Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, *Part 3*

Yo Kade mate

No no to stay "legit and clean" with Mag we run always the benchmarks with no hacks or tweaks whatsover.
So that means that the scores you see are with vanilla crysis 1.2.1 ran under Win 7 x64 + DX10 + x64.

Beside the OS,the only difference is the drivers. I reject to use older drivers, while Mag uses 197.25 under Vista 64.
Since the 265.90quadros are from the latest branch, so "newer", they are the best performers out now since 258.96, they can easily beat down newer 266.35-58 whql.
They gave me a score in Dirt 2 of min 50 Avg 60, maxed out (check the benchmark a few pages back, theres a youtube link) which is Outstanding for an old pc like this.
It scales perfectly, it doesnt lag, its perfectly smooth.

Still the xps delivers a desktop performance althought its old

I didnt posted the DX9 "tweaked DX10" version that runs under xp, because the score will be faked (if youre curious, with "very high" cvar under xp, so its dx10 enabled features basically, i do 31.3 in very high @ 1200p).

The bigger Vram in the GTX 9800 means two things: more room for AA/AF, more room as a cache for textures and filters.

Virtually, 112 shaders vs 96 (so a difference of 12 cuda cores) doesnt bring any much more performance, it helps just in those shader-intensive/physx games as 12 more cuda cores can help a bit, but we're talking about a marginal gain of 0.5 fps, if not lesser.

Vram is what makes the GTX awesome, because in sli it boosts 2GB ddr3. Althought its not that "fast" as a GDDR3 it does his job.

As an example, games like Alien Vs Predator with GTX 9800 can be played with everything @ very high, specially textures. This because the very high feature of AVP uses 768mb of Vram thus it needs 1gb cards.

In sli, AVP maxed out boosts an AVG framerate of 50-55 with peaks well above 74fps. And it scales very good

 

I know that, Kingpinzero.

I was actually reinforcing your score, which is nice and high. I've had the same experience with AvP; STALKER Clear Sky; Far Cry 2. Now Far Cry 2 -- my 8800m GTX SLi could not run this game at all 'ultra-high' with DX10 since something about the textures was overloading the card's limited memory. So I know exactly what you mean. Ditto for STALKER Clear Sky. I could never imagine getting Clear Sky to run on maximum textures when I had the 8800s; just that one setting would reduce my experience from 30+ FPS to a jittery 15-20 FPS mess. Then I temporarily upgraded to the 9800s and the entire experience got turned around.

This is why I believe Eleron should get a nice run out of his cards, although his CPU might limit their scaling by a few FPS, but he'll still do better than most of us who had the 8800s.

 

Its 11 AM, still no word from Dell.... I have a very expensive brick in my house for a week now ...

 

Darn psy i hope they get in touch soon!

Mag kade raised a good point on the crysis benchmark; are you benching with default vanilla game or with the tweaked settings?

Im using one installation for both oses. I have to point out thought that if i mod the cvars or use an autoexec config under xp the same happens in win 64 since the installation is one.
Everytime i bench i revert the game to vanilla with a backup of cvars original folder, i dont feel like benching with a tweaked game, its not fair lol.

Is like benching with vantage having ppu enabled.

 

I benched with vanilla settings and DX10 since as you say benching with a tweaked config is not fair.

I think we ran before a 9800m GTX vs 8800m GTX in the Crysis Very High and the scores didn´t differ that much. However enabling AA and benching I get more behind the 9800m GTX. As Kade said the 1GB of VRAM greatly helps in high resolutions and with AA enabled.

I´ll see later on if I can get hold of 9800m GTX SLI. However for now I am pushing more money on my newly built desktop which I will SLI with another GTX 460 very soon

 

Thanks for the tips. Any suggestions on where to get those? I'm finding the 8800m GTX as being the most affordable option for GPU but the only place I've seen it available is eBay. If anyone can direct me to some affordable places to get both the CPU and GPU I would really appreciate it.

 

beeeeeeeeeeeeee .... just off the phone with Dell ... no decision as off yet, in fact the one who was treating my case is "sick" .. so they have to start all over again .. might not have an answer this week he said .. now that sucks bigtime doesn't it?

