***Official Studio XPS 1645 Intel Core i7 Discussion Thread!***

FWIW, I actually have a Dell agent that has been emailing me out of the clear blue keeping me up to date on the status of my order. I've never asked for such. However, I did have a customer service issue where they "accidentally" cancelled my order a day after I placed it, but they followed through and still got me the same deal I previously had, even tho that deal had already ended. Last Wed., he also said he'll either call me or email me tomorrow (Monday) to give me further updates.

I think a lot of you are obviously upset of the extended delays, so I can't blame you for being concerned. I, too, have been through this back in my past with Dell, but over the years I came to realize that additional patience that is not of the norm is at times required.

 

looks like no-one will be receiving any 1645's until next month, so in the mean time does anybody care to speculate on the new PM55 chipset layout?

http://ark.intel.com/chipset.aspx?familyID=42692

Now that the memory controller and pci is on-die, will dell bother putting a heasink on the 3.5W platform controller hub ? If not, they better not stick it under the trackpad like the 1640 ?

 

its likely that the internal layout is a bit different in the 1645. hopefuly they've kept heat generating items a ways away from the wrists though, or provided them with adequet cooling.

Everyone that is complaining, quit thread crapping in here. everyone's order is delayed not just yours. We're all waiting not just you. Chill out and quit making "I'm questioning my order" posts. If you're having an actual problem with your order that is unique then by all means, we're curious, but if its another "my order got delayed to 11/2" post just save it

 

Agreed! I find it simply amazing that, for an Owners thread, and the unit isn't even shipping, that there are any posts here, because there are no owners yet! (well...except for the one or two "owners" that were banned!)

Maybe we could curtail the posts until someone actually has one?

 

I wonder if they will refresh the XPS design anytime soon. The whole chassis is nice, but I am a bit skeptical on the cover design. MIght need some time to grow into liking it.

 

This really should be called "Official 1645 Pre-Orders Club"

 

Well, a dell rep. just told me that my XPS 16 core i7 notebook is being delayed to 3rd Nov EDD because dell is backordered on the 'base of the notebook'. She said that dell has the core i7 processors now and they expect have the so-called 'base' by the 30th.

 

So XPS 1645 being delayed is what the three or four last pages are about.
Does someone has something "fresh" to say ?

I have a question btw, will the core i7 processor improve the gaming experience ?

 

on multi-core/thread optimized games it definately should.

Also guy you need to realize that the Dell reps probably have NO IDEA what is going on in the factory that these laptops are made at, and I'd be willing to bet that they are just telling you what needs to be said to get you off the phone.

Stop calling and wasting your cell phone minutes!

 

Has anyone managed to get a Windows 7 coming with their machine without canceling and re-ordering?

 

You can't change something on your order without canceling it. I tried many times but the reps just can't do that and it makes sense.

 

I use my roll-over minutes from AT&T. They are just as good as new minutes. In this economy, we need to save wherever we can.

 

A manager actually got back with me on this after I called out one of the service reps on the indirect approach on the "windows 7 upgrade shipping with system" questiion. He said NO. You would have to place order once you recieve system. Then it wait for it to ship since it is on a first come firt serve basis. I know, wait again. They should call this the waiting thread.

I cancelled my original order placed on 9/25.
Re-ordered, 10/22, with win7 as OS.

 

How about how stupid dell is still shipping these delayed systems wth vista and with out the upgrade disk atleast. Oh, there are tons of pages on that too. Nope, nothing fresh here.

 

You reordered just to have the windows 7 upgrade ? Why didn't you just wait for the system and wait again for windows 7 ? I know vista is a pain in the but not having a laptop is "painfullier" . I mean you're going to wait 3 to 4 more weeks instead of one.

 

Depends what CPU you're comparing it to and what game. Majority of games you will see no difference since the GPU is the limiting factor.

 

I had the XPS 1640 with the P8600 (sent it back because of a problem with the speakers).
I wonder if the XPS 1645 will have better gaming performance.

