Productivity & gaming performance

Test setup and performance

Here's a full list of the notebooks we're looking at:

Alienware m15 R2
Aftershock Vapor 15 Pro
Lenovo Legion Y740
Razer Blade 15

I compared the Alienware m15 R2 against other GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q notebooks to see how it stacks up against the most immediate competition.

Test notebooks compared
	Alienware m15 R2	Aftershock Vapor 15 Pro	Lenovo Legion Y740 (9th Gen)	Razer Blade 15 (9th Gen)

Launch SRP	From S$4498	From S$2799	From S$3599	From S$3839
Processor and Chipset	Intel Core i7-9750H (2.6GHz, 12MB L3 cache)	Intel Core i7-9750H (2.6GHz, 12MB L3 cache)	Intel Core i7-9750H (2.60GHz, 12MB L3 cache)	Intel Core i7-9750H (2.6GHz, 12MB L3 cache)
Operating System	Windows 10	Windows 10	Windows 10	Windows 10
System Memory	16GB DDR4-2666 dual-channel RAM	16GB DDR4-2666 dual-channel RAM	32GB DDR4-2666 dual-channel RAM	16GB DDR4-2666 dual-channel RAM
Video & Display	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q 15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080-pixel 144Hz IPS-type display with Tobii Eye Tracking	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q 15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080-pixel 144Hz IPS display	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q 15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080-pixel 144Hz IPS G-Sync display	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q 15.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080-pixel 240Hz IPS display
Storage	512GB PCIe M.2 SSD	Phison 512GB NVMe SSD	Western Digital PC SN720 NVMe 512GB M.2 SSD Seagate Barracuda Pro 1TB HDD	Samsung PM981 PCIe 256GB M.2 SSD
Optical Drive	None	None	None	None
Connectivity	Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 Bluetooth 5.0	Intel Wireless-AX200 Bluetooth 5.0	Killer Wireless-AC 1550i Wireless Network Adapter (9560NGW) Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller	Intel Wireless-AX200 Bluetooth 5.0
Audio	Built-in stereo speakers	Built-in stereo speakers	Built-in Dolby Atmos speakers	Built-in stereo speakers
I/O Ports	1x Alienware Graphics Amplifier Port 1x Thunderbolt 3 1x RJ-45 2x USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-A 1x USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-A with PowerShare 1x HDMI 2.0b 1x Mini DisplayPort 1.4 1x audio out	1x USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-A 1x USB 3.1 (Gen 2) Type-A 1x HDMI 2.0 1x Audio Jack 1x Microphone jack 1x LAN (10/100/1000Mbps) 1x Thunderbolt 3 1x DC-in jack	1x USB 3.1 (Gen 2) Type-A 2x USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-A 1x Thunderbolt 3 1x Mini DisplayPort 1.4 1x HDMI 2.0 1x RJ-45 1x 3.5mm mic/headphone combo jack	1x Thunderbolt 3 3x USB 3.1 (Gen 2) Type-A
Battery Type	76Wh	92Wh	57Wh	80Wh
Dimensions	360.5 x 276 x 20.5mm	356.4mm x 233.66mm x 20.5mm	361.42 x 267 x 22.45mm	355 x 235 x 17.8mm
Weight	2.16kg	1.88kg	2.2 kg	2.15kg

I ran the notebooks through the following benchmarks:

PCMark 10
AS SSD
3DMark
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Far Cry 5
Metro Exodus
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Tom Clancy's The Division 2

How good is it for work?

PCMark 10 Extended evaluates systems based on workloads that can be categorized into four distinct groups, comprising Essentials, Productivity, Digital Content Creation, and Gaming. This includes tests such as app start-up times, web browsing, word processing and spreadsheets, photo and video editing, and rendering and visualization tasks. Finally, gaming performance is evaluated using the Fire Strike benchmark.

The Alienware m15 didn't do that well in PCMark 10 Extended, where it was around 9 per cent slower than the Aftershock Vapor 15 Pro. It wasn't that far behind the Razer Blade 15, but its performance was still much poorer in the Digital Content Creation benchmark, which was quite odd. This clearly dragged its overall score down, since the m15 actually did quite well in the other tests.

What's the storage performance like?

The Alienware m15 comes equipped with a Toshiba XG6 512GB M.2 PCIe SSD. It's pretty competitive in AS SSD compared to the other notebooks here, consistently putting up numbers in the middle of the pack.

How fast is it in games?

The gaming numbers are more or less what you'd expect from a GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q notebook. This means you'll have no trouble running all the latest games at 1080p, although you won't always be able to maximise the 144Hz refresh rate in the more demanding titles.

Separately, I had some trouble getting the laptop to run certain games in DirectX 12, but I was able to fix this by manually setting the GPU to the GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q instead of leaving it in Auto mode in the NVIDIA Control Panel.