Digital Storm xm15 Gaming System

When I first unpacked the Digital Storm xm15, only the logo on the glossy lid distinguished it from a gazillion other generic, ODM (original design manufacturer) laptops. At just under 6 pounds without the power brick, it's a tad lighter than similar laptops with a discrete graphics chip. The xm15 uses Nvidia's Optimus technology to shift automatically between the Intel integrated graphics and the GeForce GT 540M GPU when greater 3D graphics performance is required.
The system ships with an Intel Core i7 2630QM CPU, clocking in at 2.0GHz for normal use, but is capable of single-core bursts up to 2.9GHz using Intel's TurboBoost feature. The 2630QM supports hyperthreading, so it can run 8 simultaneous threads, aided by a full 6MB of L3 cache. Performance on standard apps is pretty good, as its WorldBench score of 123 demonstrates. Battery life is decent, too, at nearly 4 hours.
Gaming performance, however, is a bit lackluster. On Futuremark's 3DMark 2011 gaming benchmark suite, the xm15 posted a performance score of 1019, while on the Metro 2033 DirectX 11 test, it eked out 16 frames per second at medium settings without antialiasing. Far Cry 2, in DX10 "optimal" settings, ran at 35 fps, while Dawn of War 2: Retribution at the high settings (one notch below maximum) barely squeezed out 21 fps. Note that all game tests were run at the full 1920 by 1080 resolution

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