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

mid 9000's - now that sounds more like it - im going to rebuild dual boot for XP and V32 over the weekend - then i'll bench it.

Are you guys fully OCing the CPU to get these results? I dont really want to just because of the fan noise - it's lovely and quiet until you clock it over the threshold and the fans go nuts.

 

Hi all,

I've got the 'base' 1730 ordered, with 2.2 processor and 4gb ram, the only upgrade I went for was the 2x160gb raid 0 drives.

My questions are:

1. Will this run games like Crysis?
2. If I was going to spend a little more should it be on a 2.4 processor or 4gb ram?

Thanks

 

Mine is not causing any additional fan noise

 

Personally I've heard conflicting reports;

It seems the 8700M (256+256) will run it, but not great 10fps on native resolution.

If you've the time/patience wait for what I'm waiting for (see below!). Its going to be a major step up from the current offering.

72oo

 

But will it cost a lot more? I've got mine for £1,300 plus VAT. I'd imagine twin 8800's will cost 500 or so more?

 

Yeah the actual price is yet to be announced by Dell, (in fact it hasn't been officially confirmed - but all indications are that it will go ahead).

As for price I'd say £600 would pay for the actual cards (going on what've seen on the Alienware leaked pages), as for installation fee (to keep laptop in warranty with Dell) if upgrading that could add a little. Either way its a fair few bob, and then the question becomes what to do with 256+256 8700M.... wonder if there would be a market for that on Ebay or if Dell would take them in part exchange... like everything only have to wait to see what happens.

Easiest to wait and order the whole package right from the start or order a m-17x alienware in Q1 2008 !

 

I'm fully overclocked, to be honest the fan isn't that loud and I don't notice it. However when I did some benchhmarks last week there didn't seem to be much difference in the 3D mark scores when it had lower CPU settings.

 

No additional fan noise when OC'ing the CPU???!! You sure you got any fans with your machine?? it's the CPU he's talking about not the GPU FYI. Dell officially says that the fans will turn on full when OC'ing the CPU, and I see that as a good thing...

 

I'm running Crysis at 1280x1024 with all settings on medium and am getting between 25 - 45 fps so far has been good to play, the drivers are getting better each week and Dell are bringing out an M1730 specific GPU driver soon so I imagine the performance will increase again. It may be worthwhile hanging on a week just to find out what Dell are doing with the 8800mGTX if not go for it, I enjoyed a nice afternoon playing Bioshock at 1600x1000 with everything to the max and it ran smooth as silk and I could really see the difference from when I played it on my DX9 desktop.

 

Thanks, I don't think I can wait until Q1 2008, so I'll stick with the 8700, and hope for better drivers, or fork out for a new 8800! I might have a look at the M17x if it's out sooner than Q1 2008. Cheers.

 

Cool thanks, although you've got the 7900 CPU - a £500odd extra! Any idea when the 8800s will appear?

 

Im having alot of problems with the drivers posted here earlier (tweaked and not), as soon as i enable SLI the nvidia control panel freezes and under everything in video card specs etc i get <unavailable> Games will not start after this. Until i restart, after i restart the SLI switch is set back to disabled!

Any reccomendations? Anyone having the same problem?

 

To be honest in games like Crysis the stress is placed on the GPU not so much on the processor. I have reset my CPU to stock speed 2.8GHZ but kept the GPU's OC'd and I still get the fairly decent fps reported. I too am looking forward to seeing what Dell come up with when they announce the 8800mGTX and will probably go for an upgrade (if feasible) but I am alot happier with the 8700's than I was even a week ago and that is down to drivers!

 

Cool, I think I'll keep my order as is, expecting delivery at the end of next week, but still showing "Pre-Production"

 

Yes seems to be a common issue. I had this problem, and I apparently (still testing) solved by installing 167.45 DELL drivers ( http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16311) and this hotfix from microsoft (assuming you are using Vista 32 bits): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105 that I installed berfore the driver, there are another hotfixes, but I haven't tried yet. At the moment my system seems stable, so no need to install more patches, we'll see.

