New Dell XPS L521X (Ivy Bridge)

Dell onthult 'special edition'-Inspirons met Ivy Bridge | Core | Tweakers.net Nieuws

That 15R SE looks good. Bet the XPS will look almost the same. I mean that in a positive way, too bad we dont have a release date

 

Bill actually said that we'll get a June announcement and a mid-summerish release date (July?).

As for the looks, we have a leaked image, which Bill confirmed to be legitimate. ( source)

 

You can probably expect more Windows 8 related hardware announcements near or shortly after the launch of the OS from many manufacturers. You'll probably see multi-touch capable tablets, laptops and hybrids "tabtops" with 1080p or higher resolution from Dell and others. If Apple puts out a greater than 1080p screen 15" laptop this year, it won't be long until others follow.

 

Waiting up to July for L521x is too much! I guess Dell is waiting for the another release date of ivy bridge processors in June 3rd. It would be marvelous if Dell go for IPS panel in L521x!

 

If they manage to fit a 650m in it, ill be sold, i really like the design but i also want to be able to game on it decently.

 

You can forget that, thats what the new alienwares have. The xps line isnt a gaming line but a multimedia line. If you want gaming you'll have to buy alienware. Not saying that it will perform badly, its just dell dont intend them to be gaming machines.

 

Was hoping it would have the 650, as have been looking for a 14-15inch replacment, i was intending to get the 14 alienware, but in person the bezel around the screen was appauling and im put right off.
I can still wait and hope xP

 

The 650m will likely be available at least in the 17", and perhaps in the 15" as well. The 650m is a GT card, akin to the 555m that the l702x had, not a true gaming card like the GTX 660m and up, which will almost certainly be restricted to Alienware.

 

The 650m is currently in the new m14x and i would imagine it will be in the 17 but i wouldnt of thought the 15 as the 555 was never available in the l502x.

 

I'm not terribly impressed by the specs of the 630m or 640m, which will most likely be offered on the L521x. Even the new Inspiron R SE has an AMD 7730, and its specs line up almost exactly with the 640m. So what will the new XPS 15 have that's so special? We hope it will retain the B+RGLED screen and JBL speakers, but we know it will get the "MacBook" treatment as picture above. Honestly, between the Inspiron and Alienware product lines, there's not enough differentiation to support the price tag of the XPS line. And add to that an XPS and an XPSz?

Somebody please make sense of this for me.

 

I don't agree with the bolded statement. If you want to game with max settings, you'll probably have to buy Alienware (or similar competition), yes. But a 640M should run games on medium/low settings in 1080p or medium/high settings in 900p just fine. I wanted gaming, I bought an L502X last year, I have not regretted it.

That said, if the L521X doesn't have the 1080p B+RGLED display, I may just get an M14x.

 

I didnt say it wont/cant game, just dont expect a dedicated gaming machine. Yes the previous 500 series cards are very capable at gaming, even the 525 all be it at low settings. But i seriously wouldnt expect dell to give you much more than a 635-40 in the l521x. The 650 will probably be in the l721x and is in the m14x but the 660 will be reserved for AW m15x and up.

 

For build quality, thinness, and looks. The same reasons why people bought the XPS 15z/14z, HP Envy, Samsung Series 7, and MBP. People are very willing to pay a price premium for reasons other than sheer performance.

And to clarify, the L521X is slated to directly replace the XPS 15z and 14z. We don't know what Dell is going to do with its traditional XPS line yet, though I think they'll maintain it with the XPS 17 line.

 

Yeah, I don't expect the 650, either.

 

I hope the 17 inch one isnt released after the 15 inch...

 

I'm hoping for a 650m, honestly, 650m + GDDR5 would be very fast, and considering it's bigger than an m14x it wouldn't be much of a stretch to sell both.

 

its going to follow a pattern similar to last gen xps. gt 525m=gt 630/5m, gt 540m=gt 640m, gt 555m = gt 650m i would believe

 

i am thinking the L521x might replace the current XPS 15/17 etc and then I think dell will release a version without a cd drive and that will then replace the Z. There really is no need for them to have such thick laptops anymore so I would say they would go thinner and almost create a 15 inch xps ultrabook

 

Probably only the width will be greater than the M14x's. Maybe depth. But certainly not height/thickness or weight. Even the current XPS 15 is not really bigger or heavier than the M14x overall. They are about the same except for width.

 

Bill from Dell made it clear that the L521X is the successor to the XPS 15z/14z, which is fairly close to an 15.6" ultrabook. It's not certain what Dell will do with the traditional XPS line.

As an XPS 15z replacement, XPS L521X is probably under 1" thick or half an inch thinner than the M14x. The leaked specs and image (only the image was confirmed by Bill) state that the refresh is .95" thick as well.

 

GDDR5 version of GT 640m can perform as much as DDR3 version of GT650m can;if you want more muscle then overclock it to extra 100MHz, you will have a GDDR5 GT 650m!

 

There is a GDDR5 version of the 650m. I doubt u could overclock the 640m enough to outperform or equal the 650m, or there would be no point in providing the 650m GDDR3.

