Dell M1730XPS

[bLaZeR666_uk]

Just ordered one of these latops with the dual 8800gtx's and a T9300 I wasnt too sure which OS to get on it but I asked for the 64bit vista as the machine has 4 gigs of ram. Will I notice any difference as I always use XP Pro and have not touched VISTA because it is supposed to be slower. Or should I just install XP Pro anyway?

Also I have another question

I was also considering getting the toshiba Qosmio X300-13W as this has Dual 9800GTX cards and a X9100 extream processor. would it been worth the extra to have the 2 9800gtx's and processor, that the Toshiba X300 has, over the 2 8800gtx's and T9300 processor the 1730 XPS has?

TIA :)

[Au_Xtr3me]

1. Vista 64 bit is only a fraction slower that XP in games (2 fps max), and in Vista several things are a lot easier to configure (after you learn how to), but I highly recommend disabling UAC.

2. What is the price difference between the two machines? The Qosmio is probably about 15% faster at most than the XPS m1730

[bLaZeR666_uk]

1. Vista 64 bit is only a fraction slower that XP in games (2 fps max), and in Vista several things are a lot easier to configure (after you learn how to), but I highly recommend disabling UAC.

2. What is the price difference between the two machines? The Qosmio is probably about 15% faster at most than the XPS m1730

:) http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/style_...nana_groove.gif

Thanks for the reply.

So there will be no probs with SLI and playing games in 64bit vista

The price difference is about £300 UK pounds for the difference between the 2 models, I negoated a good price on the dell (on the website it cost £2060 - with the extra options I asked for) and I got it for £1820 - I got them to throw in a FREE 3 year warranty and a cash discount, not bad eh? anyway I digress...... Im not bothered about the CPU speed difference as this hardly makes any difference playing a game (well as long as the CPU is half decent). Its the difference between the 8800 and 9800, are they really 15% better? as I have read somewhere that the 8800gtx is actually better at higher resolutions but I may be wrong. Anyone got some benchmark comparisons between the two mobile graphics cards?

Oh also..... is the PhysX card really as useless as people make out, just wondering because dell could of saved some costs by not including this card (i did ask to have the card removed but it would of made no difference on the end cost - I thought it would of saved some money!

Edited February 26, 2009 by bLaZeR666_uk

[Au_Xtr3me]

If you got if for £300 less then its well worth it. Also seeing as you got the PhysX card practically for free then its a good thing, because normally if you wanted PhysX you would need to use one of your 8800s to do the physx and rendering, slowing down your pc.

I was saying that the 9800GTX SLI would be 15% better because I assume that it is essentially an 8800 with 112 SPs instead of 96.

Considering you also got a 3 year warranty and that machine for £1820 you got a really good deal.

[Galdere]

I was saying that the 9800GTX SLI would be 15% better because I assume that it is essentially an 8800 with 112 SPs instead of 96

It is, although with extra memory, but...

An 8800M GTX SLI vs the same setup with a 9800M GTX SLI will only perform a few percent different.

As single cards there is about a 10% difference.

Now if you'd have said the Toshiba would perform around 15% faster than the Dell, you'd have been roughly right, because of the faster CPU, RAM etc.

Vista can be more than 2 fps slower, it depends what you are comparing. You need to tweak and optimize it more than just disabling UAC, and it will still not be as fast as XP.

However, there is no question that you should use Vista x64, for many other reasons.

Im not bothered about the CPU speed difference as this hardly makes any difference playing a game (well as long as the CPU is half decent)

I recommend you don't make this assumption, as it is becoming less and less the case.

The T9300 is adequate though. I use one myself for gaming.

The X9100 is part of the newer Montevina platform, with other benefits with it, where as the T9300 is part of the previous Santa Rosa refresh.

It's also an extreme edition version, with bios overclocking.

[bLaZeR666_uk]

Thanks for the replies,

Not convinced about the processor - I know they dont make hardly any diffrence when playing games, I have a E1200 on a ATI 1950XTX (my media player) a E6700 with 8800GTX (son 1's pc) a E8600 with a ATI 4870x2(son 2's PC) a E6600 with a 8800GTS (my media server) and a I7 920 with a 4870x2 (my main pc) and I have swapped the cards around a bit and they hardly make any difference which CPU they play on, well except the E1200 but even that isnt a major setback.