Keep us posted.

 

Has anyone encountered this after the 169.09 from notebookforums??:
When OC'ing with RivaTuner, the RivaMonitor shows higher clock speeds (except memory clock) than what I'm setting in the OC tab.

 

I ordered the 1730.....2.4 processor...2 gb of ram ...120gb+7200rpm...Is that good enough to run crysis well and other games as well?

 

I just got 9350 from OC'ing the GPU, but still am not satisfied with the fawlty RivaMonitor. And would definantly like to get up aroung the 9800's...
http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=12244153

 

See my response to a couple of posts previously, Crysis and most modern FPS games require a powerful GPU, games such as Total Commander use alot more CPU power as well. The rule of thumb is to try and purchase as much CPU power as you can whilst ensuring you have a good GPU. Read the many posts concerning 8700 & SLI before making your mind up. As I and many others have said in these posts the drivers are what make the machine and so far the M1730 is still in its infancy, the 169.09 drivers seem to give a significant performance boost but some machines experience instability. On a final note please don't expect desktop performance from a notebook, the M1730 is a beast alright but remember the limitations of the form factor.

 

Just tested 3dmark06: 8143 points.... not bad (SLI on but without OC the vga) for "old" drivers (167.45).

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=12244200

 

I just tested my system with 3dmark06 out of sheer curiosity running the machine with the original driver, i.e. 156.69. My specs are modest: T7700 processor, 2GB, 2x 200GB RAID 0, GPU 8700 GT Sli, etc. Sli configuration was on. OC obviously is not possible with T7700.

The score of 8005 does not seem that far off from other XPS 1730 machines fitted with newer drivers. http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=12244780

Another good news is that so far my computer is stable. After about a month of using it extensively every day I have not had any BSOD, nor other major unpleasant surprises. The Dell QuickSet Gamimg Options regarding lights and light effects does not work properly (as a matter of fact it is totally mixed up, which I reported to Dell, perhaps they care and fix it) but since I was able to switch all these lights off I am happy.

The worst what happened so far was that some of Windows Updates failed to install, notably: nVidia-Video-NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT. Does anyone know what this one is for and where to find it to try installation again? Did anyone have this update installed without a problem?

 

okay so i got the SLIU working, now my CSS stress test jumped from 128 to 179 FPS. Im getting a lot of backlight flicker though, very strange.

Crysis will now run at 1280 x 1024 on high at viewable but not fully playable framerates, fully playable at that resolution is all medium with low shadows or all but some low.

 

Doe anyone know why driver v167.45, which apparently was released by Dell and addresses nVidia 8700M GT card problems, see http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16311 is not included among Drivers and Downloads for XPS M1730 on Dell's web site?

 

Regarding the NVIDIA 8800, I would suggest that we all call and e-mail Dell and hope that pestering them enough will result in an answer. I myself am in the middle of wanting to purchase a new gaming laptop, and I don't really like the look of the new Alienware, so I'm sticking with the idea of purchasing a 1730. But the fact that I will be paying over $4,000 for a new gaming laptop with GPU's that are already outdated (and by a significant margin judging by the 8800 benchmarks) does bug me a bit.

I've contacted Dell by e-mail/chat and I get the usual "I don't know anything" answer but the interesting part is that the a few of the techs I spoke with said that other people have brought up the 8800 issue as well. I've also called and spoke with a sales guy who told me he doesn't think the 1730 will EVER be able to have the 8800 because they have to custom fit it to the motherboard and that will take months and months and by that time another GPU will probably be out which may not even fit into the 1730 and all that.

But again who knows and he may have just been trying to make a sale...but the point is that someone who is interested in, or already owns, the 1730 is not a parent shopping for a computer for their kid. A person who has come across the 1730 is an advanced user and savvy enough to know that the 8700's in there are already outdated. So if Dell begins to see that they are receiving returns/cancellations and calls/e-mails about the 8800 issue, and they are smart enough to know their target audience for the 1730, I'm sure they will give us some answer as to when (if) the 8800 will be available for the 1730 and what the deal is in regard to a possible upgrade path. The important part is that we have to let them know, by calling/e-mailing, about this issue so they can reply.