 

Actually, I may have overlooked something important here. . . Magnus, you did overclock your cards, yes? Perhaps that's helping narrow some of that gap. And my point wasn't about vanilla settings since Magnus does legit runs, always. He has his custom config for proper performance, and then he has his actual default CVARs for proper testing. I just got really curious about the API (DX10 or DX9) since in DX10 I just couldn't get a smooth run on very high with my 8800s; the first loop was always very slow, but the follow-up loops were relatively smoother. Only in DX10, mind you. DX9 would be faster.

Anyway, it's nice to see that The Beast is still keeping up so nicely! I mean, 2011, and I still find that the R1 and R2 -- while great -- aren't that far ahead of a nicely tweaked M1730 when it comes to real-world gaming. Hell, it can run a majority of games perfectly, and will continue to do so until the end of this generation of consoles, I am certain. With dudes like Magnus, we got Crysis running on our rigs, and with the modifications *cough* downgrades *cough* to the Crysis 2, I am sure the M1730 will do quite well with that title.

--

Psyloid, I would advise that you keep sending them small but daily reminders of your situation and that you're waiting to hear from them; it takes escalations a few days to respond since you are being considered for a system replacement.

 

Thanks for the kind words Kade Storm

I wouldn´t run Crysis with Very High DX10 though since 25 fps average is too little for me. Just for benchmarking it´s ok. By the way what do you get with your M17x with very high and DX10 Kade?

I will definitely tweak Crysis 2 when it comes out as I did for both GTA IV and Crysis 1.

Yes my GPU´s is overclocked and was running the benchmark at 640/1600/950.

Yes I just ran a benchmark test with my config now and DX9 and got 43.77 fps average

@Kingpinzero

I am sure that you would get a good amount of higher fps using my config.

I have attached it by the way

 

Magnus,

My honour -- the kind words. It's the truth, amigo.

Anyway, the M17X, especially the R1 with the 280s, isn't that big of a deal -- a moderate step up from the M1730, but this can be matched with a bit of overclocking. And I don't say this because of my particular score since I worked very hard to fine-tune my system to run Crysis. Refer to the attachment to get my average rates. All stock, although CPU was running at 3.2 GHz, which allowed the SLi to scale better. Without a CPU OC, my minimum rates are a bit lower, and the average drops by about 1.5 FPS.

Now check out this youtube video:
YouTube - M17x 5870 Crysis Benchmark

Now with the kind of overclocking that people can achieve with the 5870s, and paired with an ultra-fast CPU like the 920/940XM, the system can devour Crysis.

I am certain your config would run at nigh-60 FPS with that rig, and I could activate object motion blur and run it in DX10 mode.

 

Can't find Crysis, I only have Warhead. Any big difference in using the same config, Magnus?

 

Hmm give it a try, I think it works in Warhead too. Else I had another config for it. But give that one a try.

 

That is an impressive score Kade, even more impressive is that M17x with 5870m in Crossfire

 

Hell yeah, Magnus. Thanks.

I mean, that M17X-R2 isn't even tweaked so much; just the cards and CPU overclocked nicely.

This is the one constant that I hear amongst ATi ravers -- that the 5870m has massive overclocking headroom and runs stable at most of these overclocks without going bust. Although I also hear that they have driver issues. Unfortunately, the 280/285m is the same G92 as our M1730 cards, and they don't overclock much without a serious overvolt, and even then, they're limited. I could never match those clocks or the performance exuded by the ATi Radeons. On the other hand, my M17-R1 was plenty strong even at stock, so it really didn't matter much. . . save for the horrible throttling! So after numerous attempts by Dellienware to ignore the real problem and 'fix' it alternatively, they issues a replacement.

So one of my R1s is now being replaced with an R2, armed with the 5870s. I'll probably get a 920/940XM and pull off a similar overclock and then enjoy the ride. When and IF the hardware becomes overwhelmed by newer demanding games, I'll then move into your hobby of creating custom configs. I always believe that it's better to know the limits of the system, and then find ways to tweak the software to operate within those limits. For such an inspiration, you deserve more credit than we give you, Magnus.

 

Fortunatly I know how to deal with them very well (I work in after sales myself). Still I feel arsed because I miss my beast... I used it every day

 

Thanks Kade

Yes I know the limitations of the XPS M1730 and I will probably later on move onto a new gaming laptop. But not for another year or two.