The only time I have noticed where a CPU makes a BIG difference is when I compile my HD home movies and re-code a DVD to DVIX

[Andrew55]

Playing a game like GTA 4 may change your mind. As rightly stated by Galdere, the bottleneck is coming back to the CPU (in some games) and it is becoming increasingly important (especially when quad core support becomes mainstream.'

[bLaZeR666_uk]

Pah Guess what! dell now include 9800GTX's in their 1730XPS ! what thats a DAY after I ordered the one with the 8800's no wonder they were so keen to discount, Me thinks I will have to give them a call ASAP

[bLaZeR666_uk]

Playing a game like GTA 4 may change your mind. As rightly stated by Galdere, the bottleneck is coming back to the CPU (in some games) and it is becoming increasingly important (especially when quad core support becomes mainstream.'

Hi

Nahh dont make the slight bit of difference, I play GTA 4 and so does my son (hes 18) and there is no difference between our 2 machines we are both running at 1680x1050 with max settings, there are no lags on his machine an he has a MUCH slower cpu, you cant convince me! :)

[Galdere]

For a game that can't use all your i7's cores, the difference wont be that great, because the higher clocked c2d will perform similarly.

By listing possessions, and how you don't know how to spend more money, doesn't actually prove anything.

To be asking for advice, you should check other reliable sources as well, if you then want to tell us we are wrong about what we have a lot of technical experience with and know for a fact.

[bLaZeR666_uk]

I dont want to tell you that you're wrong, Its just I know im right as I have the evidence in front of me! anyways enough bickering,

Im more annoyed at dell for bringing out the XPS 1730 with 9800GTX's in when I bought one a day before with 8800 GTX's !! GRRR

[Galdere]

It seems you're unaware of how to evaluate that evidence.

That is unfortunate, but you should be covered by distance selling regulations to change your mind:

http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources...ng-regulations/

[bLaZeR666_uk]

It seems you're unaware of how to evaluate that evidence.

That is unfortunate, but you should be covered by distance selling regulations to change your mind:

http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources...ng-regulations/

Hi

What evidence - I have it all in front of me, thats REAL evaluation, in the real world, who cares you can get 120 FPS when 30FPS will look EXACTLY the same to the likes of me and you, so as long as the game plays then it really doesn't matter what processor you have that was the point I was attempting to make, there will be no games that will require quad processing when most people don't even have dual cores, maybe in 5-10 years time. But it is the driving force behind Intel, as they make the most money from the latest processors. If the game graphics relied on a x86 processor then the graphics would be terrible, even quad core extreme processors, just look at the benchmarks when 3dmark uses the processor to generate the graphics alone, its awful.

I am confident that I will get the new model as I am aware and familiar of the distant selling rules and sales of goods act, its just WHY didn't they mention this, it always seems I have to spend ages complaining or hours on the phone to sort out problems that I haven't caused :) Dell customer services knew that the price and spec change was comming, grrrrr

[Galdere]

Sorry I'm not going to teach you about what you've made clear you don't understand, as you are revelling with your misunderstanding.

It's pretty easy for you to research what you are ranting about and see you are making a fool of yourself.

Your idea of evaluation, how things work, what the current state of play is and where that is likely to go is sorely lacking.

The point Andrew and I have made is that the bottleneck is becoming more about the CPU again.

You've had your questions answered. Try putting your last post in a gamers forum and watch them tear you apart.

Dell didn't tell you because you didn't ask.

Assuming you know things can cause you to be a problem.

[bLaZeR666_uk]

Please do not insult me, I know I am right, you cannot gain any speed increase in say, having a Q6600 over a E6600 in playing a game, it is impossible all the people in the games section rant and rave because they have a expensive processor (as do I) if you read my post correctly then you will clearly see I have numerous processors, I know what I am talking about, this bottleneck for the processor is blown out of proportion, another sales scam by intel. games require a minium of 25FPS to run, this will appear smooth and normal to ANY person, I appreciate that this FPS will increase with better graphics cards and processors but it is totally POINTLESS, graphics are provided from a GPU all the AA and shading AF etc depend on the power in the GPU and some from the CPU.

GTA IV does not MAKE A SINGLE DIFFERENCE I play it on a I7 CPU and a E8600 both have 4870x2's and there is NO difference between games (both on MAX settings)

Dont call me stupid and READ my post, = I will EVEN RECORD THE GAMES PLAYING NEXT TO EACH OTHER to show you.