 

Probably not, most games aren't even dual core.

Get a better graphics card if you wanna boost performance in games.

 

calling last week my order was in "pre-production" while checking online it was
"in production."
Now I call the number, it says my order is in the "building stage", which is the longest stage according to one of the threads.

 

It is currently available as an option, don't know if it is in stock...

What SSDs does dell use?
Does having the i7 use more space? Don't see the option for a TV tuner anymore...

 

that may be a limitation of windows 7. The TV Tuner might not have compatible software yet.

 

Actually he might see somewhat of a performance increase. People keep missing a key feature on the i7. For single thread apps it will turn off one two and some cases three cores and scale up the last core. So a 1.7ghz i7 can ramp up to a single core of 3.06Ghz which for most is going to be a significant increase of their previous system. For apps that take advantage of dual cores you are going to see speeds in the 2.5+ range. And anything that can really take advantage of quads....1.72Ghz. Remember everyone the system scales.

You are right that from an overall standpoint though performance is mostly gained through the GPU though but in this case I wouldn't be surprised to see a 7-10% performance boost. But again it depends on what you had previously.

 

Dell uses Samsung SATA II SSD Drives:
http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/...Failure-Rates-Fails-to-Include-the-Facts.aspx

 

what about coming from a t9900?? would i see a difference?

 

*shrugs* Anything Vista based should work with Windows 7.

That said, it might be due to the configuration of the chipset and board. i7 completely removes the northbridge. Not sure how that impacts the design of addon boards though.

EDIT: Nope. HP has their dv8t with the i7 and it has a TV tuner. So its not a hardware limitation.

 

I had a P8600.

 

t9900? huh? Your going from a 3Ghz to a best case performance 3ghz. Probably not. However Windows 7 was designed around multithreading. Both for boot and offloading. The system uses the other cores to load drivers on boot so realistically you still would probably see a performance increase in a few areas but considering your current CPU. mmmm prob not. We are only now just starting to enter the era of quad core. As more apps take advatage of this over the next couple years it will be worth it in the long run. For you right now. Probably not. The previous person's advice was spot on. If you have the ability to update your GPU that is going to be the best bang for your buck. But GPU updates on a laptop are expensive, if even offered. It really is your call. Depends on how despirate you are for a laptop.

 

Wow. I placed my order a day before yours and mine is still in pre-production and EDD 3 days longer.

 

Thats just not true. just because windows 7 is a refresh of vista doesn't mean anyone should expect anything to work on it with vista drivers. its a newer OS and changes have been made and because of that there may need to be driver updates.

EDIT: Also it's safe to assume that HP is using a different brand/hardware card that might already have the software side figured out.

 

my xps 1645 is delayed to 11/02 just like y'all... sux

 

Core 2 Duo and i7 do NOT have the same performance when running at the same frequency...Depending on the application, you get huge performance gains from a 2.8Ghz i7 versus a 2.8Ghz C2Q, linky.

Windows 7 multi-threadedness actually is quite similar to Vista in terms of real-world performance, so no big gains there unfortunately, linky.

~Ibrahim~

P.S. As noticed by people above, it doesn't look like they will "upgrade" me to Windows 7: meh, it doesn't matter much. Oh, I also got an email from Dell telling me it had been delayed, so they haven't left us utterly out of the loop.

 

Dude I've dealt with Windows 7 since November of '08 when it was still Alpha. I work in Edina, MN and have lunch at the 8300 building with people from MS. (they have an office in the building on the 6th floor.) I've dealt with Windows 7, and can tell you the core of the OS, the kernel, the audio, video, and pretty much everything else has enough in common with Vista that I can say with 100% confidence that most things from Vista will work in Windows 7. Anything that was designed around vista, vs making it compatible (I'm looking at you Creative and your crap drivers.) should work. As I've mentioned in several other threads I've upgraded 5 system to 7 and am working on image prep for a rollout of 200 systems at work by the end of the year. I've been hip deep in Windows 7 for a LONG time and know what I'm talking about.

