Keep Dell XPS 15 9550 or get Razer Blade 15 (2016)?

I have gone through five Dell XPS 15 (in the last 2 months) and I am not sure whether I should go for a sixth one (exchange from Microsoft store) or do a full refund and get a Razer instead. I am kind of tired of getting a defective unit from Dell (audio jack not working, spacebar doesn't work correctly, black speck between glass and screen). I really do like the form factor of the XPS and its tiny bezel. Also, I do light/moderate gaming so a 960m is good enough for me. I just don't know whether to try my luck once again or just give up and get a Razer (thick bezels, more powerful than I need to be).

 

I've used / owned both the Dell XPS 15 and the Razer Blade 14.

If you use your laptop primarily for gaming, get a Razer blade 14. The Geforce 970m GPU is a significant boost in performance over the Geforce 960m in the Dell XPS 15 (about +80% more powerful).

If you value a general-purpose laptop more than a gaming-focused laptop, then stick with the Dell XPS 15. It has the benefit of its super-small bezels, better access to accessories (e.g. spare chargers and external batteries), supports two storage devices, and will be easier to find parts & support over the lifetime of ownership.

If you do decide to get a Razer blade 14, ID recommend you look into the 2015-model laptops that have a matte FHD screen (1080p). It is unlikely that Razer will continue to make a variant of the Razer Blade 14 with that matte FHD screen, so pick one up while you are still able. It also helps that they are pretty cheap ($1600) considering the class of laptop you're considering.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

Hey,
I went through 4 units myself before getting one that is problem free (so far) - and I purchased through dell so I had to wait weeks between returns/shipping.

If you went through the Microsoft store, I'd just keep exchanging them. The dell is more work appropriate (if you are on in an office environment), and for light gaming I much prefer the resolution of the dell (either 1080p or 4k) vs the resolution of the Razer (3K); with the Razer you can't scale 1080p nicely, yet you also don't have quite the power to run many games at native resolution.

My only problem with the system at this point is the very short key travel, it's taking some getting used to and things aren't getting better with time (though I'm not sure if the razer is better in this regard). I'm eyeing the Lenovo X1 Yoga as an alternative but haven't been able to try one out in person yet.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about running games at non-native resolution.

When you're dealing with 1080p gaming on a 14"-15" 1800p or 4K display, the pixels are so small that you don't notice pixel interpolation. Even if you are intentionally looking for evidence of non-nativr pixel interpolation, you won't be able to see it.

There are many other reasons for picking a 1080p / 1800p / 4K screen on these two laptop models. But pixel interpolation at 1080p gaming should not be one of them.



Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

I sold my RB 2015 QHD for an XPS 15 with the i5 6300HQ.

The most graphically intense game I play at the moment is Killing Floor 2, which runs perfectly on the 960m. Things I miss about the Blade:
It's *slightly* smaller in dimensions.
The 970m

Things I don't miss at all:
blazing heat which required me to keep turbo disabled and made use uncomfortable
poor battery life (just under 4 hours)
the QHD+ screen just looks poor compared to the XPS 15's. I mean it's hard to believe because the Blade's screen was so good when it came out-- but it looks just bad next to the 15's 4k.
No thunderbolt/USB C
cheap plastic mouse buttons


Honestly, when I saw the new RB 2016 come out, I was so relieved that I didn't wait for it. No desire to buy one at all.

 

But the XPS doesn't have Core compatibility. Also, 2016 RB has USB-C. And if I got the 4K XPS I'd change the resolution back to 1080p anyway, since 4K on a 15 inch laptop is just stupid imo.

 

Ummm the XPS works with razer core...
http://www.ultrabookreview.com/10761-razer-core-review/

 

1. XPS + Core isn't doing much better than Blade by itself according to author's benchmarks and does much worse than Blade + Core. Imo this itself makes the whole thing useless.
2. You can't set it up unless you're okay with doing some serious voodoo dance according to the article. If it isn't working [almost] right out of the box, it isn't working.

 

1. The XPS doubled its performance. How is that not worth something. Also if you skip the synthetic benchmarks you see that it performs nearly the same as the blade+core. Not to mention the CPU is slower in the XPS...
2. Boo hoo you have to jump through some hoops to double your performance. It still works, and my guess as the open source software ages it will get better in time.

 

I have a core and I will test its performance with an XPS 15/i7/16 in a few days.

 

1. FYI they have identical CPUs. Yes, it has doubled in performance - performance that wasn't great in the first place...

 

If you read the article you'd have seen it was an i5. The initial performance for 3d is completely irrelevant as it has a 960m. What matters is how the performance of the XPS 15 with the core stacks up compared to the Blade, then weigh everything else on which is more worth it.

 

From the article:

I took some benchmarks and put them into the table above. As you can see, it’s not quite as powerful as the Razer Blade and the Core but it’s really close. This is most likely due to the i5-6300HQ processor and 8GB ram configuration I have.

I hope this is the trend for other companies looking to bring eGPU solutions to market. It would be nice to see these units around $200.

 

Ok, getting the core working with the XPS 15 was a *****. First, you need to make sure that you've installed all the dell tb3 software and done the firmware updates and drivers. Then you need to update the 960m to the most recent drivers. Daisy chaining isn't working well with wireless receivers, but my mouse works fine keeping it plugged into the core.


Firestrike got 7200+, testing games now. Doom seems to be having trouble, but I believe it has trouble on the Blade as well.

Edit: updating the Intel gpu drivers is critical! Updated to .4463 and got 9072 on firestrike