New Dell XPS L521X (Ivy Bridge)

Excludes VAT and shipping on the business model.

 

SCORE 12262
SM2.0 SCORE 4807
HDR/SM3.0 SCORE 5011
CPU SCORE 4881

 

US models dont' have VAT. Also US models ship free either way.

I believe the SMB model does not have Lojack, pro support, or Accidental damage warranty. You have to pay extra for all of that.

 

thanks bazrah99! what GPU do you have? 640M GT? or 630M GT?

 

i think i have my answer, i saw you bought the i7 version, so 640M GT. If anyone with 630M GT can he run 3d mark 06 and post his score.

 

Yeah, it is XPS15 with 640M 2GB (i7, 8GB, 256GB SSD)

I am very impressed. Games look great in testing on 1080p and when the fan runs at high speed it is still not particularly loud. I thought it would make more noise under stress.

 

What about internal temperature (you can measure that with HWMonitor for example). Can you run a game or do a stress test during 15 or 30 minutes and give CPU and GPU temperature?

 

Why is that exactly Bill? Surely it's generally the same system and internals, wouldn't it be just as easy to put that part in instead.

I'm from Ireland too. It has to be the worst country around to buy a laptop in.

 

I would say it has to do with what Dell thinks will sell the most on the market of that region. That being said, as long as you have the same options across non easily replaceable components like screen and such, the rest you can always upgrade yourself if needed. It is often cheaper too and upgrading things like RAM and HDD are usually idiot proof.

Probably not the answer you're looking for though. At least, you have an alternative for some configuration options.

 

That's what I thought, I was under the impression that the laptops were all assembled in the same factory irrespective of what country the buyer lives in, so it wouldn't be very difficult to offer the same components. The Dell website used to be far more flexible in terms of configuring a build for a laptop IIRC, but maybe that's just my imagination.

It's a pity because if Blu-Ray was available, and assuming the bug that The Verge and the previously-mentioned French review site noted was worked out, I'd be ready to buy one of these immediately.

 

I have been a big supporter of the L521X, but I still think the lack of blu-ray as standard is unforgivable.

 

especially for a "so-called" multimedia machine! What's multimedia without blu-ray?

 

"The Bug" has been worked out. My unit is working exactly as it should, and far better than a lot of the naysayers in this thread had got me thinking it would. Cannot recommend it enough, if you can overlook the Blu-Ray that is

 

If it helps, my team and I totally agree. My team specifically does the product messaging and lays the foundation ahead of the go-to-market teams in global and regional marketing. We do the value proposition, reviewer guides, executive cheat sheets, tech specs, write the product description page information (the one that everyone looks at where is says "it has Bluray" when it may not be offered in the same region) and all the rest of the pre-launch marketing activity. We work with our sister team, the product planners and strategists, who qualify a long list of possible configurations. Before the product launches, all our work is turned over to other teams like global brand and marketing, PR, regional merchandising teams, regional product line managers (the ones that determine which configs are sold in their regions). Included in what we hand off to the regions is the full list of all qualified configurations. The regional PLM's make the choices and are supposed to edit the product description pages on their regional websites to reflect the configurations they chose to offer. Why anyone would opt not to pick a system with Bluray for at least their top config is beyond me.
Now for the ray of hope:
In my function, which is unlike anyone on my team, one of my post-launch activities is gathering customer feedback about things like config options. I'm currently working on a report specifically about missing SSD and Bluray in the regions. Whether they choose to act on that report will still be up to the regions.

Hence, the bottom line statement on missing options remains, "Component and configurations options vary by region."

 

i don't think so, because the same user that has received his unit in Italy suffer of the same problem: test with Prime95, CPU @90°C and frequency that drops from 2.80GHz to 1.20GHz for brief period of time.

See full story in Italian @ Hardware Upgrade Forum - View Single Post - [Thread Ufficiale] Dell XPS 15

 

Is that just prime95?
what about furmark at the same time?