Anything over a E6600 will not cause a bottleneck, not for playing a game anyway. Infact I would go to say even my E1200 as I have played COD 4 on this maching with NO slow downs (but I did lower the gfx settings). So how do YOU know that CPU's cause bottlenecks - from reading mis-informed posts. CPU's do cause slowdowns but certinally not in todays games, unless the game is badly coded.

WHO CARES if you game runs at 200FPS and mine runs at 50FPS this makes NO difference in game play at all, well unless you are a pidgeon then your eyes work at about 120fps and also see in UV as well.

[Andrew55]

The reason that GTA IV is running similarly is that:

A bottleneck will not come in the way of the fact that both CPU's are both high end so, the bottleneck won't be as evident if at all (as a pose to having a low- midrange) one because of the fact that all the power of the i7 isn't being used. You also have 2 4870's in there which is doing quite a bit of processing itself. In actual fact, in some games, it will be likely that the e8600 will actually outperform the i7 as most games as of now cannot harness the full power of it.

Granted both the CPU and GPU are important, the idea of the 'gpu bottleneck' has existed for quite some time but as stated it seems now that the CPU is once again become just as important (remember the old days). It is not disputed that the importance of the GPU will remain, but all that is being said is that the importance of having a good processor is rising and it I dare you to dispute that as there is quite a bit of evidence from it that doesn't come from bare assumption.

We must remember that a GPU is also essentially a processor. So having a 4870x2 in the picture will not help to prove the fact that a CPU is of integral importance.

[Galdere]

Tried to tell him that several posts back, but he has a lot of made up alternatives.

I'll say it again Blazer, don't take my word for it, check some reliable sources.

It's pretty insulting for someone to keep insisting that their assuming they know better is a fact, when they don't even understand what they are basing that on.

You are wrong about what you think. If you go check why, you won't make yourself look stupid when posting about it. Cheers.

[bLaZeR666_uk]

The reason that GTA IV is running similarly is that:

A bottleneck will not come in the way of the fact that both CPU's are both high end so, the bottleneck won't be as evident if at all (as a pose to having a low- midrange) one because of the fact that all the power of the i7 isn't being used. You also have 2 4870's in there which is doing quite a bit of processing itself. In actual fact, in some games, it will be likely that the e8600 will actually outperform the i7 as most games as of now cannot harness the full power of it.

Granted both the CPU and GPU are important, the idea of the 'gpu bottleneck' has existed for quite some time but as stated it seems now that the CPU is once again become just as important (remember the old days). It is not disputed that the importance of the GPU will remain, but all that is being said is that the importance of having a good processor is rising and it I dare you to dispute that as there is quite a bit of evidence from it that doesn't come from bare assumption.

We must remember that a GPU is also essentially a processor. So having a 4870x2 in the picture will not help to prove the fact that a CPU is of integral importance.

Tried to tell him that several posts back, but he has a lot of made up alternatives.

I'll say it again Blazer, don't take my word for it, check some reliable sources.

It's pretty insulting for someone to keep insisting that their assuming they know better is a fact, when they don't even understand what they are basing that on.

You are wrong about what you think. If you go check why, you won't make yourself look stupid when posting about it. Cheers.

Dude you are not hearing what I am saying, Andrew55's post re-iterates my post, Im a pretty reliable source as I i keep telling you I HAVE THE GAMES and cards in front of me. Im not going to keep on repeating myself :) You have either chosen to miss my point or totally missed the point.

Anyway, I got my new XPS 1730 with 10.3% discount and free 3 year warranty, so thats a pretty good deal eh? (now has dual 9800gtx's with 6 gig of ram)

[Galdere]

Blazer, we have both said why your test won't show up a difference, but that such a difference exists, and is an important factor.

If you don't understand the principles your test is not reliable. Go over to gtaforums.com and see for yourself.

You've also said a lot of other incorrect things. Owning stuff does not mean you necessarily understand them well enough to justify your claims.

I am not missing your point. I am saying you are incorrect about several of them. We tried to help by answering your questions, but you want to say a load of nonsense in return.

You can be ignorant if you want, but like I said, go try it in another technical forum, where maybe they can be arsed going through it all with you.