Tweaking is fun no doubt about that

 

I think The Beast with 9800s, X9000 and decent overclocking would still last two years running games are high-to-max settings.

Speaking of tweaking, you ever take a crack a Cryostasis? Such an annoying game.

 

Nah I haven´t tested Cryostasis. I will give it a try and see where I land.

By the way Starcraft II with all options set to Ultra and 1920x1200 is no problem for the beast. Fps range from 35-60 fps in heavy fights.

 

So does anyone have advice on whether I should upgrade my m1730 or buy a new laptop such as G73JW or Sager 8170 ($1,400 - $1,900). To upgrade to a point where I would be comparable to either of those systems I would need to get 8800m GTX SLI, x9000, and a new HD since I only have 120 GB currently.

 

Upgrading all those parts would set you back $1200 at least so, go figure....

 

Sadly, that is kinda what I figured... I don't think I'll be spending $3.5k into a gaming laptop again that only lasts 3 years. I feel like I was on the wrong end of a colonoscopy. Well played Dell, you got me...

 

Ehehe. Well i dont mind spending approx $ 1000 a year for my gaming laptop. I always game in my sofa. I cant stand sitting at my desk anymore. Not that i am rich n . But its my hobby and i invest in it.

 

Kade you make me look like a bad guy lol! Jokes aside, i know, i was just trying to understand why the gap wasnt so marked between our 2 systems.
I wasnt doubting about Mag honesty, never will do, never had.
He's a wonderful guy, with a luggage of experience, and we are both experienced and aknowledged about Overclocking world, since we do push our beast to limits (and this includes desktops as well).
You have to read our PM's; lots of technical and funny stuff and personally i enjoy benching with Mag, always it ends good
I owe him alot, because he helped me when i started with the xps...then i was on my own, otherwise my 10 years of Oc experience on desktop didnt serve me well

Man, you know i love you!
Well time for the results? YEAH!

CRYSIS BENCHMARKS - Magnus72 custom Tweaked configs - 9800m GTX SLI 600/1500/900 driver 265.90q - Windows 7 x64​

- Crysis 1.2.1 x64 DX10


HIGH setting, 1920*1200, Magnus72 Tweaked Autoexec.cfg:

==============================================================
TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: 75.87s, Average FPS: 26.36
Min FPS: 26.68 at frame 1955, Max FPS: 49.45 at frame 1010
Average Tri/Sec: -23941118, Tri/Frame: -908236
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.01
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 49.39s, Average FPS: 40.50
Min FPS: 26.68 at frame 1955, Max FPS: 50.58 at frame 82
Average Tri/Sec: -36517688, Tri/Frame: -901742
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.02
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: 49.17s, Average FPS: 40.68
Min FPS: 26.68 at frame 1955, Max FPS: 50.58 at frame 82
Average Tri/Sec: -36681588, Tri/Frame: -901748
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.02
TimeDemo Play Ended, (3 Runs Performed)
==============================================================

Completed All Tests

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>>--SUMMARY--<<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

25/01/2011 09:45:10 - Vista 64

Run #1- DX10 1920x1200 AA=No AA, 64 bit test, Quality: High ~~ Overall Average FPS: 4059

VERY HIGH setting, 1920*1200, Magnus72 Tweaked Autoexec.cfg:

==============================================================
TimeDemo Play Started , (Total Frames: 2000, Recorded Time: 111.86s)
!TimeDemo Run 0 Finished.
Play Time: 74.27s, Average FPS: 26.93
Min FPS: 27.78 at frame 1970, Max FPS: 49.90 at frame 1780
Average Tri/Sec: -24443770, Tri/Frame: -907737
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.01
!TimeDemo Run 1 Finished.
Play Time: 49.15s, Average FPS: 40.69
Min FPS: 27.78 at frame 1970, Max FPS: 50.35 at frame 1782
Average Tri/Sec: -36735956, Tri/Frame: -902733
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.02
!TimeDemo Run 2 Finished.
Play Time: 48.99s, Average FPS: 40.83
Min FPS: 27.30 at frame 1954, Max FPS: 51.29 at frame 68
Average Tri/Sec: -36834616, Tri/Frame: -902234
Recorded/Played Tris ratio: -1.02
TimeDemo Play Ended, (3 Runs Performed)
==============================================================

