Trading my xps1645 for a Precision M4500 - Is it good for gaming?

I can't comment about the XPS1645, but the M4500 does have a pretty beefy cooling system, and if used with Arctic Silver 5, it shouldn't be a problem.

 

So in my position, knowing that I will mostly do gaming on this laptop, you would still go with the 720qm free upgrade without a doubt?

 

Yup.

 

In SC 2 you will get a slightly lower frame rate because of it (Starcraft 2 CPU benchmarks: Intel on top, quads without performance benefit - - PC Games Hardware. However, as games begin to effectively use quad cores, it should become better in the future. You will lose some battery life with the i7-720QM and it will run a little hotter, but it still should be fine.

 

Thank you Sydero and Robin24k for your help.

I just got my confirmation for my system exchange. I'm trading my 8 months old xps 1645 for a brand new M4500 with the 720qm for free.
Thanks to Dell customer support!

 

I play SC2 at 1920x1080p with the FX1800M at medium with a few things at high and it's butter. There are only a handful of graphic features in SC2 that really kill the gpu. Lower those and you're fine.

Don't forget THE most important thing.

3 year, next day, at your door warranty.

 

butter means 60 fps?

 

40-50's.

Keep in mind this is at my resolution of 1920x1080 not the OP's 1600x900.

Also, for an RTS, the smoothness between 40's and 60's isn't nearly as dramatic as on an FPS.