pair of heavy-duty lid hinges and the aluminum shell, the M18x has a sturdy look and feel that is best described as being built like a tank. Speaking of which, this monster weighs in at a hefty 12.9 pounds and is 2.13 inches thick. The power brick alone weighs close to 3 pounds and measures 1.5 x 3.7 x 7.6 inches (HWD), so unless you plan to make it part of your workout regimen, this laptop probably won't be seeing much travel.
The 18.4-inch display is a thing of beauty, featuring edge-to-edge glass over black bezels, a 1,920 by 1,080 resolution, and outstanding color quality and black levels. The glossy anti-glare coating can be reflective under certain lighting conditions, but it punches up colors and provides nice wide viewing angles. A 3-megapixel webcam is embedded in the screen's upper bezel and an illuminated Alienware logo is centered on the bottom bezel.
Everything about the M18x is big, including the full-sized keyboard. The latter has a dedicated number pad off to the right and five programmable AlienTactx keys on the left. The keyboard keys are quiet and responsive, as is the touchpad and dual mouse button assembly embedded in the rubbery keyboard deck. A set of flush-mounted media player keys sits above the keyboard. There's also an eject button for the slot loading Blu-ray drive, a Wi-Fi on/off switch, and to the far right, an Alienware Command Center key.
As with the M17x, the M18x offers myriad lighting effects, all controlled by the Command Center's AlienFX utility. Here you can set up a lighting scheme for the keyboard with four different zones and assign different colors for each backlit component, including the front grilles, the alien head lid ornament, the touch pad, the power button, and the media controls. There are 20 colors in the LED palette so you can change the lighting scheme to suit your mood. The Command Center is also home to the AlienTouch (touchpad settings) and AlienFusion (power management) utilities and is where you can program the AlienTactx keys.
The M18x is loaded with features. Storage comes by way of two fast (7,200 rpm) 500GB drives configured for RAID 0 for a total of 1TB of storage capacity. Wireless-N and Bluetooth are also part of the package as are an internal 5.1 sound solution and a Klipsch speaker system that you can crank up without worrying about distortion. In addition to the Blu-ray drive, the right side of the chassis holds two USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI input (a rarity that was also included on the M17x), an eSATA/USB combo port, an MMC/SD/MS-Pro card slot, and an ExpressCard reader. Over on the left side you'll find a pair of headphone jacks, S/PDIF and microphone line-in jacks, two USB 3.0 ports, VGA, HDMI, and mini DisplayPort inputs, and a Gigabit Ethernet port. As always, Alienware leaves the bloatware off and preinstalls Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), the Alien utilities, including the AlienRespawn restoration tool, and Steam.
Performance
Performance-wise, the M18x is off the charts. It's powered by Intel's Core i7-2960XM Extreme Edition processor, which runs at 2.7GHz but has an overclocked Turbo Boost that maxes out at 4.0GHz rather than the stock speed of 3.7GHz. Throw in 16GB of DDR3 (1600MHz) dual-channel RAM and a pair of SLI-enabled Nvidia GeForce GTX 580M graphics cards, each with 2GB of GDDR5 video memory, and you've got one of the fastest notebooks ever to hit PC Labs.
The M18x's PC Mark 7 overall performance score of 3,333 couldn't edge the Asus G74SX-A2's score of 3,941—the G74SX-A2 has a solid-state drive, which PCMark 7 loves—but the Alienware thrashed the HP Envy 17 (2012) by 528 points and the Asus G74SX-BBK7 by 764 points.
Processing power is certainly important, but for hardcore gamers it's all about graphics speed, and here's where the M18x struts its stuff. It scored a whopping 71.1 frames per second on our Crysis DX10 gaming test with the settings cranked up to high quality, and churned out 96.5 fps on our Lost Planet 2 DX9 high-quality test. By way of comparison the M17x managed 58.7 fps in Crysis and 57 fps in Lost Planet 2, while the AVADirect Clevo X7200 gave us 28.2 fps (Crysis) and 87.6 fps (Lost Planet 2). The M18x handled our demanding Lost Planet 2 DX11 tests with aplomb, scoring 114.1 fps on the medium-quality (1,024 by 768) test and 64.4 fps on the high-quality (1,920 by 1,080) test.
One area where the M18x did not fare so well was in the MobileMark 2007 battery-life rundown. It lasted 1 hour 38 minutes, which is over an hour less than the Asus G74SX-A2 (2:59) and almost an hour less than the M17x (2:24).Still, that's exactly an hour more than we got from the Clevo X7200 (0:38). Given the size and weight of the M18x, there's a good chance that it won't stray very far from an outlet anyway.
When it comes to portable gaming, Alienware delivers the goods. The M18x not only offers world-class performance, it does it with style and excellent build quality. Granted, you'll have to open the vault to afford this beauty, but you'll get your money's worth in terms of features, screen real estate, storage, and raw horsepower. You may want to consider hiring a roadie if you'll be taking this beast out on the road, and you won't get much playing time between battery charges, but if you're serious about gaming, the Alienware M18x is the current king of the hill and our new Editors' Choice for gaming laptops.
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