-->*OFFICIAL: Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge*<--

i managed a 13,900 score with my beast

 

WOO my Beast has shipped !!!! now just the horrible wait for it to get here :/

 

Yes they wer eth eones I was talking about. Good point raised - I didnt realise that it actually scored lower in 3DMark06!
Why would that be when its game performance is better??!

 

Should be interesting to see what the Dell tech's are like. Will let you all know how it goes tomorrow!

 

ifti about the physics card you can check that by going into your system right? I dont have to acually open the system up to see if dell forgot that

 

It should just be listed in Device Manager.
If its not there then the card is not present...

 

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

=/

 

Hi everyone, I have been an avid reader of this thread since my purchase of the M1730 in november.

I just wanted to give some information to the people interested in the 8800GTX upgrade. I was quoted the same $1,999.99 USD for the video card. I then forwarded the dell rep the information about the upgrade option at http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/01/29/43163.aspx and asked for the upgrade option price. It took five days for a response, but I finally received a new price of $850.99 USD for the 8800GTX. So now I have mine on the way.

I am going to have to install it myself, since I am ordering it as a spare part, but it should be no problem thanks to ifti.

I just want you all to know that you might have to keep pestering them, but you should be able to get the upgrade option price.

 

You were charged 850.00 USD for ONE 8800GTX or was the the SLi? Both Cards? 2K to upgrade seems WAY to steep so I hope thats for two.

 

Congrats!
Just follow my video guide and you'll be fine

It will be the Dual SLI card - a single 8800mGTX configuration for the M1730 isnt available....yet.

 

Just recieved replacement with 8800SLI. The system came with Samsung, but it actually looks better than my LG. I'll check more throughly when I get home.

 

Yes, it is for 8800GTX SLI.
Card,Graphics,Nvidia,IUPGA5C G92 (XM888) 1 $850.99

 

Thanks for the update!! I just called my rep and awaiting a call back

 

I would make sure it carrys system warranty if you get it from spare parts.

 

@ IFTI

Hi, i bought my 8800M SLI from eBay and finally in a few days I will have the cards in my notebook.
One question: before you mount your 8800M you updated BIOS to A06 version? Or is it irrilevant?
What do you suggest to do?
I'm going to use 174.20 from LV2Go which seems to be a lot better than official 167.55 from Anandtech's review.

My lappy specs are in sign


byz

 

In that case, I bet you are blessed with an Extreme variant of the Core 2 Duo, running at 3.4 Ghz during the benchmarking process?
Or did you OC the cards (as well)?

nVidia's driver code contains specific optimisations for certain applications.
Hence, the amount of performance gained per application differs ranging from not notable to huge.
And in some cases, the performance even gets worse.
From losing a few points in 3DMark06, to dropping a whopping 40 FPS in performance for Quake 4.

 

In the quote I got, it has a seperate line item for warranty:
Warranty Longer of 90 Days or Remainder of System Warranty

They told me it does cover for the remainder of the system warranty, but I been given information from Dell before that ended up being false. So I will have to wait and see...

 

I updated my BIOs to A06 before I put the card in.
Its not necessary, but ts good to keep things up to date. The update has more to do with Penryn support then anything else, but it had something about extra thermal dissipation or somet. This is probably also to do with the Penryn CPU, but I stuck the update on just in case it related to the GPU's as well - the update dosc Dell release are not very clear!
Whether you put it on is up to you - it wont stop the 8800 from working etc as it should.

 

Make sure to save that invoice. I've seen Dell trying to refuse warranty on 7900GTX (M1710) that were purchased through spare parts.

 

I got a call back from my rep and was told the card could be purchased at spare parts only atm at the inflated price. I was also told I would be getting a email in the near future for the upgrade and could purchase it then at a much lower price. I am sure everyone done knew that already.

Will just wait for the upgrade myself and that way I will also know its under warranty along with my computer warranty.

 

Heres my new love

 

I also will be glad when that game comes out

 

It's awesome. I can't stop playing it.

 

I`m pretty sure the game is not launched so that picture with it should not even be advertised...

 

How did you get hold of it??

Also what are peoples temps like while gaming?
Was just playing Company of Heroes, and for the first time my GPU temp reached 80% !!