Completed All Tests

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>>--SUMMARY--<<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

25/01/2011 09:50:13 - Vista 64

Run #1- DX10 1920x1200 AA=No AA, 64 bit test, Quality: VeryHigh ~~ Overall Average FPS: 4076

Now this is talking!
@Mag / Kade: my point was exactly the results of these benchmarks. With the same tweaked config the 9800m GTX was supposed to run better, thing i wasnt achieving before.
Now since both confs are "on par/equal/even" these benchmarks should be taken in account as "clean"
Your thoughts?

 

W00t w00t my qx9650 arrived Mag!

Just benched at 4,12 (435x9,5multi) and i gained 10+pts in 3dmarkVantage in cpu score lol (was 35,679 with e8500@4,27, now 45,540).

Im expecting great things now, instead of upgrading the whole system (around 600 euro with the conf ive seen) ive spent 230+150 (cpu + gpu) and as a bonus im using the gtx260 as a physx card

Back to crysis benchs lol i just did one on the fly and made 45fps of avg @ 1080p very high vanilla (no tweaks).
Im tempted to try your config file on my desktop as well, i bet ill get a good gain.

On a side note, does your tweak degrades visual quality or actually does it improve it a bit? Im asking this because based on my runs on the xps posted above the game looked much prettier while running outstandingly fast!

 

Lol benched f1 2010 in dx11 maxed out (ultra/8xMsaa) was avg 47 with my e8500 now with the qx9650 is 57,9.
Anyway im more interested in my xps perf in crysis so im awaiting your thoughts.

 

hmm. Dell called today to arrange a pickup of my old system next week.
They confirmed that I would be getting a new computer Equal or better, but they could not say yet which one it would be (a M17x or a refurb M1730 (which I will not accept) or something else (which i will not accept either)).
He couldn't even say when they would tell me that, could be this week or next week .... Strange that they are so fast in recuperating this system; last time they swapped they left the old computer a month after delivery of the new one... maybe they need parts for repairing another M1730 ...

 

@Kade Storm: Just happening to be looking at your location "Location: Five-Star Hotel in Hell, courtesy of Michael Dell.". That seems a bit harsh! You still are using the M1730 after all.

 

Kingpin I have tweaked Crysis for a very long time. Some things that isn´t noticable visually I have degraded, however not many. More just tweaking different settings and testing and testing to achieve best visual quality along with best performance.

Also in regards to performance, installning correct or better up force installing chipset drivers for just the PCI Express just yields me great performance. I mean just at 3,8Ghz I get 16664 in 3D Mark 06, meanwhile I hit over 17+ in 3D Mark 06 with 4Ghz.

I am sure with a 9800m GTX SLI GPU I would hit 17.5+ in 3D Mark 06.

However I have overvolted my GPU´s before and overclocked to core 700Mhz, Shaders 1850 and Mem 1000. The 3D Mark 06 score doesn´t increase so I definitely have hit a wall at 4GHz and that high overclocks.

So now with just pretty soft clocks of 630/1575/930 I still get over 16000 in 3D Mark 06 just at 3.6Ghz of the CPU

Reason the shaders is set at 1575 is because the G92 cores counts the shader clock 2.5 x Core clock. This is the correct ratio for the shaders and can yeild some more performance. Just a tip

 

Ah thats awesome prolly i would hit 17+ under xp, but dont forget that my cpu isnt oem but just an ES q174. The far i can go is 3,8ghz, i cant use 4ghz for anything as it requires more than 1,5v on this cpu.

Even 3,8ghz needa 1,47v here but im fine anyway

My 9800m gtx are oced by the link-to-link basis, therefore core 600 brings shaders to 1500 (1:1) and memory to 900.
Anything else the driver crashes and is mostly due to voltage.
I didnt and dont want to overvolt both cards for now, i may in the future thought.

Anyway thanks, great tip so about the crysis benchnark what you think? I think that averaging 40fps is insane, max was 55!

