Dell XPS 15 gaming help/advice + SSD/RAM Upgrade?

Hi guys,

Basically I was wondering whether an upgrade to 6GB RAM (from 4GB) would make a difference in playing games such as crysis and battlefield 3?

and a further question, would an SSD install into the DVD drive bay make a difference?

What about combining the 2, how much difference would that make?

Thanks in advance for your replies

 

Ram probably wont make any difference what so ever. Unless the game will use more than 4gb which is unlikely. SSD wouldnt improve fps but it would improve loading times or loading of textures. I believe you can install into the dvd drive as long as its a sata connection. Someone correct me if im wrong but i think it is sata 3?

 

Yeah I know that you can definitely replace the DVD drive with an SSD caddy.

Shame the extra RAM won't make any difference :/ I'm really struggling with this laptop at the moment as it runs Battlefield 3 and DiRT 3 on high with high AA at near 1080p resolution comfortably but stuggles with Crysis high on a medium/low resolution and generally looks terrible!

Any ideas?

 

if you want to improve your FPS at the games, the GPU is the thing you should focus at.

on a laptop there isnt a lot you can do, however there is some things you can try such as GPU overclocking.

I noticed some significal improvement at the FPS while OCing my 525m card.

make sure you also have the high performance windows plan and you have no other apps running in the background draining system resources.

if you also want to keep your temps cooler and/or you want to reach higher OC speeds, visit the bios modding topic at my signature

 

Has it been determined if the l502x DVD bay supports SATA 3? Yes, it is a SATA bay, but if it's only SATA 2, I'd be putting an SSD in the main HDD bay and the spinner in the DVD caddy instead.

And as has been said, neither will make a dramatic difference in fps (well, the SSD will make ZERO difference there ). If you are using most of your RAM the extra may help some, but for games the l502x is GPU-limited usually. OC is really the only option.

 

Thanks for the advice. It seems when I changed to windows basic it freed up some RAM which resulted in a slight, but noticeable performance boost. For £36 6GB of RAM seems like a sensible investment. If that doesn't work I would appreciate some help with your custom BIOS etc. They do look fantastic thouogh!!

 

You can pick up 8gb of ram for £34 at crucial, its what i have and its fine, no problems at all. http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=EEF1F5D5A5CA7304

 

Thanks again!!

 

I believe the dvd sata is not sata III (do not quote me on this as I do not recall where I saw this info).

With that said, the SSD should go into the main compartment for a variety of reasons.
- SSD under the left palm rest will not lead to the warm sensation on the left palm.
- It's a guarantee sata III port.
- A spinning HD in the DVD drive places it at the best location. My temp on the secondary HD is in the low 30s whereas when it was in its original location (left palm), it was much higher.

Upgrading RAM will not make a difference if you are not using apps that require higher ram capacity, however, since prices are so cheap, just buy another stick of 4gb (if u have 1x4gb installed) to make it 8gb dual channel. I had 6gb and upgraded to 8gb for $8, no difference but it made me feel better.

As for SSD, getting one will enhance your overall computing experience. Application will load quicker, virus/spyware scan breezes through, no defrag to worry about, and the multitasking experience will be much better (virus scan, spyware scan, downloading, opening apps, etc...all at the same time without much of a slowdown-try doing this all at the same time and watch how your system will stall with the traditional spinning HD and a quad core).

I'd recommend you stick to quality SSDs (samsung 830, intel 510, crucial M4, corsair performance pro, plextor M3) and avoid the sandforce base SSD. Although firmware updates for sandforce have fixed many of its issue, some are still experiencing problems.

I personally went with the 128gb samsung 830 because of its magician software and the fact that it's one of the few ssd to be made all in house so if issues does arise, it may be easier for samsung to rectify.

Hope my reply helped you.