PS- I've already upgraded a HP and used the Vista Webcam software and it worked flawlessly. Used the nifty feature software built for Vista. Flawless.

 

Ordered: 10/23
EDD: 11/16

Can't Wait!

 

No actually on boot Win7 is faster on boot at least then vista the more cores you have. You can reference all the web pages you want I've already seen Win7 on a octo core dual CPU system. It smokes Vista, period. As I said before Windows was tweaked to use more cores on boot, etc. The benchmarks you are referencing are all desktop CPUs, and quad core or better. I'm talking single threaded application performance and up til now I have yet to seen any definitive benchmarks on how well the i7 and core 2 Duo match up. I've seen some that suggest you get a small increase, but that its generally a wash. Think over at hothardware one was place. But places like tomshardware and the like is generally focusing on multithreaded apps and mobile Core 2 quads and the i7.

 

What SiliconAddict told is true. Almost all software apps that were developed for Vista will run on 7. Even most drivers work (or need minimal change to support officially), so the issue could be different. May be they'll just add it in few days as the demand for tuners in these power laptops is always very low.

 

I read somewhere that even though 7 gets you to the desktop earlier, it becomes really usable after almost a minute. Can't attest to that though, my 7U on Phenom II just smokes Vista.

 

Close, but not my experience. Windows 7 does get you to the desktop faster due to delaying some startup services, but I've also found that a Windows 7 system is generally usable MUCH SOONER than a comparable Vista system. If there was one thing I loathed about Vista, it was the constant and seemingly endless disk activity that occurred at every boot, making it practically impossible to do anything on the system.

I've noticed Windows 7 is much better at being ready within seconds after logging in.

 

Has anyone ordered this from Canada? There doesn't seem to be a Bluetooth option (or whether or not it's included as in the US model). Can anyone confirm?

 

Would you suggest a clean install vs. upgrade from vista?

 

Definitely clean install.

 

I don't know if it helps, but I paid $30 US for the bluetooth adapter.

 

Is this internal or USB?

 

it's internal, but iirc, the item description on the order page incorrectly calls it USB.

 

Ya, I never was given it as an option... I ordered mine on 10/19 with Win7 Pro, which also isn't an option off the website, I had to call for this upgrade... EDD is 11/13.

Oddly enough they charged my Credit Card when I ordered, but then refunded it a day later... order still "In Production"... Is that sort of thing normal???

I've got my fingers crossed on this one like everyone else it seems.

 

Sgogeta4, I ordered from Canada. There's no bluetooth option for Canada... My ordered got canceled twice because of the bluetooth.

Here is the reason he gave to me :
"Wrong Parts Ordered Order quoted with incorrect Bluetooth MOD F977H (MOD,CRD,NTWK,370,FXCN,CNB) which is not qualified for this platform. Please cl/re with MOD Y224N"

After that I ordered with another rep who told me that there's no bluetooth for this laptop (he forgot to mention for Canada...).

 

That's unfortunate (for me). I removed the option because I though it was actually USB... Oh well, it definitely isn't worth cancelling and reordering over

 

Any luck on your order?

I saw this part number on my order:
420-9100 Dell Dock Consumer
Anyone with the same part number, or know what it is?

 

Same thing happened to me. I had a pending transaction for the amount of the laptop on my account for a few days, then it disappeared. Order Status stayed In Production the whole time. Still is, too...

@Johnniee
I think that the Dell Dock is like the Mac OS dock. At least from the videos I've seen of it on youtube.

 

LOL you have the same EDD as me as I ordered on 10-19 to

Anyone receive the 1645 yet and if so could you post some pics and let us know how the heat is? Thanks

 

Youre right, its software. And I thought I got a docking station for free, right!
http://gizmodo.com/5019768/dell-dock-puts-a-little-mac-os-x-into-vista-studio-laptops