Alienware X51 R3 Review: Console-Sized Gaming PC Gets Skylake Infusion
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SiSoft SANDRA has a variety of tests that stress specific components or simulate certain tasks. We put the Alienware X51 R3 through the CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Memory Bandwidth, and Physical Disks tests. SANDRA receives frequent updates, so if you use the benchmark, check to make sure you have the latest version if you're comparing your results to ours.
The Alienware X51 R3 put up some fairly strong numbers in the various SANDRA tests that we ran, but they fell in line with what we'd expect from a Skylake-based Core i7-6700K processor paired to some fast dual-channel memory. The Physical Disk benchmark, however, showed some particularly high transfer speeds, in the 1.5GB/s range, thanks to the Samsung SSD in the rig.
Some quick follow-up tests with the ATTO Disk Benchmark also show strong storage performance. Reads peaked just shy of the 1.6GB/s mark in ATTO, with writes in the low 300MB/s range.
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Based on Maxon Cinema 4D software, this test uses a 3D scene and polygon and texture manipulation to assess GPU and CPU performance. We run the Main Processor Performance (CPU) test, which builds a still scene containing about 2,000 objects, for a total polygon count above the 300,000 mark. We also run the OpenGL test to get a quick-and-dirty assessment of graphics performance with a professional workload.
The Alienware X51 R3 took the second-place position in the Cinebench single and multi-threaded CPU benchmarks, just behind the factory-overclocked Digital Storm Bolt II. In the OpenGL benchmark, however, Alienware's console-sized PC took the top spot by a fairly sizable margin. Intel's Skylake CPU made a strong showing here.