 

Anyone know why my performance is **** with every single driver I try, it was above 8000 3dmarks and 200fps in css stress test now is 76003dmarks and 160fpd in css stress test, I have completely removed the drivers and this happened last time and I formatted becuase this and will likely format again.

 

Ah sorry.. yeah CPU up to 3.4 goes WOOOOOOOOOSH!

I run at 3.0Ghz though and no fan noise

 

Wow, still HardTimesUk, my fans go on automatically at full when I cross the threshold Yours doesn't?

Are anybody using the NBF Enhanced 169.09 driver, having difficulties running two screens?

 

I can't comment on your situation but my Vista crashed on me after using Windows Movie Maker a couple of days ago and I did a system restore (by mistake I might add). This really fked upped my system (drivers etc). My Nvidia driver reverted back from 169.04 to the stock Dell drivers and my 3DMark06 score went from 8,150 to 4,300 in SLI! This gave me a good excuse to load the 169.09 driver and the 3DMark06 went back up to 8,080.

I think my Vista install is stable now, just stay away from Windows Movie Maker!!!

From what I've read I think most of the issues we seem to be having are either Vista issues or Driver issues. Hardware seems to be good quality from my seat.

 

http://crymod.com/thread.php?threadid=10989

EDITED - Found Out there is an Updated Version of the Benchmarking Tool - Adjusted URL to point to Thread for that.

Crysis Benchmarking Tool.

Allows you to run a variety of Crysis Benchmarks to test your machine.

Works with the Full & Demo Versions of Crysis.

Might be of some use to some people around here - Going to give it a test when I get home tonight.

Frag. Out.

 

Great thanks a lot

 

You're CPU fans go on automatically?

I played Crysis for around 3 hours with no problems and my fans did not go WOOOSH!?

Oh well, if it goes pop they can just replace it

 

My Fans go on after a little while of heavy gaming (about 5min or so)... 3dmarks about 1/2 way through.

-When SLI is enabled I can only use 1 screen (either the TV or my Laptop LCD).
-When SLI is off I can output to both outputs at the sametime.

This isn't driver specific, but this has always been the case and I think this NVIDIA/SLI specific.

 

Hey guys quick question.

I'm getting a replacement M1730 for an old XPS Gen 2 thats burned out 4 videos cards, mobo, etc. I'm quite surprised I'm getting such an updated model but the spec sheet looks a bit confusing.

Here are the 2 lines that are in question.

1 223-1647 Dell XPS M1730, Mobile Intel 2.4GHz, 4MB, 800 FSB Merom
1 310-9651 Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme Processor

I was under the impression that the only extreme proc was the 2.8GHz not the 2.4 but the 310-9651 item line states Extreme Processor.

Am I missing something here or is this line item just a mistake on Dell's part?

Thanks in advance.


eschaton

 

You're CPU fans go on automatically?
Yeah as soon as I set it on through the BIOS.


-When SLI is enabled I can only use 1 screen (either the TV or my Laptop LCD).
-When SLI is off I can output to both outputs at the sametime.

This isn't driver specific, but this has always been the case and I think this NVIDIA/SLI specific.

Ok, thats good to know Hope I'll be able to play FSX with my two screens then. My FPS should drop pretty much when only running two screens.
@Elganja
Beside running NBF Enhanced drivers and OC'ing, what are you doing to get 9803 on 3dmark?? I'm getting 9363 :s

 

Hmm that definantly looks like a typo from Dell. You should probably contact them and get it confirmed though.

 

Wow! Guess I havn't learned to use the multi-quote yet

 

If I am not mistaken...

