Alienware or Asus? for gaming.

Nihltos85

Estimable
May 18, 2014
1
0
4,510
Hi all,

I'm thinking on renewing my old Asus K52jc, it has been a wonderful partner this last 4 years and it deserves some rest from a very demanding user.

Right now I'm between an Alienware and another Asus.

On the Alienware side I have an:

Alienware 18
Operating System Windows® 8.1 Home Premium, 64Bit, English
Memory 16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
Keyboard English Keyboard
Video Card Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 860M graphics with 4GB total (2x 2GB) GDDR5 - NVIDIA SLI® Enabled
Driver Killer NIC 1202 Driver
Hard Drive 1TB/5400 RPM + 80G caching mSATA
CD ROM/DVD ROM Slot-Loading 8x SuperMulti Drive (DVDR/RW) (Standard)
Service 1 Year Alienware Basic Support
Resource DVD Resource DVD windows 8.1
Primary Battery 8-cell Lithium Ion (86 wHr)
Processor 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4810MQ processor (Quad Core, 6MB Cache, up 3.8GHz)
Packing Label Dell.com Order
Color Choice Silver-Anodized Aluminum
Optical Software Cyberlink Media Suite Essentials without Media
Labels No OS Label Required
LCD 18.4" WLED FHD (1920 X 1080) TrueLife Display
Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) Microsoft® Office Trial
Power Supply 330W A/C Adapter
Operating System Recovery Options Windows 8.1 English OS Recovery - DVD
TOTAL: $2,549.99

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While in the Asus side I have a:



Operating System Windows 8.1
Processor Intel® Core™ i7 4700HQ 2.4GHz
Chipset Intel® HM87 Express
Memory 24GB DDR3 SDRAM 1600MHz
32GB max
Display 17.3" Auto FHD EWV LED Backlight Non-Glare LCD Panel
Graphics NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX880M 4GB GDDR5 VRAM
Storage 1TB + 256GB SSD
Optical Drive Blu-Ray Writer enabled DVD+/-RW/CD-RW
Card Reader 2 -in-1 card reader ( SD/ MMC)
Camera HD Web Camera
Wireless LAN 802.11 a/b/g/n (WiDi)
Ethernet 10/100/1000
Bluetooth BT 4.0
Interface 1 x Microphone-in jack
1 x Headphone-out jack
1 x VGA port/Mini D-sub 15-pin for external monitor
4 x USB 3.0 port(s)
1 x RJ45 LAN Jack for LAN insert
1 x HDMI
1 x Thunderbolt port
Audio Built-in Speakers And Array Microphone
Built-in subwoofer
MaxxAudio support
Battery 8 Cell 5900mAh
Power Adapter AC adapter
Dimensions 410 x 318 x 17 ~58 cm
Weight 4.8 kg
TOTAL: $ 2,349.00

What do you think, which one is better and why?, I'm considering every bit of information also any other options that go around the same amount of money, actually my top budget is $2,500.00 CAD.

Thanks for any useful information ^^
 
I'd get the ASUS as well, assuming the quality is as good or better but I don't have time to research:

2x860M vs 1x880M

The SLI setup can be more powerful however when supported:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-800m-graphics-performance,3800-6.html

But then we see it drop to alsmost HALF for a single 860M in Far Cry 3 so a 2x setup would never catch up; at 80% scaling you'd get maybe 90%. I also saw this for Metro LL so I'm not sure where the issue is.

For better compatibility (especially on older titles) with a single GPU I suggest the single 880M setup with the Asus. The 880M also has 4GB for the GPU which is overkill currently but in the future who knows. The 860M SLI setup is 2GB per GPU so 2GB effectively.

 

Suizanie Pasco

Estimable
May 18, 2014
4
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4,510
i am fan of alienware, but some of my friends recommend asus good for gaming. Preferable Alienware is a Gaming Rigs, rarely user but low comment in good uses. you what i mean, better to choose Asus for your needs.
 

techgeek

Distinguished
Apr 11, 2004
175
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18,710
In my opinion, go with the ASUS. I always say, half the GPU's equals a tenth the headaches. Some games just don't scale at all / well with SLI. Quirky bugs like flashing textures plague multi-GPU setups. Game crashes, etc. It also takes longer for nVidia / ATI to fix issues with multi-GPU in their drivers. If you look at any driver release notes, 2/3 of them are to deal with multi-GPU setups. Pay particular attention to how old some of the games are. This speaks to how long it takes them to get around to or figure out the problem.
 

Suizanie Pasco

Estimable
May 18, 2014
4
0
4,510


i didn't know know alienware get much hotter than the asus units, i'll add it into my list.