The Great Gaming Notebook Shootout of 2013
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Performance Benchmarking
Performance Benchmarking
To evaluate the notebooks, we will be putting it through our revised suite of tests and benchmarks. Raw performance aside, we will also be evaluating how warm the notebooks run, by taking readings from GPU-Z as well as using an infrared thermometer. The full list of benchmarks used are as follows:
- PCMark 8
- 3DMark 2013
- Crysis 2
- Tomb Raider
| Aftershock Titan (2013) | ASUS G750JX | Dell Alienware 18 | MSI GT70 Dragon Edition 2 | Razer Blade Pro 17-inch (2013) | Toshiba Qosmio X70 | |
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PCMark 8
On PCMark 8, the Aftershock Titan and Dell Alienware 18 were our most consistent performers, with the Titan being the better performing of the two thanks to its superior scores on both the Microsoft Office and Adobe application workloads. This can be attributed to the Titan’s beefy Core i7 processor, generous 16GB of RAM, dual GeForce GTX 780M GPUs and speedy flash drive. Interestingly, a number of the workloads really depend on storage performance and you can see that along with Aftershock, Razer and Toshiba fare really well too. Speaking of which, on the "Storage" workloads, the low scores of the ASUS G750JX and MSI GT70 Dragon Edition 2 can be attributed to their hard disk drives - the Alienware 18 has a hybrid drive whereas the others have flash drives.
3DMark 2013
Unsurprisingly, it was the Aftershock Titan and Dell Alienware 18 that were the top performers on 3DMark 2013. However, it must be noted that on "Cloud Gate", the Titan’s scores were around 5% better; while on "Fire Storm" its lead was even greater at around 17% - despite the fact that both notebooks sport the same GPU configuration and that the Dell has a much more speedier CPU (which unfortunately didn't help much). Rounding up the pack was the Razer Blade Pro, which has the weakest GPU.
Crysis 2
On Crysis 2, the Aftershock Titan was the undisputed top performer, breaking 100 fps on "Very High" and achieving an impressive 80 fps on the "Ultra" game quality setting. Strangely, despite having the exact GPU configuration as the Titan, the Dell Alienware 18 failed to keep up, recording around 64 and 63 fps on "Very High" and "Ultra" respectively. Furthermore, 64 fps on "Very High" is just about the same as the MSI GT70 Dragon Edition 2, which has a single GeForce GTX 780M. Clearly, the SLI configuration on the Alienware 18 seems to have some trouble coping with this benchmark. This result is consistent despite our troubleshooting and calling in another set to retest.
The MSI GT70 Dragon Edition 2 comes closest to our two dual GPU monsters, while behind it, was the duo of ASUS G750JX and Toshiba Qosmio X70, both of which are powered by the less powerful GeForce GTX 770M. Rounding up was, once again, the Razer Blade Pro.
Tomb Raider
The Aftershock Titan was again the top performer on Tomb Raider, recording 261 fps on "Normal” and 186 fps on "High". With these high performance scores, you could easily run multi-monitor gaming off the Aftershock Titan in your home setup. The results were easily double that of the Alienware 18, which has the same dual GPU configuration as the Titan. Evidently, the Alienware 18’s SLI configuration is not as efficient and effective in Dell's implementation.
The MSI GT70 Dragon Edition followed closely after the Alienware 18 despite having just a single GeForce GTX 780M, and to be honest, its scores were not that far off from the Alienware 18. The ASUS G750JX and Toshiba Qosmio X70 both have the same GeForce GTX 770M, but the ASUS benefits from a higher score at the game's "Normal" quality setting.
Temperature
The cooling efficiency of a notebook’s thermal management system is more important than ever, now that the new GeForce GTX 700 series mobile GPUs feature NVIDIA’s GPU Boost 2.0 technology. GPU Boost 2.0 takes temperature into account as well as available power when overclocking the GPU. You can read more about GPU Boost 2.0 here.
Looking at the results, it became apparent why the Dell Alienware 18’s performance was underwhelming. Using GPU-Z, we recorded a maximum GPU temperature of 87 degrees Celsius, which was by far the highest. Using an infrared thermometer, we also found out that top left surface of the notebook was a scorching hot 50 degrees Celsius - not safe to touch. The Aftershock Titan, which has a similar GPU configuration, runs markedly cooler, which provided the GPUs with more overclocking headroom.
The coolest notebook was ASUS G750JX, which recorded a maximum temperature of just 70 degrees Celsius on GPU-Z. Its large rear exhaust vents also meant that the areas accessible by users are kept cool, as can be seen by its relatively low notebook surface temperatures.
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