Got my new Inspiron 1520

Thats EXACTLY what I was trying to say earlier. With the 8600m gt, can you just uset he regular 8 series vista drivers from nvidia?

 

From http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2984&p=2 review site


"the 8600M GT has a core clock speed that's quite a bit lower than the desktop 8600 GT. Still, the new chips should provide more performance than previous generation mobile hardware, and there are other benefits."

 

look at the date of the link you just quoted, and youl see that it's just a new's about intel announcement, witch is old and as always more than what we realy get

 

And the table on that site clearly indicates GDDR3 with a clock speed of 475 mhz

 

Second score 2 points lower. On a positive note, the laptop stayed cool enough for me to keep it on my lap even while benchmarking so it should have some room to overclock without getting fried.

 

but this is about core...we know it's the same core, it's about the memory, witch is at 700mhz for ddr3 and about 400 for ddr2, he case actualy

 

DDR RAM Clock is 1400 according to http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2984&p=2

 

Stella, ever done any overclocking? ;]

 

No, but I'm planning on trying it. Not tonight though .

 

This has been in discussion for quite some time in the Compal/Sager forum, and aside from the separate issue of Dell possibly promising GDDR3 and only giving you GDDR2, the card that is in the 1520 should:

a - Handle current games just fine, including FEAR and Oblivion, etc. In the Asus section a F3SV with the 8600GS handled both games just fine, and the gt is still better, GDDR3 or not. Someone was asking whether this "crippled" card could compete with the 8400.....yes it still whips it

b - Overclock rather well. You arent going to clock it to the G1S, but if you're only in this for the benchmarks you should already own a G1S or pre-ordered a C90. There was a French review of the Compal IFL90 and they nearly got 4000 on 3dmark06 and they didnt think they were pushing the fans all that much.

I am suspicious of who manufactured the 1520 seeing the similarities with the IFL90 and the fact that Compal and Sager folks seem to be on hold for no reason waiting for theirs, but I think most of you will find this machine just fine for your gaming needs and after having it for a bit will gladly take the battery life over the 4-500 benchmark points.

EDIT - And the guys posting about Dell purposely making this machine weaker than their XPS models, of course. Thats the way the entire market for everything works, otherwise they would never sell the high end models. The Asus G1S and C90 are marketed and designed for gamers and they push their cards to the limit. The Inspiron is the entry level line for Dell, they arent going to give you a cadillac for a Kia price.

 

I actualy doupt that the drivers make that much of a diffrence. Im going to get my laptop tomorow. Ill be sure to run everything though.

Im a bit more technical so im willing to run my comp at higher settings/blow-it-to-hell-overclock like i did with my desktop (1ghz processor running at 1.4 ghz).

Give me a list of what you guys want/need.

From what i understand:
Riva Tuner
Ntune
3d mark 06
Bios screenies (might not be able to camara broke)
and maybe a little good old fashion Ghost Recon Adv Warfighter 2 demo.

 

Nice post!

 

Please do this when you get yours tommorrow if you get it before i do . Please set the vista power settings to turn off power settings and performance to max. nobody has tried that yet and dell might have changed the defaults.

Also make sure that there is no pwoer mizer setting anywhere.

Also check in the registry for the drivers that dell is not changing the speed in software.

The screenshots have been showing that there is still ddr3 on the card just clocked lower so overclocking the card should work.

 

Everything I ran was with maxed performance settings. I'm curious to see how it'll benchmark in XP myself.

 

p.i.c.t.u.r.e.s.

 

You went into the advanced power settings and unhid everything and set everything to max performance? even the pci express link state?

 

Yes, I was just going to say that...I got a 1420 w/ 8400GS but if I have discrepancies as well I'm installing XP on a separate partition just to run a benchmark!

I'd be interested to see if someone else tries the same...

 

I have a policy against tweeking the regestry. Its got me into some baddd stuff on this Win2k machine.

Vista will be running full throttle. Ill overclock it as much as i can without it overheating. But im weary of useing rivia tuner as it might not be exactly safe having been made for desktop drivers.

If someone can explain how to check regestry for drivers or rather where i would find the drivers and how do i tell if thier underclocked. (ive only used the reg for some Warez and for tweaking the system to my needs)

 

ahhh....leaning alot more on sager2090 516mb 8600gt now....
sigh.

 

This discussion with the DDR2 vs DDR3 has been done before with the Compal IFL90. Even though screenshots using rivatuner showed DDR3 on the 8600gt, the memory was clocked at 400Mhz. So far all the resellers are claiming that the 8600Gt is DDR2. People have tried overclocking, but no one has managed to push it back up to 700 Mhz like the Asus G1S yet. Check out this thread for some OC results on the IFL90's 8600gt. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=138614

 

Can someone pleaaaasssseeee post pics even if it doesnt do it much justice b/c im trying to decide b/t this and a macbook and i need to order soon

 

I'm set on the Maximum Performance plan, which automatically sets everything to max. I'd screenshot it for you but there really isn't a way that shows all of the settings at once.

 

Stella - My 1520 should be coming in a week or so, so overall are you happy with the laptop? Is it performing well? How's the battery life like?

 

We beleive you. Were all just kinda ticked cus we all expected to play crysis at med-high settings. not low - mid settings.

ill take a closer look into it when i get mine.

EDIT: So this is why we all get next day free delivery XD.

 

Any possibility you guys could try overclocking and seeing if it does so easily? If it really is GDDR3 as Dell keeps claiming along with other websites saying the 8600GT is GDDR3, maybe it can be tuned back up again? Try it and let us know if that works...

