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    What was your best upgrade?

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by Chase.Barnett, Jun 16, 2011.

  1. Chase.Barnett

    Chase.Barnett Notebook Evangelist

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    My new XPS 17 (specs in sig) is coming in a week and a half. After doing a little bit of snooping around here, I have seen a few people mention upgrading the XPS 17's RAM to DDR3 1866 and noticing an increase in performance.

    For those of you with the XPS 17, have you upgraded any parts of your laptop since you received it, and if so, what was your best aftermarket upgrade and why?

    Every time I get a new computer, I can't leave it alone. I have to start making it better regardless of how good it already is... I'm starting to think some Kingston Hyper X should be my first upgrade :D
     
    Chase.Barnett, Jun 16, 2011
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  2. NoAirBanding

    NoAirBanding Notebook Geek

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    SSD

    Also the screen on my XPS 14
     
    NoAirBanding, Jun 16, 2011
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  3. ajtmcse

    ajtmcse Newbie

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    I have to agree.. An SSD will provide a dramatic user experience change over a traditional HDD.. You click the icon, and the program starts just like magic.

    I honestly don't think swapping out memory for a faster module will be a noticable change.. However if you are adding memory (e.g. going from 4GB to 8GB) you will notice a difference also.

    Have fun.
     
    ajtmcse, Jun 16, 2011
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  4. adi9

    adi9 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Whatever memory you pu in it will still run at 1333 MHz in XPS 17, so no upgrading the memory to a faster one will not give you ANY performance increase. Upgrading from 4GB to 8 GB, yes you will see a performance increase. From 8 to 16 not so much, except for a few programs memory hungry like photoshop.

    SSD upgrade, visible performance increase.Get a sata 3 one as XPS17 supports it.
     
    adi9, Jun 16, 2011
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  5. seeker_moc

    seeker_moc Notebook Virtuoso

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    SSD by far.
     
    seeker_moc, Jun 16, 2011
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  6. erick_e

    erick_e Notebook Geek

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    SSD by far.. My i3-330UM 11z mini with a c300 smokes my 1737 with a T8600 and hybrid HDD..
     
    erick_e, Jun 16, 2011
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  7. SpaceFrog

    SpaceFrog Notebook Enthusiast

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    Agree. I have an Agility3 SSD and everything runs noticeably faster. Just make sure to install it correctly and do the ssd tweaks to get the most out of it.
     
    SpaceFrog, Jun 16, 2011
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  8. lotust

    lotust Notebook Geek

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    SSD = so expensize :-(
     
    lotust, Jun 17, 2011
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  9. sunshinewelly

    sunshinewelly Notebook Enthusiast

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    SSD without a shadow of a doubt, its worth every penny
     
    sunshinewelly, Jun 17, 2011
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  10. gull_s_777

    gull_s_777 Notebook Consultant

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    -ssd offcourse.... can't even think about using i7 with old spinning HDs
    -ram upgrade for multitasking.... 4GB is just not enough for this monster.
     
    gull_s_777, Jun 17, 2011
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  11. KH355hamdi

    KH355hamdi Notebook Enthusiast

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    As listed in my signature plus my Razer Ferox, Black Widow Ultimate and my new Razer Deathadder soon to arrive. The 3M riser also helps with the ergonomic.

    [​IMG]

    Uploaded with ImageShack.us
     
    KH355hamdi, Jun 17, 2011
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  12. thejdj

    thejdj Notebook Enthusiast

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    SSD. The best upgrade you can do.
     
    thejdj, Jun 17, 2011
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  13. SPL15

    SPL15 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I've ran my Kingston HyperX 1866 memory in several sandy bridge laptops from different manufacturers and they all ran at 1866 ram speeds without an issue including a laptop with the baseline 6230QM which is only supposed to support 1333 max. It makes a noticeable difference when using the integrated graphics and games that for some reason don't address large amounts of textures to the nVidia GPU ram and keep a lot in main memory. For everyday productivity apps, I dont notice much difference. For video editing I noticed a large difference in perceived quickness of realtime manipulation of things, but final encoding doesnt seam to really be shorter.
     
    SPL15, Jun 19, 2011
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  14. Nigel8600

    Nigel8600 Notebook Evangelist

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    SSD, the OP already has 8GB ram on order, just stay with those sticks.
     
    Nigel8600, Jun 19, 2011
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