Inspiron 1720 Delays and Capablilities

I have ordered an Inspiron 1720 and is expected to ship around 15 September. The specs I have chosen are

INTEL CORE 2 DUO T7300 2.00GHz,800,4M
17.0" UltraSharp¿ Widescreen WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT Display with TrueLife¿ (Wide Viewing Angle)
Jet Black Colour with Matte Finish & 2.0mp camera
Memory Dual Channel 4.0GB (2x2048) 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
160GB (5,400 rpm) Sata Hard Drive
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software
Primary 9-cell 85WHr Li-Ion Battery 1
NVIDIA® GeForce Go 8600M GT with 256MB DDR2 dedicated graphic memory
Dell TrueMobile 355 internal Bluetooth Module
Dell Black 5-Button Bluetooth Travel Mouse - Kit
Bluetooth Stereo Headset

I wanted a Laptop for gaming but with Directx 10 now out and future games adopting Dirextx 10 I was not sure if the XPS 1710 was future proof or not. The graphics Card that has is Nvidia 7950GTX 512MB. I wanted to know if the graphics card in the Inspiron is good for gaming or if I should have gone for the XPS 1710. I upped the RAM to 4GB to improve performace. And how long on average have people waited for the Inspiron to reach them?

(Im from the UK)

 

its gonna take you somee time, the 7950 is a more powerful card without question but the 8600 is capable. as a money saving suggestion id cancel the 4gb of ram and buy it and install it yourself

 

as a money saving suggestion id cancel the 4gb of ram and buy it and install it yourself>>>

Thanks for the suggestion. I got some discount so I decided to put the discount towards the 4GB Ram. I'll stick with the 4GB RAM. I more worried about the gaming side. I like to Max out the settings and not sure how much Ican max out. The screen Resolution is 1900x1200 and I think its HD. I hate it when games start to lag and the graphics card keep up.

 

hey mann.... at those resolutions for the 8600GT is an overkill in my opinion, coz i am having a hard time to get decent framerates with all the settings high... anyways thats without overclocking.... so lets see what this boy can do

 

I see that you have a slighter faster cpu but 2gb ram. I think with 4gb ram it may make some difference. Can you lower the resolution from 1900x1200 to somethnig less and would that speed up the game/framerate?

 

yeah lowering the resolutions would definitely improve the speed. and btw don't game at lower resolutions keeping the wide screen aspect ratio, coz everything will be blurred, it doesn't matter if u get black bars at the bottom or the sides, but it won't compromise on quality

 

Whenever I watch movies(normal tv) I always get those black bars on top and bottom. I thought widescreen would get rid oF those because the picture is also "widescreen" but it doesnt. The games console works fine and is full screen on widescreen hd tv except the cut screnes which bring up the black bars on top and botton. Is there anyway to get rid of them?

Also I have hd tv and would like to plug the laptop into a larger hd screen. Would the inspiron with its graphics card be ok for that?

Is the Inspiron screen HD?

 

Sorry i don't know how to get rid of the black bars anyways experiment by changing the aspect ratio in the settings. . And for your 2nd query. . . yes the resolution is true hd since 1080p is all that is required to be hd and the resolutions of the 1720 surpasses that (its 1200). . . the 8600GT is capable of high definition without doubt but its a sad story that the new inspirons wouldn't be able to take advantage of that since it does not have the appropriate ports (HDMi - DVi) needed to plug onto a high definition screen. . .

 

What ports does it have?

 

From Dell website

USB 2.0 (5)
Integrated 10/100 LAN (RJ45) and 56K Modem (RJ11)
IEEE1394a
8-in-1 Memory Card Reader
VGA video output & S-Video
Stereo in, headphone/speaker out & Dual digital mics
1 ExpressCard 54mm Slot

Can the expresscard slot be used to include the HDMI-DVI connecters. I know you can buy bluetooth card/extra usb etc. Is there anythinglike HDMI-DVI for expresscard?

 

As far as i know their isn't any HDMi or a DVi express card till now , may be in the future. In the 1720 their are 2 ports 1) s-video for connecting a tv 2) vga for connecting an external monitor. . . both are non hd though

 

I have also been looking for things along this line since my new Dell Inspiron 1720 does not have either a DVI or a HDMI output. Just wish that Dell would have left these ports on the new Inspiron line. If they had, or even had this as an option, this laptop would be almost perfect!

Check out a company called "Gefen". They make the "VGA to DVI Scaler PLUS" which will allow you to have a DVI output. The link to the "Scaler Plus" is... http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=4341.

You can also check this links to convert VGA to HDMI... http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=3569.

http://www.startech.com/Product/ItemDetail.aspx?productid=VGAHD2HDMI&c=US

http://www.startech.com/Product/ItemDetail.aspx?productid=VID2HDMITV&c=US

If you want multiple monitor support, check out this link... http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/products/.

If you're looking for multiple monitor support, using your "Express card" and having DVI capabilities, check out this link... http://www.cinemassivedisplays.com/index.php?a=4&b=2d=2.

Some of these can get expensive, but they are your options. I hope this helps you in what you were looking for!

 

Umm, an 8600 can't hold a candle to a 7950GTX.
It's not even fair to compare those two cards.

4GB of RAM is not going to help either, especially if you plan on using a 32-bit OS since you will only see ~3.25 of it....

 

I agree with sleeyO! If you are into heavy gaming, there really is no comparison. The 7950GTX is a vastly superior video card for gaming. Some people say, "Well the 8600 is a DX10 card and the 7950GTX is not.", and all I can say is how many games out there require it as of now!

As for having 4GB of RAM installed now, it is a waste of money with the 8600 video card. Stick with 2GB of RAM.

 

Even if you use a VGA to DVI/HDMI converter it is of no use for getting the exact digital quality since you are converting the analog output(VGA) back into digital (DVI or HDMI) and then outputting.... I agree VGA is a far superior output compared to S-Video but still it is still of lower quality than a pure DVI/HDMI output.... Most of the HDTVs today come with VGA-in as well... So you better get a VGA to VGA connector instead