This is the actual processor
1 223-1647 Dell XPS M1730, Mobile Intel 2.4GHz, 4MB, 800 FSB Merom

This is a sticker or emblem on the unit...like the Vista Comaptable Sticker.
(Processor Branding Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme Processor IX2DNB [310-9651] Labels)
1 310-9651 Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme Processor

 

Well the xtreme processor has 2,8Ghz wich doesn't coincide with with the the processor which is stated to have 2,4ghz (T7700)

 

I finally broke 10k in 3dmarks06 (see sig for link) and reached my goal!

cpu:
2.8 Extreme @ 3.0Ghz... any more then 3.0Ghz didn't do much at all except make my computer louder...lol

driver:
-see sig

msconfig settings:
-see zerg's post, I made the same modifications ... just disabling things that weren't needed

my exact riva tuner settings:
-Linked Clocks Checked
-750Mhz/1500Mhz
-Memory 850Mhz

 

I agree...that definitely is a true statement. Not sure why they would add the Extreme Logo unless they are saying it can use it.

 

Here is a Review of the only laptop out right now with the 8800m GTX

Apparently a single 8800 Card will play crysis at naitive resolution on medium no problem, but lags at very high.

This means that an SLI of 8800m gtx's would rape crysis on all settings.

I really want to know how much the upgrade to the 8800m gtx's will cost... Must play crysis on very high settings, Must take crysis on very high settings with me wherever i go, regardless of the fact that the battery would only last 10-15 minutes while playing it.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/notebooks/review/2007/11/22/Rock-Xtreme-770-T7800-8800/p1

 

I VERY much doubt it would rape it at all settings, since a desktop 8800GTX has issues at very high settings. It depends on wether you're running dx9 or 10 but still, Crysis would have to utilize SLI very much for there to be more than 50% gains which I think is very doubtful.

 

Lets put it this way, the 8800gtx rapes our 8700m sli and we all want a piece of the action

 

Well Listen, I get a jump from 120fps to 190 fps enabling disabling SLI if that ratio is the same for crysis, then the jump from 1 8800 to 2 8800's would be deifnitely enough to play on 1920 1200 Very high settings at at least 15 fps. Which is barely playable. But turn it down to 1680 1050 on very high? Should be perfectly playable.

 

We should start a petition if Dell doesn't let us upgrade. But we still need to wait until they announce the 8800 cards

 

I asked The rep i have been working with to dig into it to help assure the current m1730 owners will not be left in the dust. Im guessing he will getback to me with some concrete info.

 

VERY NICE Elganja! Good work WHat other things did you disable from msconfig?

 

I really need for people with the xtreme processor to answer me this:

When crossing from 2,8Ghz to 3,0Ghz or higher, do your fans also start at once? And do they seem to go on full? I'm hearing that some people aren't hearing anything unless they go up to 3,2 or ,4...

 

ive got a number of issues with dell. I want new drivers!!!! I got my 167.45 from a second source for my dual 8700s. But i wat the 169.xx. Where can i get these from guys. Also i want the dual 8800s. I MUST HAVE THEM!!! I WANT TO PWN CRYSIS!! (PS. the dual 8700s with driver 167.45 can play DX9 crysis on HIGH with a crappy resolution but no lag) So with new drivers perhaps better res. Aaand I must have 8800s to go DX10 on V.High settings. MUST DO THAT!! I will even pay for the 8800s. ALSO NEVER GET ALIENWARE!! they are crap!!. I shd kow. I had a brand new alienware 3 weeks before i had a brand new m1730. Alienware sucks!!

 

Only the ones that zerg mentioned. Doing this net 300 points for me!

At 3.2Ghz and 3.4Ghz my fans are on all the time and loud (full speed is my guess)

At 2.8Ghz and 3.0Ghz the fans are not on all the time and when they do come on they aren't going at full speed.

One thing to mention, at 3.2/3.4 my case temperature is ~45C while at 2.8/3.0 my case temp is ~51C. So the fans at full speed do make a difference BUT my best performance is at 3.0Ghz... go figure