xps 16 info needed

since i have no option of ordering laptop over dell site, i'm limited to what shops offer in my country.
best XPS 16 available to me would be:
P8600 (2.4ghz, 3mb c., 1066fsb), 4gb pc8500, 320gb 7200rpm, ati 4670 1gb, fullHD RGB-LED 1080p, win7 ultimate

i'm posting because i need info on two things.

1st - i need laptop to be able to do some "less complex" renders and run programs such as rihno, atlantis and archicad. with configuration i wrote above, this shouldn't be a problem, but i'd like to know if anyone here works in those programs and can tell me how the laptop handles them
2nd and more important, i've read review on notebookcheck.net (with almost identical configuration) and it mentioned repetitive short performance breakdowns. review also states this isnt an isolated case with laptop they reviewed as users on other forums reported similar issues.

i'd appreciate if owners of xps 16 with ati 4670 could give me some feedback on those performance issues as i'd rather not buy laptop that will suffer from "low performance hickups". if problems exist, is it a software or hardware issue and can it be fixed?


sorry about bad English and if i posted in wrong forum/against forum rules, i'm kind of new here...

 

Can you link me that review? I, for some freak reason, can only find it in German.

But, I doubt you'll suffer from "low performance hiccups". I mean, for the time I had a 1640, I was great. No big glaring performance problems AFAIK.

~Ibahim~

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Studio-XPS-16-ATI-HD4670-Notebook.21440.0.html

 

I haven't heard of any users seeing that problem here.

I mean, it's possible (like any computer problem), but it doesn't seem to be a big problem. It might have been bad drivers?

~Ibrahim~

 

I can honestly atest to the fact that the 1640 does perform rather well under extreme loads with the only "annoyance" is the fan speeding up to the point of taking flight. lol

I have the 1640 with the T9600 processor which runs at 2.8ghz and I have 4gb of ram with the ATI 4670 1gb graphics, and Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. Recently, I've been running 3D Studio Max 2009, Microstation, Adobe Photoshop, MS Office and a couple miscellaneous things and I have not crashed, programs transition perfectly and all of my tasks get completed without a hassle.

Best advice I could give you is that if you know what your specific needs are for your laptop and those needs demand strong performance, then go with what works and try to avoid buying the laptop "on the cheap". When I bought mine a couple of months ago, I knew what I needed rather than what i wanted. I had an HP DV5 before this Dell and it still did well with MOST of my apps but not all. 3DS would crash when rendering at high res and IF I had that running along with my other important apps, I would experience some serious lag and that was with running Win7 on a P7350 with 4 gb of ram and a 256mb vid card. I knew what I needed due to those performance issues so hence strking a balance between needs and costs.

To be honest my Dell has yet to fail and if anything does occur, it's usually my fault and not the system. Heat USED to be an issue, but after cleaning theheatsinks and processors and reapplying AS5, the heat has gone down. Getting the right graphics drivers to work with my sytem took a little hair pulling but I got that straight. Overall, a good build and it suits my needs so no complaints.

Remember, whatever you decide to do, keep in mind that processor, memory and graphics are most important for 2D/3D modelling and if your wallet can handle a little bit of an increase to get the better parts, go for it.