I have owned AlienWare machines since 2006. Recently I upgraded my AlienWare M17x R4 to the AlienWare 13. I got the top of the line 13, without the touchscreen. Yet, my old M17x was much better at games than this 13 is.
The 13 has the 960m in it, which isn't supposed to be a bad card, but I have to play things on low quality to get decent frame rates. I also get graphic driver errors (display driver stopped and restarted successfully), all the time. Admittedly, more on some games than others.
The processor in this thing really shouldn't have been put in a gaming PC, as it isn't powerful enough. I already turned off all the power saving options so it would run faster. I use the "Game Mode" from the AlienAdrenaline software, makes a little bit of difference.
While I know I could get the graphics accelerator, that just does the graphics card, and I already have a 960m in the machine, so going to a 980 in the Amp would give me some increase, I would have to spend a lot more to go to an even better card. I would still have the CPU though.
I did also purchase a 13 for my wife, which is fine for her, she rarely plays games. After purchasing 4 of these over the last 9 years, I have to say I am getting to the point that maybe I should just start building my own again.