M1730 gameing question

I've puchased m1730 a week ago, and still waiting for them to put it together.
while i was wating for this laptop, just wanted to ask you guys some questions i had. this is the spec of m1730 i've ordered.

XPS M1730, Intel Core 2 Duo T9300(2.5GHz, 800Mhz, 6M L2 Cache)
4GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm for XPS M1730
17 UltraSharp TrueLife Wide screen WUXGA for XPS M1730
NVIDIA SLI Dual GeForce 8700MGT with 512MB GDDR3 Memory
500GB 7200RPM Free Fall SensorSeagate Hard Drive
Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 Home Premium Edition, English
Logitech Gaming LCD

would i be able to play fear,CS:S,H2 with max setting and still get good fps?
and for future, would i be able to upgrade the graphic card and CPU? i wanted higher graphic card, but kinda running tight on budget, so i had to give it up

 

Hey Soul,

I've had my 1730 for a little under a year now (June of 2008). I play Counter Strike Source often on my machine and it performs well. I'm usually at work when I play and have a 24" external display attached which I play on. When I am not gamign I use both the laptop screen and the external display. This means I do not frequently play with SLI enabled, although when I take my machine home I do enable SLI and it performs well.

During CSS play recently (in the past 3 months), I've started to experience what appear to be lag spikes. I am relatively positive it is not an internet service issue as I have lightning fast interet at my office (50MB down / 5 MB up) and I've experienced the same issue at a friend's place on his internet. The game will pause briefly (1 to 2 seconds) and then it will immedately "catch back up". I've tried updating my graphics drivers, I have the latest Wireless drivers from the Dell Support site, but am still experiencing the issue.

With net graph 3 enabled in the in the developer console for CSS I typically pull frame rates above 100 on Dust 2, Prodigy, Cobble, Inferno and some of the other classic maps. The newer more detailed maps push my fps down around 50 - 70, which is still very playable. HL2 is very similar.

I have not purchased FEAR or Crisis or any of the other newer graphics-intensive games, but COD 4 runs well as do others. The only game I was unable to support (probably due to it being a console port) was Assassin's Creed. The game basically chokes and is unplayable due to low Fps (probably around 5 - 10 fps i would guess in the highly detailed areas of the game).

I should say I am not uber technical when it comes to tweaking each and every setting that is possible to tweak. I guess when you pay over $4k for a laptop, you'd expect it to "just work". Call me crazy I guess... Hope that helps.

My specs for comparison are:

1) Intel Core Duo T9500 @ 2.60
2) 4.00 GB RAM
3) Dual 8700M GT's with SLI technology
4) AGEIA PhysX 100 Series PCI Express Card
5) 32 Bit Windows Vista Ultimate

I'm not sure if you can upgrade your graphics cards and CPU in the future. My guess would be yes.

 

Regarding upgrades, it is possible to upgrade both CPU and GPU in the future. Just contact Dell when you're ready to upgrade so you won't void any warranty you have. Currently best CPU is an X9000 and GPU would be the 9800M GTX in SLI.

 

I believe the latest and greatest upgraded graphics cards available on the Dell website are the 8800 GTX's. There are other posts talking about the 9800's here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=35882

This is the only upgrade option I could find on the US Dell site:

GeForce 8800M GTX Dual SLI 1 GB GDDR3 PCI Express Graphics Card for XPS M1730 Only
Usually Ships Within 24 Hours
Manufacturer Part# P402H
Dell Part# 320-6973 Starting Price $1,099.99

You can purchase the upgrades for your system here:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/DellPartsFamily.aspx?c=us&l=en&RPU=1&s=dhs

Enter your service tag and you are ready to rock.

 

Dont worry i can play both on high settings and still getting smooth fps.
>my signature

 

9800M GTX in SLI is coming soon actually. Already showing up on some of the other Dell sites e.g. the Australian site~