 

Standing as what I've read he launched only Prime95...

90°C is definitely WAY TOO MUCH Bad thermal job Dell...


Waiting for L522x..

 

Thanks for putting in a good word at least Bill. And for what it's worth Dell is about the best manufacturer in this country for not having HUGE differences between the US models and the ones available here.

It's not that I even care particularly about the BluRay, it's just the feeling that we're getting a bit cheated over here. I wouldn't get it unless it was around the same price.

I'll be getting the XPS 15 at the end of the month if there are more options by then. I may go with an existing one, but it's nice to know I can choose

 

Get him to do some encoding, does it throttle then?

@Bill - You said to give you a nudge about Dell selling via retail channel in the UK. Any confirmation about Dixons Group, John Lewis and Amazon being able to sell the new XPS?

 

Not the same "bug." I'll follow up on the Verge situation tomorrow.

A multimedia laptop throttles in CPUPrime95 for milliseconds at a time? This is news? Which multimedia laptops do not throttle in CPUPrime95? Educate me with some citations, if you could be so kind, please.

 

Sorry man, but this is the first that I hear of...

IIRC the formers L501/502 didn't ever throttle. To me, it isn't a normal situation, it's a sign of a problem. CPU must be running at full load without problems if there's the need of. Otherwise, you'll have to say this to all the people that uses batch file conversion, video rendering or other CPU-intensive stuff to just... get a coffee sometimes..

I think you're going to defend too much your product, instead of admitting the problem... hey, I know, you'll have to earn your money, but it sounds like... "grip of death"ish...

EDIT: It seems that the 1.20 GHz is the frequency that Intel SpeedStep uses in idle to lower power usage... but, why the hell the CPU went to the power save state in a full usage scenario ???

 

I know why the units were delayed but I was told not to release the info. Just letting you all know that there was a good reason for delay...


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*
wrong post.

 

Get owned by Bill.



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Well considering you don't work for Dell and I suppose are not under NDA, why don't you share that info with us!
That could reassure buyers as to why their orders were not shipped as quickly as expected and maybe help a few hesitating people to jump the gun!

 

Because perhaps he was told something in confidence and he respects that confidence.

It was a good reason. Read the reviews that ARE out there and see that Dell correct an issue or two that are mentioned in the reviews.

 

As is with Furmark, Prime95 is in NO way indicative of laptop under load. It should only ever be used to test the stability of an overclock on a DESKTOP system.

Now please, stop making baseless posts and making rediculous parallels with Apples iPhone antenna which was a non issue in itself....

 

it's an extreme test yes, so that we dont have to worry about our laptop overheating in real situations.

I would not like a laptop that is constantly at is cooling limits high 80s - 90s just by playing a game.

And the thing is every other computer that people here are considering buying, can handle prime and furmark.

There is no reason for the xps being treated differently, specially with the premium price

 

Gaming is just about the most stressful thing most people here will do to their computers.

 

It is not being compared with the right laptops. People are still holding on to it being the current XPS successor, when in reality it is actually a new range other than in name.

 

Was referring to the asus n56, hp envy 15, apple MPRD...

 

The only one of those in its range is the MBP non retina.

 

Your right, its just that hardly any people is considering a normal MBP over the xps.
I guess they think "if i'm going to spend a lot of money better be on a premium computer with really premium components"

 

That's really not true. It is DIRECTLY comparable to the Envy 15. I've also seen it compared with the forthcoming Vizio notebook, which is a perfectly cromulent comparison.

 

Maybe he doesn't have a BIOS update, but from reading his posts it seems like he'd be the type to have it updated. At any rate, I don't think it's reasonable to expect this system not to throttle in CPUPrime. That's a pretty intense test, and in no way could, in my opinion, could anyone ever construe from our communications about the system that we ever intended it not to throttle in something like that.
Can you cite, with links multimedia systems that do not throttle to some degree at least in the same scenario? I'm not baiting you here. I honestly am not aware because I've not researched it much lately. I'm just asking you to show me just how common it is or isn't, since you brought it up.