I got scared and switched the game off! lol

 

A general question....

Are you guys serious hardcore gamers?

I bought a couple of games for testing my system etc, but I hardly get time to play them TBH! Im looking to use my system as more of a high end development machine, rather then a gaming rig.....

 

I really think that temps around this is to be expected when pushing the hardware (ie gaming even for short periods).

 

I'm definitely not hardcore. I have WoW, BF2 and COD4. I live in an aprtment so I needed a notebook so that it can be put away after use. If I had a study I would have got a desktop. But since I'm using a laptop, and don't need to worry about portability, and I like the odd game with decent performance, this seemed liked a good choice. Sure its a bit expensive, but since I can reduce the cost by 50% by purchasing with pre-tax dollars, and depreciate the value by 25% in the first year. So laptop that costs $4,000 to buy, will really cost me about $1,000 odd only.

 

Well the Dell tech has been and gone. For starters, its horrible watching them try to pry the frame of the screen away to get at the camera... The tech guy was good though, he advised before hand that it wasn't going to be pretty, there's 2 screws, then the rest is simply prying the clips lose from around the screen frame. Heaps of fingers all over my screen (which im extremely anal about). He popped in the new camera, and it worked first time. Not happy about the amount of physical force exerted on my screen though.

Julian, I take it you're talking about salary sacrificing your laptop? I need to look into doing that...

 

I wouldn't call myself hardcore, but it's definetly my primary hobby. i spend roughly 20hrs per week gaming. I guess if I didn't have more as many responsibilities I'd probably play more.

 

Guys, I was looking for a new game to test out my new laptop. Crysis is the obvious choice, but I played COD4 on Xbox at a mates and thought it was pretty cool.

Looking around for a good place to buy it (its AUD$100 in the shops) I found www.play-asia.com. I'm usually pretty cautious about offshore internet places that seem to good to be true, but reports and forum posts seem to rate it. COD4 was going to be AUD$35 shipped to my door - so I thought I would risk it, accepting that I might never see that money again.

Game arrived today and I can report that I'm very happy. Original packaging, manual in english and CD key. As a guide the game will ship to the UK for less than 20 pounds. They will ship anywhere, so if you're looking for some new titles, it may be worth checking out.

 

My account manager came back to me with an offer including the X9000 instead of the X7900 (which I have received by am planning to return).

The price he quoted is only 160 EUR more for the X9000. Because the US web site doesn't show the X7900 anymore it is hard to know whether this reflects the actual price gab between both processors or if he reduced it out of kindness

I tried making calculations and it seems for example that the gap between X7900 and T9300 (600 EUR last week, 1000 EUR this week) is wider than the gap between X9000 and 79300 (625 USD on the US web site or 530 EUR only!!!!). This would mean the X9000 is cheaper!

Has anyone got a clue?

 

Can you tell use which Samsung model you have? Apparently Dell have started to integrate the new LG screen (see the second X9000 review link that was posted here). The LG reference was a new one compared to what was previously posted.

@ Ifti Does you LG screen reference match the one they put in that review?

 

I just find a review of X9000 vs X7900 (in German)
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cach...2/1/top5+x9000+price+x7900&hl=de&ct=clnk&cd=1

I don't have time to translate, but the bottom line is the X9000 makes more of a difference versus the X7900 than originally anticipated:
1- Battery life improved by 18%
2- 3DMark06 only 1% (both are different systems though, so there is an error margin, based on the Dell tests, we can say 3DMark06 shouldn't be more than 5%)
3- BUT game FPS between 5% and 20% depending on the game. Obviously the CPU dependant games benefit more. That's the more interesting indicator.
4- In crysis the gain is dependant upon the level of detail. The higher the level of detail and resolution demanded from the GPU, the lower the CPU gain (seems intuitively right)

Overall you could say, 1 to 5% difference for GPU intensive games, and 10 to 15% for CPU intensive games, all with a nice battery life bonus.

I think the 150 EUR more I will have to pay for the X9000 are worth it. For someone who already has the X7900, updating the processor seems a bit costly but it depends what category your games fall into...and what other applications you are using!

 

I checked the screen more throughly, and the new samsung does not have leakage, black does look more black than LG, but LG's color looks more lively to me.

