Studio XPS 16 Laptop with Intel® Core? i7 processor ???????????????

Processor
Intel® Core™ I7-720QM Processor (1.6GHz, turbo up to 2.8GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)

Operating System

Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 64bit (English)
Memory
4GB (2GBx2) 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
Hard Drive
500GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive
HD display
15.6" Edge to Edge Full High Definition (1080p) Display with TrueLife(TM )
Video Card
ATI Mobility RADEON(R) HD 4670 - 1GB
Internal Optical Drive
Slot Load 8X DVD+/-RW Drive with DVD+R double layer write capability
Wireless Network Card
Dell 1520 Wireless-N card

Dear Friends i am going to buy this laptop,i don't know any thing about this new processor and a system whole, can you give me suggestion that is it good system or worth for money. I'd like to do some gaming, definitely video editing/production and watch movies. Also... typical office apps, and photo manipulation. I like to keep my hardware for five years, buying the best available architecture, but not necessarily the top of the line in performance. Your suggestions will be very much valuable for me. Waiting for your comments.

 

Great machine, but I would seriously recommend the SSD over the old rotating platter HD's (getting sequential read/write speeds of 200+ and 170+ mb/s respectively). You definitely feel the performance boost with that.

 

If I were in your place, I would take the time to read through the i7 owners lounge and the throttle issue posts, ofcourse not through all the pages but you'll get a rough idea what you're getting into. Its the least you can do before putting down the money for this laptop.

That being said, ill give you my 2cents as I'm sure tons of others will give you roughly the same opinion,

For the price you pay, best thing you can do is wait for Mid January and see what other laptops/models are coming out with the i7 and the new i5 and i3 processors. Worst thing you can do at the moment is rushing into a decision especially into this laptop with its current issues. You spend that kind of money to get something fully functional and not with issues right from the get go.

Issue 1 - The bios power throttles the laptop when its under strain, meaning that when the laptop starts to need CPU power for gaming or editing instead of going into gear 5 to handle the speed the application needs, it down shifts to gear 2 so the engine doesn't get "hot"(and to not strain the weak power supply;issue 2) or for whatever else reason they put that in. The only way around this is to run a program created by Unclewebb called throttlestop to run your laptop to its max potential.

Issue 2 - The power supply they provide you with the laptop is too weak, 90w. where 130w is minimum needed for the i7 processor.

Issue 3 - Due to weak the power supply, a depleted battery would not even charge when the PC is under strain (gaming/editing/or the likes).

Issue 4 - As of yet, dell is still "working" on the issue at hand, when most of us believe they know whats wrong but are wasting all our time.


There are a few other issues, but seeing as how those are the mains ones, and if you don't mind dealing with them, read on.


Pro's : None!

I kid I kid...

Its a very sexy laptop, to me it seems well built from the exterior, for its part, it plays movies very well on the nice screen. Its on the lighter side for a laptop of this spec considering its a semi desktop replacement. Lighted keyboard is very nice, windows 7 runs smoothly, had random issues at the start but if you do the research you can resolve them easily, hands down the smoothest windows as of yet. All in all, We all wish this babe worked 100% out of the box then we would brand it as one helluva sexy beast.

Hope that helped.
Do the research before you invest in this.

 

I agree with the post above. Read those two threads. So far, I've experienced a number of different technical issues with my XPS 1645. I can't recommend it at this point.

 

I'd recommend this laptop highly for your needs, despite the ongoing throttle issue. In fact, I feel that you might not need such a high-end system since it's gaming that requires folks to get this type of machines.

You can then choose a lighter and more portable laptop and forego the high end graphics card. Tell us what games you play...

 

The comments of all the honourable members of this forum helps me a lot in the vary few hours to take right decision regarding this Laptop. You people have opened my eyes that this machine is not worth for money right now and i will wait till January to view all the comments. since i am in India and have very little option to choose among them thats why i need your help to find out a good configuration machine of either dell or HP. some times before i had considered Dell studio 15 and HP DV6 1320tx but when i saw STUDIO XPS 16 i thought it is the machine for which i was waiting. But after seriously considering you valuable suggestion i have decided that i will wait till January. Can you suggest my any good machine which gives me support up to 5 to 7 years.
And last but not the least many many thanks to Synthesia, ryan83, semblance and jeffyen. I will appreciate if you people personally guide me to buy the appropriate laptop. My mail id is "[email protected]"

 

just gotta throw my 2 cents in here...
I wrote my experience here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=445298

 

Any thing else

 

Does putting an SSD in there lower the power consumption enough to mitigate some of the throttling effects under normal/moderate use (HD Movies)?

 

Not an issue for watching movies ect.... its when under heavy load... ie intensive games, batch editing .. compiling apps. but yes the ssd uses about half the voltage.. not enough to make a differance though