720p screen or 900p screen?

Well, I've decided upon the specs of the m14 I'm going to buy, but I'm still a little torn at whether I want the 720p or 900p screen.

What I want to know is, how much difference in fps will it make between the two screens on average? I know this can vary between games, but let's just shoot for an average.

And if you need to know, the specs I'm shooting for are the 2720QM processor, 6 GB of RAM, and the 1.5 GB 555m. I know its cheaper to upgrade the memory by buying it seperately, but with the current "rubbing is racing" offer, it comes with 6 by default.

Recommendations?

 

Take the 900p screen, it's not too expensive and you can anyway set the resolution to 720p for the games like if you didn't make the upgrade. I don't know if you read other threads but the 2720QM wont really give you more FPS because the m14x is limited by the GPU so upgrading the CPU is not useless but you'll don't see the difference in games, your system will be faster and software will run faster too but if you are just going to play the upgrade is really not worth it.
You'd better take the base i7, 4gb ram and use the money in a SSD.

 

So would you say not to upgrade from 4 to 8 gb of ram? Not through dell, but through newegg?

 

you can go with Corsair 8gb or G.Skill 8gb or Kingstone HyperX 8gb at Newegg

or go with a custom promo from Dell with 6gb and 900p ...maybe look for coupons code too..

EDIT: look here for coupons and deals

 

Yeah, I thought about going with that promo. And if I ever wanted to upgrade, I could always buy the ram through newegg and sell the 6 that I originally had.

 

Sorry to intrude on your thread, but just on the screen, apart from resolution of course, are there any other differences in specs between the two like brightness, contrast ratio etc.?

 

yes, there is a difference, you'll find comparisons between the two screens here Dell - Help Me Choose: Display

 

Does anyone know the name/code/part number/manufacture of the 720 and 900p screen?

I have the 900p LG LP140WD1-TLA1 in my xps 14 but I can't find detailed specs of it. Though it has a really good viewing angel and brightness, and the color feels vibrant and vivid.

 

900p, only 65$ more, and you can always switch from 720 to 900

 

Thanks for the link. It's brighter...but contrast ratios aren't listed

 

I own the 900p screen model.
As for as framerates and performance goes....
I have to run Crysis 2 at 720p to get the framerates I want in multiplayer... being 60+... That being said.. it still looks really good.

Starcraft 2 runs great on Ultra... 45 at the lowest points in multiplayer at Native Resolution... I have to overclock the GT555 for those numbers though... But it's a really stable.great chip for overclock. Otherwise... High settings work great and I typically get around 80+ FPS in SC2 with that.

Modern Warfare 2 runs completely maxed out resolution, settings with 2x AA and I won't ever dip below 60 FPS... and typically get in the 100s in the indoor areas.

The only problem is the Battery mode right now... since you can't really do much with the GPU... without the computer shutting down. If they never fix that... you would want to be playing in 720p resolutions all the time while on battery mode...

I'm guessing they will fix it with an update though.. I can't imagine they wouldn't..

And another thing to consider... you might want to keep the GPU in low power mode when gaming on battery for the sake of battery life anyways.

Bit all that being said... the 900p screen looks VERY nice in person. And having the extra pixel density is nice for general application use, web-surfing, etc.... and it's great for those games that support it. I can't imagine the lower res 720p display will look THAT much better for lower resolution games.

 

If I remember correctly contrast is also superior but I'm not 100% sure.

 

I really want an answer on the whole anti glare thing on the 720p screen.

 

^That. The comparison site someone posted in this thread stated the 720p is anti-glare - but I don't think they offer it as an option. Maybe they will in the future?

 

Definitely get the 900p upgraded screen. Best decision I made on this laptop.

 

Since you started by asking about framerates.... the 900p screen has 37.26% more pixels that must be rendered, so it should get ~73% of the framerate of the 720p screen... (if it was 100fps on the low res screen, it'll be 73 fps on the high res screen.

 

You're making the mistake many do. You assume that the resolution is the primary (i.e. first to be contrained) bottleneck. This is not the case. The GPU (a.k.a processing power) of the graphics card is.

I can't say how much of a hit you'll see, but it won't be anywhere near 37%. If I had to guess, I'd say at absolute most you're looking at a 20% hit.

 

Please enlighten me as to how a need to render (process) 37% more pixels (data) will not result in using 37% more of the available processing power. You are asking the GPU (the only part of the system that is really affected by resolution) to do 37% more work.

By the way, I did not say a 37% hit in framerate, I said there was 37% more data, which resulted in a hit of ~27% (since that's the way math works.... a 100% increase in workload (resolution) would not reduce your framerate by 100%, but rather by 50%.... )

 

Only get the 6gb of RAM if it's free. Most users have no need for any more than 4.
I would say to upgrade the screen. I play a few games in 1366x768, and it doesn't look blurry or blocky at all. For the games that I play at 1600x900, they look a bit better than they could on the low res screen. Also, the high res screen shows more when you're working on documents or web browsing.

 

For the record, I'm not trying to say that the OP should get the low res screen.... I'm a big fan of high res screens. I used to have a 15.4 that was 1920x1200. I loved it. I know some people say that it's terrible to game at non-native res, but I don't really agree. I can't stand looking at text at anything non-native, but for gaming, as long as you get the aspect ratio right, it's not big deal for me.

My laptop's like 3.5 years old now, so I cant play anything at native res, nor at high options, but it's honestly not a big deal as long as you pick a 16x9 ratio resolution.

 

My bad. You get what I'm saying though; it's not a linear progression. Google around for reviews and do the math if you're interested (I'm very tired at the moment), but you'll see what I'm saying is true.

 

Hey guys, sorry for butting in but I have a question.
I am gonna be buying this laptop pretty soon. And I want to know exactly how much of an issue is the screen resolution gonna be. My budget is already stretched. I had set it to 1000$ for the m11x r2.
I would only go for the 75$ 900p screen if it makes a big difference.

This is my first laptop and I have always worked on high res monitors on my desktops and really love them over the low res ones that my friends have.

Would it be a really big difference on day to day things like browsing and all?
Thanks guys.

 

I understand that there are more factors at play, so the numbers are approximate, but I just did as you suggested (though it's not that easy to find where a reviewer changed the resolution without changing quality settings, which of course has a dramatic effect.)

Using the anandtech gpu bench, I picked a random game (Mass Effect 2) and a medium-ish card to be roughly like a gt555 (the radeon 5770). It got 49.4 fps at 1680x1050 (Maximum Quality + 4xAA) and 38.6 at 1920x1200 (Maximum Quality + 4xAA). So, while doing 30.6% more work for the higher res, math indicates it should get 77% the framerate... and it actually got 78%....

That's pretty close, IMO.

There are always other factors at play but using screen area to figure out roughly the difference in fps between different resolutions is not unreasonable.

Edit:
FeralFire:

To me, that extra resolution is very important for day to day things like browsing and multi-tasking. You can get 37% more stuff on the screen at a time. Change the resolution on your desktop screen to 1600x900 and 1366x768 and see how much more stuff you can have onscreen. (do try to ignore that it'll be blurry, that's just cause it's not the native res)

Personally, I cant stand having only 768 vertical pixels, I'm scrolling like it's freaking 1996.

 

Well, 37% difference in usable space, if ur used to 1680x1050 or a FHD monitor the 768p is not likely to be much fun for you. What you can do though is go to ur local electronic stores and check out their computers, you're veery likely to find 14" with the lower res.

Or you could stay and listen to our opinions.

 

Ah, you've made me realise something there, Darth. I don't play with AA (usually), and that's - as you'd imagine - likely to play quite a role where performance is concerned.