I just swapped the panels.

I packed away the Samsung, and honestly too tired to check it out again(been working 12+ hours due to tax season), and am trully sorry for that.

The biggest reason I changed panel was because of a scratch mark on the new system's LCD panel (blue wing).

 

And in the same test you can also see that you ave no choice but to order Dell versus Sager/Clevo and others, because the Dell Panel ist just the best in terms of bightness:
http://www.notebookjournal.de/storage/show/image/image47bbe65599a3b

Other notebooks have much less bright panel, even HP!

For that reason alone, I cannot buy anywhere else!

 

I think if you reduce the backlighting on the LG you can get black that are as deep as the Samsung and still have more vivid colors.

I had both screens plus the Sharp next to each other on the XPS M1710 and was able to verify this. It should be similar on the new models.

Still I remember hesitating between the Samsung and the LG. The Samsung has warmer colors (not as crisp but a soothing quality) and were closer the perfect calibration. But gamers tend to prefer colors that pop rather than accurate colors.

 

Yes, I'm talking salary sacrifice. Laptops (mobile computing devices) are the only legal double-tax-deduction in Australia. You can salary sacrifice their purchase, then depreciate their value. Makes a big difference to the final price you pay. This should explain it to you http://www.laptoppackaging.com.au

A lot of employers will let you pay it out over a few weeks so you don't feel the hit in one go.

In regards to the tech guy, its making me sweat just reading your post =)

 

Anyone here like the samsung LCD???
I am really worried now, quite confused with the LCD debate...

 

The Samsung panel is excellent. And I mean really fantastic. Bright, crisp and detailed. You'll look at it and go 'WOW'.

However, some complain of a little light leakage from the bottom. This isn't bothersome, but noticeable. I have a Samsung and I don't even notice it really.

LG is reported to be the best panel out of the available, due to being brighter with more vivid colours. You'd have to get them side-by-side to really compare. But I don't think you'll find a single Samsung owner complaining about their screen. Ifti has had the Samsung and was able to swap it with an LG; but concedes that even having them compared directly, he wouldn't bother seeking replacement if he only had the Samsung.

Does that cover it for you Vasvas?

 

I've got the sharp and I have zero complaints. Others say it's not as bright and vibrant as the LG. It has ver very minimal light leakage at the bottom when viewed from an extreme upward angle.

The LG apparently has incorrect colours but is the brightest.

The samsung has light leakage, but otherwise has good colour quality and brightness.


To be perfectly honest, this is the brighest/most vibrant lcd screen I've ever seen in my life. Everyone that has seen my laptop was been wowed by the LCD quality. Really, when it comes down to it they're all top notch monitors, just some are a tad better then the others. Personally I'd prefer the one I received (sharp). I can't stand inaccurate colours and the light leakage from the samsung would drive me crazy. It really comes down to personal preference though and whether or not you're willing to have your laptop damaged by a techy to have it switched out for another one.

 

Thanks a lot Julianoliver,
I hope the light leakage is not that bad (all my wallpapers are black)

 

I still use the default XPS wallpaper (which is black) - and I really haven't noticed any leakage at all. I have nothing negative to say about the screen at all.

 

Is the Intel Core 2 Extreme X9000
a Quad Core ?

 

Hmm.. reading intels site says 4 processing cores, tho the only difference I see over the X7900 is the higher cache and the peneryn model. So less heat/power consumption


http://www.intel.com/products/processor/core2xe/specifications.htm

 

It runs quite a bit cooler. See the review link I posted 2 pages ago. The tests were made on single GPU systems, but still speaks volumes. Of course the advantage is less on an SLI system.

 

Ok i have my laptop ordered now but I was wondering about how many days should I expect the laptop to go from pre-production to production and about how long from when its in production till it gets shipped? I know it varies but im dying to get it and i wanna know what everyone else has been waiting.

 

Mine was in pre production for less than 24 hours. I canceled/reordered on Friday evening around 6, and it was in production when I woke up around 9 on Saturday. It's been in production status since (3 days or so). My estimated ship date is 3-10-08.

 

Ok well let me know when yours gets shipped out i ordered mine saturday and the estimated ship day is 3-11 but its still showing as pre production atm be it will change tomorrow