New Dell XPS 15 (L521x) First Impressions Review & Pictures

Granted. When throttling you don't really notice it in the framerate for this game unless scrolling big distances on a big map. However the difference is definitely noticable after activating throttlestop so it has some impact that might become more problematic when playing in the later ages. Anyway throttle happens after few minutes of play. You can check this with hwinfo64. Maybe you got an improved model?

 

Hi, can anyone tell which are the clock of the gt 640m during game with gpu-z on monitoring.
Interested to see how Dell clocked the card.
thank you.

 

Hi, I tracked this, it remained at around 708 mhz (GPU-Boost).

 

Nice, so standard 640m boost clock

 

Be looking for a hands on review of the XPS 14 around Monday. Will post link once it's posted if any of you would like me to.

 

Does anybody know if it is possible to replace the GT 640M, or is it soldered to the motherboard as in previous models?

 

It's soldered, as the CPU

 

Temperatures of CPU/GPU are highly dependent on ambient temperature.
My case can be a bit extreme (over 34 °C ambient temperature)
I saw the CPU hard throttling when the GPU was right over 70°. It doesn't affect games that runs at 30fps, because they are mainly GPU-bound.

Maybe a 1.3Ghz Quad core is sufficient for gaming. Who knows...
2.1Ghz would have been into the "safe" territory. And they are what we paid for, after all.

 

Please I'm dying to read it

 

Thanks for the impressions and testing, Elands! ^ ^

Even dual cores @ 2.0 GHz are enough for regular gaming, as few games really use more than two cores.



For CPU intensive games, try these:
World of Warcraft - download free trial here
Starcraft II - download demo here

For extreme overall performance testing, use Max Payne 3. It needs 16GB and high-end desktop GPU to max out. There are no demos though : /

 

Hey elands. I sent you this via a PM but thought better of it and decided to just go ahead and toss it into this thread so others could see your response.

 

is any way to instal WWAN modem in this dell?

 

I don't think you can, maybe because of the mSATA presence

 

no u cant there are no wwan antennas wired into the screen and the other peci port is used by the 32GB msta if you want wwan buy the xps 14 with the wwan radio

 

I'm also a software developer (although I do game a bit). The 32GB cache drive does make this system resume and boot nearly as fast as a system with an SSD and it makes the hard disk perform a bit better on random reads. It is not a substitute for a proper SSD, but it's better than the hard disk alone.

If you're not into gaming I recommend the version with the 630m, I've got the higher end version but it is total overkill for everything but gaming. The only thing I could see that you may not like is the screen. It's quite a glossy screen, if I wasn't a gamer I probably would have bought a Lenovo Thinkpad T series instead of this because you can get one with a good quality matte screen.

I am probably going to add a 256GB msata SSD to mine in a month or so. Nothing beats the experience of Visual Studio and Eclipse running on an SSD.

 

I'm still dreaming of trying that one day... Mostly for Eclipse, it takes a hell of a time to startup with all the plugins I have installed!

I'm hoping the difference with 32Gb cache will still feel like night and day for Eclipse...

As you say, It works well with Booting windows... I'm hoping it has a really good impact on Eclipse and other apps too! Does it?

 

Here's a quick little
Review that I did. Let me know what anyone wants to see and I'll record it immediately.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2MaRDnmgJU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

Dear Elands,
did you try some gaming with the new BIOS?

 

Check your PM!

I've actually been away on vacation so I'm VERY far behind in the owner's thread and the like. I wasn't aware the the BIOS update was out that's very quick indeed! Could you do me a huge favor and post a link in the thread to the BIOS update? I could do some gaming with it and see. Huge thanks if you could do that for me!

 

It's still a beta BIOS, but some users say that they don't have throttling anymore with a 4-hour Prime95 test, so we can hope
I don't have the download link because it's not public yet, but if you send Bill a PM he will give it to you

EDIT: Check your PM

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Thanks a ton, I'll definitely check it out tomorrow when I get home. +Rep for you sir!

 

I see many people are stressing the new XPS to see when they begin to throttle, but has anyone tried undervolting the CPU? The only software i know available for that (in laptops) is Throttlestop. The new version 5 betas support Ivy Bridge.

From what i have seen in the first Ivy Bridge reviews, they are good undervolters and that should solve the temperature problems at least.

 

@Elands can you tell me how hot the laptop gets when its on your lap and on the palm rest from just web browsing and videos? and if you can, could tell me the actual temperature of the surfaces of the laptop? that would be great

 

This is one of the most interesting suggestions I've seen. If I have time I'll undervolt next week and run some stability tests to see how it goes.

 

Unfortunately I don't have my laser thermometer anymore, but I can tell you right now running Chrome with 9 tabs, iTunes, and several other misc. apps the palm rests are cool. When doing a littler more intensive stuff the left side (HDD) will heat up so if you have an SSD you wouldn't have that heat, but the right is always cool. While playing games it can get hot by the vents at the back but nothing that you can't handle.

 

How was the Atheros card for you?

 

I've been gone so I will test it tomorrow to see.

 

I just got the new XPS15 the other day. Everything is awesome except the lack of the home/end/pg up/pg down keys.