 

There is no GT640m GDDR5. Only the GT650m (optional) and GT660m have GDDR5. And yes, you can overclock the GT640m to exceed the GT650m GDDR3, and you can overclock the GT650m GDDR5 to exceed the GT660m. As long heat, power and voltage usage permit those high clocks.

 

The L721x will get the 650M. It's one card below the lowest card in the M17x (which holds true of this generation), and ASUS' and HP's high-end multimedia laptops also have it. It's pretty much guaranteed at this point.

The L521x will most-likely get a 640M. Same as this generation, one below the 17.

Both models might very well start with the 640M/630M (17/15) though.

 

Nvidia does list a GDDR5 spec on the product page for the GT 640M.

GeForce GT 640M - GeForce

 

Ah. But notebookcheck does not.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

If u read the last line of the first paragraph u will read this:
"The graphics card uses a 128-Bit wide memory interface with either the more common but slower DDR3 for VRAM or the more expensive and faster GDDR5."

 

And which do you think Dell will go with on the L521x? Not the GDDR5.

 

For what it's worth, the leaked specs state that it's GDDR5.
Here's hoping for GDDR5.

 

Is it confirmed that it will be under 1" thick? I like the look of the new Inspiron 15R but by the tech specs it seems to be slightly thick.

 

Still, hardly an improvement over the Inspiron R SE's AMD Radeon 7730. Basically the same exact card.

It is confirmed, and by all accounts the XPS 15 will only be different in design, not much more in the spec dept. than the Inspiron R SE.

 

1080p screen

 

Under 1" thick? Not good considering ivy bridge runs hotter than SB.

 

only on extreme clocks. Ivy runs cooler than SB, as long you keep the clocks and voltage in check.

 

The inspiron R SE offers a 1080p screen

 

Interesting. Originally GDDR5 was not listed for GT 640M. So at least one notebook manufacturer will use it
GT 640M GDDR5 will be a rare variant.

I hope it will have same core clock (625 MHz) as DDR3 version. Although with faster memory, if they clock the core lower, overall performance will be almost as same as the DDR3 version

 

Runs hotter when OC'ing like mad. Clock-for-clock Ivy is faster and cooler than Sandy Bridge. Lower power draw at the same time, great news for mobile systems. Lower TDP by about 20% across the board owing to the smaller fab technique.

 

Ah fair enough, yeah knew it uses less power, just heard its hotter. But that sounds more logical. But yeah good news for laptops!

 

more than likely the ddr5 will be slower like the gt 650m ddr3 vs dd5 clocks are. however, u can always oc it to ddr3 clock levels

 

Woot, my i5 3570k ivy b came today just need my case, mobo etc to try it!

 

What do you mean? It's about L521x & it's not yet released. Are you talking about another one?

 

Sorry, just referring to a desktop variant. The mobile versions are out june the 3rd i believe.

Just got excited and wanted to post somewhere

 

The mobile IB i7's are out since 1 May. The mobile i5's and lower will be released in June. Dell is waiting for those to release then the new XPS will be released.

 

I guess, we have to wait till June 3rd to see L521x!

 

Why the 3rd? All I've heard is "June" and "midsummer."

 

Seeing how dell releasd the inspiron in australia with only being i7's, i believe were waiting for them to finalize the refresh over waiting for i5's. The inspiron is their bottom of the line pretty much and they were released with top of the line processors (i7) so they could start selling them.

Im curious if dell had to scrap another xps design or whatever because usually a company isnt this behind on a new release and dell has been updating the xps design every 1.5 years.

We should see a gddr5 640m atleast as a option. People are going to luck out this gen with overclocking headroom as the 640/50/60m are all the same card but different clocks and bins. Im sure we will still see a 640m operating at 650m levels atleast maybe even 660m levels but the power consumption/heat ratio from 650m to 660m is probably crazy.

 

there you are.......you can always OC a GT 640m GDDR5 to GT650m or GTX 660m level as long as the heat permits! I don't think that 650m to 660m is much heat-generating as there is only 100MHz gap! Besides, on June 3rd(most probably), intel will release their dual core ivy bridge bunch! And Dell is probably waiting for the that date as L521x has a dual core option also!

 

Yeah im mainly thinking of power consumption though... they're not going to design the xps 15 with insane cooling seeing as its .95" thick. Also its not designed to supply that much power to the graphics card and probably wont be able to safely overclock to 660m levels... i cant find TDP ratings for the 640-660m but a 660m might use too much power for the mother board/adapter to supply and cause some serious problems or even heat up parts that arent ment to get that hot.

Inspiron has dual core options also.. they just wont have them available until the IVB ones are. From a business standpoint it seems like a waste of profit to wait until the new dual cores are in when they could be selling a i7 only model right now like with the inspiron. It would also give them a reason to bump the starting price up until the duals are out. That is unless they need to get rid of old stock or they're not done designing it yet.

 

I agree with you. They should have released the i7 version of the L521x!
Besides,your logic is right about the OC. L521x is lot thinner to support huge OC and also 660m is a GTX card!

 

How will the new XPS measure up to the MBP and Envy screen and spec wise?
Probably going to buy one of the three when the new releases come out.

Originally was looking at a Asus G55, MSI gt60 or Sager NP9150 but I now I think I will go for the better screen/ battery life/ build quality.