The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Just received XPS 15, some concerns...

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by XPS-15, Apr 24, 2011.

  1. XPS-15

    XPS-15 Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    44
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Hey guys,

    I received my XPS 15 about two days ago, with the following specs:

    2.0 i7
    750GB HD
    2GB 540M
    8GB RAM

    Overall, I am very happy, however I have a few questions:

    1) I ran some benchmarks, and I was disappointed with the 3D performance of this machine. The benchmark results seem low when I compare them with other systems. Most of the other benchmarks I was comparing my results to were desktops. Will this system not perform similar to a desktop, just because the simple fact it is a laptop? I figured with the i7, 2GB video, and 8GB RAM this thing would do video pretty well.

    2) The "C" key on the keyboard. It doesn't work most of the time, and I have to hit the button slow and hard to get it to work. I am going to call Dell, see if they will replace the keyboard and let me install it myself. Does anyone know their policy with this stuff? Any suggestions about this problem?

    Thanks very much for everyone's help with buying the laptop, and any help you an offer would be greatly appreciated.

    Erick
     
    XPS-15, Apr 24, 2011
    #1
  2. BeastRider

    BeastRider Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    63
    Messages:
    580
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Depends on the specs of the desktop you are comparing it to. The thing is the GT540M is a lower-mid end GPU that can run games at 25-30fps med-high settings..Not really a hardcore gaming GPU when compared to the GTX4xx and ATi 6xxx cards. The i7 processor is fast for sure, but it's the graphics that bottlenecks your system. The VRAM doesn't really matter much in this case, whether it is 1GB or 2GB as the GPU can only make use of so much. Kind of like having 8GB of ram as well, not all RAM is used very often, so anything extra remains idle and doesn't help performance.

    Regarding the keyboard, might wanna have it replaced.

    Hope this helps. Cheers. :)
     
    BeastRider, Apr 24, 2011
    #2
  3. shinji257

    shinji257 Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    243
    Messages:
    1,041
    Likes Received:
    8
    Trophy Points:
    56
    I wouldn't let the benchmarks bother you. It seems to perform well in most games I play. For the most part newer games do alot of physics work and they tend to do that on the processor. In addition some newer games are becoming multi-core aware so they may spread certain tasks normally sent to the gpu to work on a couple of cpu cores instead.

    Portal 2 is a fine example. Settings maxed out and even AA turned on. Nice smooth play without issue.
     
    shinji257, Apr 24, 2011
    #3
  4. DakkonA

    DakkonA Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    30
    Messages:
    448
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    As for the keyboard, just make sure to clearly ask for parts-only service. Like have it on a separate line or in bold. They have a tendency to immediately dispatch a technician, and they can't cancel it after they do it.
     
    DakkonA, Apr 24, 2011
    #4