 

It's really amazing. Absolutely gorgeous, great keyboard, solid build. I haven't done any battery drain testing yet.

I'm sure someone will try it in the next couple of days, but I'd rather not be the guinea pig. I've never overclocked anything so I'll probably wait until I see some figures from people with more experience before I try it.

 

i would be careful with over clocking.

Over clock by maybe 30 mhz at a time and then run 3d mark for at least 15 minuits. it will allow the computer to heat up enough to actualy make you see if its working or not. TREAD CAREFULY if you actualy do start seeing 600 mhz ranges.

At least we know that its actualy a decent laptop for the price. (ddr3 or not) im probably going to keep mine.

 

Most of these 8600gt's that are clocked at 400 Mhz isnt going to be able to OC backed up to 700 Mhz. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=138614
Again according to rivatuner, the 8600gt in the IFL90 is DDR3.

 

How hot is too hot when overclocking?

 

So does this mean we can't play the latest and greatest DX10 games at medium-high settings at 1400x900 res?

 

1400x900? were talking down scaleing to about 1000x760

This is a huge diffrence. 1000 pts in 3d mark (as crapy as it is) ends up being a pretty large change in preformance.

EDIT: ya maybe i over shot a little its probably closer to the diffrence between 1400x900 and the one below it

 

that link shows they got pretty high on that 8600gt with 400mhz memory

 

I'm not arguing whether it's DDR2 or GDDR3. I'm saying Dell is advertising 22.4GB/s memory bandwidth. That means 700MHz memory (or 1400MHz DDR, just to clarify). It doesn't matter whether it's DDR2 or GDDR3 - as long as it's clocked at that speed, it'll provide that bandwidth.

However it is not. Instead it is clocked at 400MHz (800MHz DDR). Again, whether it's DDR2 or GDDR3 is irrelevant. The clock speeds are what matter.

Sure, it scores a good 1K higher than the 8600GS, however at the 700MHz memory clock, it should be more like 1800-2000 points higher.

 

i'm disappointed. why is the G1S so much faster? someone got 3800 3dmark on the asus forums

 

Because the memory is clocked at 700MHz as opposed to 400MHz on the Dell.

 

on the link posted they were getting pretty close to that number with the overclocking.

 

Its because G1S is ddr3 memory on the 8600gt and clocked at 700Mhz. Even though dell claims that their 8600gt is ddr3, I highly doubt it since it is clocked only at 400Mhz meaning probably its ddr2. The thing is dell advertised their 8600gt as running at 700mhz when obviously its not.

 

Wow, I think this is the fastest growing thread on the entire internet, bar none. Every time I would read 1 page 2 more would be added! Talk about passion. Im just glad I took the middle road, 128 mb card, middle processor. That way when it only performs average...im happy.

 

one person got "i've 3400 on 3d mark06 with a T7500 and 2Go Corsair."

with the compalifl90 laptop with the 8600 gt

 

To be honest, I'll be happy with having to overclock it, I'm just glad the new Inspirons came out when they did...I almost got the ATI x1400 which blows.

 

The easy way to do this without any doubt is have someone get "NiBiTor" aka NVIDIA BIOS Editor. (and hope dell lets you read the bios)

Download it, unzip it to desktop and run the .exe

Go to Tools > Read Bios > Select Device

Pick your video card > Hit Ok

Go to Tools > Read Bios > Read into NiBiTor

Note the clock Speeds under 3D boxes...report back here. This eliminates all the software power options and reads directly from the video cards bios. If for some reason it can't read the dell bios then nevermind.

 

I got it mostly because its faster then the 8400 and that itt does dx10 and able to use blue ray or hddvd

 

Okay. I just reinstalled Vista as per the guide provided on page 2 of this thread. I'm in a bit of a bind. I have the Audigy Advanced MB CD, MediaDirect 3.3 CD, and Drivers and Utilities CD next to me. Can someone give me details on how to get this bad boy back to regular operating status? Which CD's to install? In which order? Windows just finished Automaticall updating. Please help. Afterwards, I'd be happy to stay up late do some 3DMark benching.

 

Stop being ignorant and read every post. RivaTuner is built for DESKTOPS and has showed in the past to be FAULTY with new LAPTOP GPUs...

 

yeah and have we seen another picture showing that its not ddr3? so far it looks like it could be severely undeclocked ddr 3 memory.

 

Plx helpzz

 

Just try what I said in post #291, if that works then it will be certain. It will look like this....which I just did on my desktop.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that when people first benchmarked the Asus F3SV with their underclocked 8600 GS cards in 3Dmark06, they got around ~2000 (aside from GPU, identical specs to the 1520). After tweaks, some driver releases (or switching to custom drivers), and overclocking, someone hit 2850 with their 8600 GS.

The 2000 score is over in a benchmark thread in the Asus forum, and the OC thread is in the Gaming forum. Sorry I don't have time to find the links

Anyway so I don't see why our 8600 GT won't jump a similar amount with the right tweaking. Still BS on Dell's part, and I'm not certain as to whether I'll be ordering the 1520 anymore...but either way.

That being said, yes pictures (with size comparisons if possible) please!

edit: ugh yeah as minxshin noted, his 8600 GS was actually underclocked and he brought it up to stock speeds (+ a bit higher) to get that score. MY BAD! :O

 

I already sold my M1210, but I'll be taking comparison pics with an E1505. The 1520 is really only marginally larger, but it looks a lot bigger because the bumpers on the E1505 break up the outline.

 

hey how bright is the screen at max brightness? And what screen res you choose?