 

Ps: pci express bus drivers seems to be updated to 2006? Tried with latest intel autotool as well.

What driver are you using? It may be worth to try it.

 

I use the these chipset drivers http://files.laptopvideo2go.com/chipset/intel_chipset_9.1.1.1019.exe.

Yes I thought you would like the config Kingpin, very good benchmark run you got there with the config

Yes it seem the 9800m GTX is more limited in overclocking than the 8800m GTX. My 8800m GTX GPU´s overclocks like crazy. I can even run them at 700 core if I want. However I haven´t gamed for long with such high clocks, though I will try it now since I have the fans on full blast all the time. I know when I ran those high clocks on the GPU´s I was up in the 49´ish framerates in the benchmark

Those clocks were just for benchmark though.

 

Kingpinzero, dude, I was actually trying to clear my own name! Heh. Since I felt that perhaps I had instigated blasphemy against the great Magnus.

Now look at that amazing run! Magnus is king!

Lawl. Yeah, but it's funny, and he shouldn't be buggered since he's plenty rich and has a huge following of customers. Heh. Beast is gone. I got two M17X R1s, and they've been neglected by Dell. Hell, one of the units got issued an R2 replacement on the very day that their new BIOS was finally released.

 

update to my misery : just off the phone with Dell, no decision as off yet. snifff

 

Hello Guys! New to the Dell forum but not to NB forums in general!

Just dove in and got a m1730 refurb from Dell outlet (w 20% off outlet prices I paid $660 for a m1730 @2.1ghz, 4GB, 8800m GTX SLI and 320GB shipped which I assume is pretty ok?)

My question is:

Will these sodimms fit as a 4->8GB memory upgrade?

8GB DDR2 667MHZ PC3 5300 256x8 (2x4GB) SODIMM LAPTOP - eBay (item 330481209642 end time Feb-02-11 12:06:50 PST)

 

Technically it should work

 

Dell just confirmed to me that i will be getting an M17x. Specifications yet unknown Anyway, I will be moving to the M17x owners lounge now. Good luck with ya M1730, I loved mine and i loved hanging around here !
bye !!!

 

Great news! Congrats, Psyloid.

The process took 2+ weeks to run its course for me from the time I received confirmation of the replacement. It seemed like a very long 2 weeks, but worth the wait. Getting the warranty and service tag transferred over took about the same amount of time after receiving the Alienware machine.

 

Hey Kade how come you have two Alienware?

 

Just thought I would drop something positive here for once reg. the m1730 and Dell.

I just received my m1730 today and even though I bought it as 'scratch and dent' it came 100% new, wrapped in plastic, original packaging and looking SUPER SWEET (I got the red).

Looking forward to being active here for a long time

 

Hi guys, i just got my XPS M1730, and i like it very very much, but i can't seem to get SLI to work, because it's not detected?! I am using latest official drivers

PLEASE HELP!

 

I forgot to mention, I have 8700m GT SLI, but i don't see the second video card in device manager...

also, where can i get drivers for AGEIA physix card?

Thanks

 

Well for starters you should prob tell us:

Operating system?
32 or 64 bit?
Cards in the SLI?
Driver revision?

 

If you cannot see the second card in the device manager chances are there is only 1 card and someone screwed up. Did you get it from Dell or 'somewhere else'?

 

I am using 64bit win 7 ultimate
drivers are 266.58
Cards should be in SLI, looked up by service tag, and it says its dual 8700m gt...

Can a fresh install of windows help?

 

Let me get back to you in a few minutes. I am actually JUST performing a fresh install of Win 7 x64 on my brand new 1730 w 8800 GTX SLI and am having some minor issues finding the right/best drivers etc myself.

 

also I see this as "other devices" in device manager:

1. Base System Device
2. PCI Device

Guess one of these is the Ageia Physix card, but I don't know where can i get matching drivers

 

OK thanks!

 

I would try drivers from: psilo.be

A great source from a user of the 1730 forum

 

I would guess that you need to update your chipset drivers, sound, The 'display' and or PhysX. Not sure which ones of course Also, even though its not showing as 'missing' you will need the 'G15 Game Panel software' from logitech.com (the ones used for the G15 keyboard works fine) for the game-panel to work.

 

Congrats Psyloid