There's no way CPUPrime95 is anything close to a real world simulation of anything reasonable. If you find it's throttling in a real world usage scenario, of course we'll look into that.

 

Prime95 is an application known in overclock environment because is used to check stability system, it can also check RAM as Memtest, if prime95 finds some error stops to run, but it's a normal program born to find particular numbers.
Are You say that i can't use this kind of application in XPS15?

So this means that I can't use any particular software that works with heavy load on CPU for long time as Prime95, for example seti@home or folding@home?
Maybe also video conversion could be a problem...

So the only notebook in it's range is a not Windows system?
Practically XPS15 not has competitors in Windows environment.
who has decided that?
IMO every notebook with a price less or equal it's an alternative, specially if it performs better or has some great bonus like better display.

 

There is some misunderstanding.
XPS15 (in Italian Forum) with prime95 is not throttling, it only disables Turbo Boost so it runs on base clock 1.2GHz but runs very hot, around 90°.
If XPS15 throttling with only prime95 should be a great problem.

Asus N56VZ performs stress test prime95+furmark at same base clock 1.2GHz too,
But it has very heavy load.
IMO neither ASUS performance is enough good.

 

Just because it throttled a little bit in CPUPrime doesn't mean it will in folding@home.
What's worse on a CPU? Prime95 or Gaming? - [H]ard|Forum <-second poster

Just to be clear, because I know it's coming, Dell is not denying any problem. We just don't consider CPUPrime95 a valid way to determine if throttling is present in a real world usage case. If you can run a reasonable real world scenario and demonstrate with a log that it throttles, I'll gladly take that to engineering and request a response. Take note I said "reasonable." Witcher with AA and everything cranked up on battery in an 88F ambient temp is not a reasonable scenario.

 

Ah ok. Man, you got me all worked up. I took you to mean the issue was the fluctuation in clocks going by the first quote.

I can check on the 90C thing. I saw that when I was playing around, but that was before the fan kicked into high RPM for a just a second. It hovered around 83C the rest of the time. I wasn't running CPUPrime though. I'll ask about it. I've just found that when I start the conversation with "CPUPrime throttles" I don't get very far.

 

So you don't want the results of my planned crysis at max settings while aiming a heat gun at GPU test?

 

I try to translate with my poor English post of Mercuri0 from Italian forum:

 

Indeed I do respect that confidence. It had to do with bios. That's all I'm gonna say.


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Thank you! I read the page in Chrome, and a lot was lost in translation. I much prefer your translation. Your English is just fine.

 

As long as Dell doesn't tell us "You're holding it wrong"...I lol at the way Apple calls their customers idiots whenever there's a legitimate problem (yellow screens, iPhone antenna, etc)

 

Just curious, have these issues that The Verge (and the french site) reported been reported in any other laptops (i.e. is it related to the cpu specifically or gpu), or is it just related to this model.

 

Well by the way everyone is talking about it (Bill, Xps13SAM, ejl1980) it sounds like it was a major BIOS mess up and the new one was an extremely critical update (A04). It was probably a big fail and embarrassment (IE: dumb mistake that no one noticed) for the tech's who wrote it!!

I don't think it's anything to do with the chips as they are just advising people to update their BIOS' and other laptops with the same or similar chips are okay.

 

Well the Asus N56 throttles...

It also locks CPU turbo when GPU is in turbo mode apparently, which imo sucks.

 

Thank you very much. The display is good for TN in comparison to others but not a high class display if you check this comparison. A bit disappointing for the price to be honest:

 

Why get disappointed looking at numbers on a chart? The screen looks great to me.

The biggest thing that is getting me at the moment is the touchpad. I assume I will get used to it but I am finding the buttons strange. It is also very large and I am missing the right click

 

I am a semi-professional photographer I need to rely on exposure, contrast, black-levels and color accuracy.

How do you right-click then on this touchpad?