The absence of the home/end/pg up & down keys are a real pain in the you know what, especially if you use the keys a lot to highlight something. You have to do a shift-ctrl-fn-right arrow to highlight something to the end of a document or row in a spreadsheet.

Also the actual arrow keys are much smaller than the other keys.

I've tried to see if there was a way to edit my function key settings so thet the home/end/pg up & down keys are the main keys and you have to hit FN to get arrows, but I can't find anywhere to set that.

Anybody know if you can do that?

 

Try this
TradeKeys: Download It Here - TradeKeys | PCMag.com

Used it years ago, not sure if it works on windows 7.

Lack of these keys is a big problem for a developer like me, interested to see if you get used to it.

 

I would love to know how the WEI is 7.5 on the processor when mine keeps changing from 7.3 all the way down to 6.1. Even did a full re-installation using the Dell Re-Installation DVD. My video will not go beyond 7.0. I have the same exact specs as you do...

Any thoughts?

 

i replied in the other thread, but plug your laptop in and put the Power Mode to High Performance and the WEI will go back up to normal. This same thing happened on my Samsung Series 9. Companies are trying harder and harder to squeeze more battery life and thus the power options are a tad big aggressive

 

You can not run the WEI while on battery life it will not let you. So this does not help me sorry, already have High Perfomance, even did a clean install of Windows (Not Dell Recovery) either and it makes no difference...

 

do you guys know how the wireless is? i heard that it disconnects a lot and its max bandwidth is capped out at around 2-3 mbps

 

There's a long thread just on the wifi, please review it, but the short version is that it all seems depend upon a few factors that can't be completely nailed down.

For me, I can max out my wan speed (3 Mbps) with the right sources for downloads, but my local net speeds seems to cap out about 40-50 Mbps (with 300 Mbps 802.11N connection) - so it's certainly not perfect. But for me, plenty servicable. Looking forward to whatever fix Dell can provide though.

 

thanks. hopefully when i get mine i wont have this big of an issue. but then again it wouldn't matter that much because most sites wont let you download more than 1.5mbps

 

I've had 2 different units in my house and they both performed differently. The one I have now is quite bad, and numbers don't really tell the whole story because the performance is really erratic. It's really luck of the draw. If you don't need a laptop quickly I would wait until they fix it.

 

Just go my new xps 15 yesterday, no problems identifiable until now.

1.Throttling issue isn't present
2. Wi-Fi is running at very high speeds
3. Screen is absolutely stunning.

I don't know if i'm fortunate enough to have a xps 15 problems free or that they already fixed the issues on the new ones coming out.

 

How far away from your router are you? with mine anything more than 10-15 feet its completely drops to nothing and sometimes disconnects

 

The Wi-fi has no issues whatsoever. I am currently replying in the bathroom (hehe) on the top floor of my house which is the opposite corner of the house from my router.

EDIT: I have never disconnected from my router

 

Thats good news. maybe their building an updated machine. keep us updated please

 

Yeah I suspect that may be the case, I just read this thread and I don't see any of the problems listed on my xps 15. It would be nice If someone could share their experience to machines that arrived around the same time as mines. I should note that I ordered from Dell Canada. I recently checked the US website and the XPS 15 was Unavailable for a brief 15 mins or so.

 

If there is a throttling issue I haven't noticed it but my wifi has been absolutely awful. I've had this for a little over a month and have tried every option that dell has thrown at me. now im at the point where they want a tech to come back out and replace my screen a second time claiming the antenna was placed wrong in the original and the replacement monitor. Im also very interested in have another person who just got theirs to post up.

 

Did you try to run a speedtest at that distance? Do you get similar speed (with realistic drop) than near to the router?

Throttling should happen only gaming... Did you try something?

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

I was playing dota 2, Team fortress 2 and skyrim on max settings I had no issues with throttling.
I didn't run a speedtest in the bathroom but I was torrenting something and there was no drop in speed.

 

Happy to read this! Do you have Bios A04 or A06?

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

thanks for the review, helped me make a choice!

 

I second this what BIOS are they loading the new ones with? Although that's exactly my experience before any of the newer versions.

 

Its an A04 BIOS

EDIT: I didn't update the BIOS whatsoever or any drivers yet.

 

That would probably be why, A04 throttles the CPU and none of those games need any CPU power. Try running Starcraft 2 or Civilization 5.

The issue with the Wi-Fi isn't that it doesn't work, it's that it's slow and unreliable. try running some speed tests around your house and you'll likely see the issue.

The last L521x I had, I received less than 2 weeks ago and it still had both issues. Bill has said that they still haven't fixed the Wi-Fi issue.

Also, frankly it looks like the throttling is because the cooling on the laptop can't dissipate heat fast enough. They may be able to balance the load so that neither is boosting, but overall the performance of this thing isn't going to equal other similarly-equipped laptops unless they revise the cooling.

 

Does anyone have details on what each BIOS update changes? I'm still on A04 and my only concern besides the wireless issue, is that the fan gets really loud while the pc is idle. I haven't downloaded anything to verify temps yet. I'll do that tonight.