The idea of using a gaming notebook as a workstation is actually obvious due to the similar hardware requirements. This is because the demands on the CPU, GPU, RAM and mass storage are high in gaming as well as in the areas of 3D, HD video and media content creation. If you take a look at the hardware equipment of the Alienware m15, you would be forgiven for believing it could be used as a workstation. The notebook was delivered in a sturdy shipping box, which keeps the device well padded on the inside.
Case
The housing of the m15 appears stable and accurately finished. All plastic parts are clean and flush, the display hinges are secure and run smoothly and evenly. The 15.6-inch UHD display with 4K resolution delivers good, high-contrast images even at less than ideal viewing angles and has enough brightness reserves to work outdoors on a summer’s day.
We were positively impressed by the keyboard, which, in addition to good keys and a generous surface area, even offers a full alpha-num pad, which makes it much easier to operate 3D, audio and video programmes. The track pad with two mouse buttons can also be controlled safely and precisely.
On the left side of the Alienware m15 is a USBA 3.1 port and the Gigabit LAN socket, with two more USBA 3.1 ports on the right. On the rear, Dell has accommodated the HDMI 2.0, a mini display port, Thunderbolt 3 and the Alienware Graphics Amplifier port.
Equipment
When selecting the CPU and graphics card for the Alienware m15, the maxim “a lot helps a lot” obviously applied. Dell has packed an Intel i9-8950HK CPU with six cores and the Nvidia Geforce GTX 2080 Max Q, one of the currently most powerful mobile graphics cards with 8 Gbytes of RAM, into the m15 and additionally garnished it with 32 Gbytes of RAM memory. This should be sufficient for most workstation tasks such as HD video editing or 3D modelling. However, the capacity of the internal NVME SSD could be a little tight, as only 256 Gbyte for programmes, one or two libraries and project data will quickly become cramped. However, it is then possible to connect a lot of fast mass storage via one of the available high-speed interfaces.
Performance
With the Intel Core i9-8950HK processor, the Alienware m15 achieved an impressive 2,546 points in the Cinebench 20 CPU benchmark, 1,221 points in the older Cinebench 15 and 117 frames per second in its OpenGL test for the Nvidia Geforce 2080 Max Q. The Alienware m15 also performed well in the V-Ray benchmark for CPU and GPU:
1 minute and 52 seconds of computing time for the CPU test and 1 minute and 43 seconds for the GPU test.
In the Blender 2.7 render test of the classroom scene, the i9 8950 HK needed 23 minutes and 44 seconds. With version 2.8, the same scene calculated on the CPU then only took 18 minutes and 6 seconds and just 4 minutes and 37 seconds on the GPU of the Geforce RTX. The unofficial Octane-Bench beta render test resulted in 151 points without and a whopping 445 points with RTX support.
With the default preset “4K Full”, the 256 Gbyte NVME SSD achieved 650 Mbytes per second when writing and 2,409 Mbytes per second when reading data with a continuous transfer rate of at least 1,182 Mbytes per second in the Aja system test. This is a little low for writing, but the Alienware m15 will probably not be used for 8K capturing.
The Dell Alienware m15 achieved the second-highest DPC latency value of 734 microseconds, traditionally caused by a Dell driver. This is a pity, because apart from this singular peak value, the latencies were in significantly lower ranges, which makes the Alienware m15 appear worse in this area than it actually is.
An Intel i9-8950HK CPU and an RTX 2080 are very fast, but they also have to be cooled somehow, which is always a bit difficult in notebooks due to the limited space available. If you then consider that the case is quite flat for the hardware power it contains, a thermal disaster seems inevitable. Even when idling, the Alienware’s fans repeatedly started up audibly. At around 20 to 30% load, the fans then ran continuously in the lower speed range.
During the test runs with the benchmarks, the fans then started up audibly to loudly and the underside of the case became noticeably warm after a few minutes. Under synthetic load with the Aida 64 stress test, in which the CPU, GPU, memory and all mass storage devices ran simultaneously at full capacity, the temperature of the CPU initially rose to 100°C and that of the GPU to 92°C. This led to the CPU clock frequency being reduced by 10 to 20% to protect the CPU from overheating. Normally, a notebook does not recover from such a heavy thermal load and continues to run at a slower pace under load. Not so the Alienware m15, which heroically picked itself up after about two to three minutes of thermal throttling of the CPU with audible fan noise and from then on continued to calculate unchecked with CPU temperatures of 92°C and GPU temperatures of around 80°C – permanently and without fluctuations. Although this is close to the limit, it is okay considering the form factor and performance. A warning for all male readers who have the idea of using the Alienware m15 under full load as a classic laptop on their lap: This could lead to thermal sterilisation in the long run.
Conclusion
The idea of misusing the Alienware m15, which was actually designed for gaming, as a workstation is not so far-fetched. There are a few points that will irritate professional workstation users, such as the many pre-installed software helpers and assistants that interrupt your work at the most inopportune moments and have to be deactivated manually. Or the relatively high fan noise under partial and full load, the low SSD storage space and the brief thermal throttling. In return, the user gets a computer with a huge variety of configuration options, a good display and casing and more than enough CPU and GPU performance to be able to work decently on the move without having to spend a fortune. And you can also use it for gaming.
