Alienware 13 R2 Gaming Laptop And Graphics AMP Review
Alienware 13 R2 Performance: Hitman, Metro, And Mordor
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As 47, a killer for the International Contract Agency (ICA), you have a
very dangerous, but action-packed life. The Hitman franchise has been
winning praise from critics throughout multiple games, of which Hitman:
Absolution is the latest. When running this game’s benchmark, we set AA
to 4X and pump the Quality Level settings to Ultra, making for a
grueling gaming test.
With the AMP attached and running a desktop GTX 980 graphics card, framerates jump to over 55 FPS. Yet again, we're seeing how an accessory like the AMP can transform the gaming experience at home.
At the laptop's native resolution, the GTX 960M doesn't come anywhere close to delivering an acceptable framerate for gaming. That changes when connecting an AMP with a GeForce GTX 980 inside.
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Metro Last Light is your typical post-apocalyptic first person shooter game with a few rather unconventional twists. Unlike most FPS titles, there is no health meter to measure your level of ailment; rather, you’re left to deal with life, or lack thereof, more akin to the real world with blood spatter on your visor and your heart rate and respiration level as indicators. Metro Last Light boasts some of the best 3D visuals on the PC platform and includes a DX11 rendering mode that makes use of advanced depth of field effects and character model tessellation for increased realism. This title also supports NVIDIA PhysX technology for impressive in-game physics effects.
In Metro Last Light, we see the Alienware 13 R2 go from worst to first when switching from its mobile GPU to the AMP. It's a necessary jump in order to play this game, as the GTX 960M doesn't pack enough punch to game comfortably at 1920x1080 with the settings turned up -- we saw an average of just 16.33 FPS.
Metro Last Light is a pretty demanding title and when cranking up the resolution to 3200x1800, both the GTX 960M and GTX 980 (via AMP) struggle to keep gameplay smooth.
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Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor is a newer entry to our stable of mobile benchmarks. Since we don't yet have a large database of systems to compare results with, we currently use it to show how a system scales at different resolutions.
To start with, the above shows how the Alienware 13 R2 fares when leaning on the GeForce GTX 960M. It's playable up to around 2650x1440, which is pretty impressive, but can't quite muster a playable experience at its native 3200x1800 resolution.
To start with, the above shows how the Alienware 13 R2 fares when leaning on the GeForce GTX 960M. It's playable up to around 2650x1440, which is pretty impressive, but can't quite muster a playable experience at its native 3200x1800 resolution.
After plugging in the AMP, the Alienware 13 R2 had no trouble kicking pixels around the screen at its native 3200x1200 resolution with an average of over 50 FPS.
