New Dell Studio 1749

Components http://configure.euro.dell.com/dell...4514&c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&kc=studio-1747
Intel® Core™ i5-540M (2.53Ghz, 4 Thread, turbo boost up to 3.06 GHz, 3MB cache)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Microsoft® Works 9.0 / English - (Does not include Microsoft® Word)
17.3” High Definition+ (1600x900) LED with TL
Black chainlink
1 year of coverage included with your PC
McAfee® Security Centre - 15 Month Protection - English
No Accidental Damage Support
4096MB 1067MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]
500GB (7,200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
1GB ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5730 Graphics Card
DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD) with DVD Burn software
Primary 9-cell 85 WHr Lithium Ion battery
Dell Wireless 1397 Mini Card (802.11 b/g)
2.0 Mega pixel Integrated Web Camera
Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
Accessories
Also Includes
N0274514
Studio 1749 Order - UK
1 year of coverage included with your PC
No Carrying Case
Studio 1749 Resource DVD (Diagnostic & Drivers)
90W AC Adaptor
English Documentation
Datasafe Local 2.0 Basic
Wireless Label CI5
1 Meter Power Cord (3 Wire) - UK
Silver chainlink palm rest – with Black Chainlink cover only
No DataSafe Online Backup 2GB (Direct)
Dell Dock

Damn I want this laptop, but with Multi Touch screen.

 

I have just seen this! I see there is no option for dual hard drives either
Still ATI 5730 and i5! finally

 

good laptop

 

So? Nothing stopping you from putting an extra hdd or sdd in. And any extra you configure will cost you more than any (e-)shop would charge you.

Dell was even kind enough to put a manual online to make it easy.


Only thing I'll be waiting for is a decent 1080p panel to top it off.

 

Nice system, can't build it with those specs on this side of the pond yet.
The only i5 available for us is the 520 with integrated graphics

 

Throw in 802.11N and 1080p screen, and this would be awesome.

 

What are they thinking, a vid card like that NEEDS a better screen.

 

Actually pairing a 5730 with 1600x900 really gives it serious gaming longevity @ native resolutions.

But they should at least offer 1080p as an option for those willing to take a performance hit gaming for the extra real estate.

 

Thats my plan, my only worry is they may have removed the second sata port as there is not an option to configure two HDD's. I wouldnt buy the second drive from dell anyway, I always buy a cheap config and add it all myself, Dell charge an fortune for upgrades. I mean £30 for a bluetooth module I can pick up on ebay for £10! £80 to upgrade 2gb ram to 4gb shocking.

Anyway I ordered one yesterday and have an EDD of 26/02/10. I will open it up and confirm the second sata bay when it arrives

 

Spoke to dell yesterday and they were trying to configure this laptop with multi touch. Awaiting email to confirm.

 

Can you tell me howmany frames/second you will loose when gaming on a 1080P screen @ native resolution, compared to 1600/900 or 1366/768 screens?

 

That would completely depend on the game you are playing. Some scale better than others

 

Is that scaling? Im talking about the framerate on 2 different screens.

So you play the game on:

s15 with native 1366*768 screen.
s15 with native 1080P screen.

Will that be a huge difference in framerate?

(Or is that what you meant with scaling?)

 

Just calculate the number of pixels which have to be filled, and make the equasion:
1366x768=1.049.088 pixels
1600x900= 1.440.000 pixels
1920x1080= 2.073.600 pixels

This will give you a way of comparing the fps over various resolutions.

 

UK dell site has been updated again. The 1749 now comes with a 5650 ATI GPU.

 

Yeah, I was expecting that. Looking at the dell spec sheet it was listed as ati 5650. Though there is nothing defferent about 5650 and 5730 according to ATI's website. I just wonder what clock speed Dell will set these at as the 4650 of the older studio 1745/1747 was underclocked to 550/700

Still you can easily overclock and lots of asus users have got the upto 750/1000

 

Well my 1749 has shipped Guess I will get it Monday/Tuesday.

I will post a review once it arrives.

 

Its strange, in Germany it was available for a couple of days, and now you can only buy it with a 5650...They seem to have some strong aversion against the 5700 series

 

I am sure the 5730 was a mistake. If you look at the 1749 tech document it specifies 5650.

Besides the 5730 and 5650 are technically the same. Even the clock speeds can be the same (check out ATI's website) I dont understand ATI's logic on this one.

Dell will likely underclock the 5650 like they did the 4650 but you can soon clock it back to 650/800 as per ATI's rated specs of 5650/5730

 

it's for power reason.
5650 is only 15/19w instead of 26w.

 

I totally disagree. These two chips are EXACTLY the same. Check out ATIs website for more info. The only variation is 5650 is 450-650mhz whereas the 5730 is only 650mhz

The only way power will vary will be with clock speed. The Vendor can choose what clock speed to set the card at (450/700 to 650/800). By choosing the lower clock speed will lower the wattage hence a variable quote of 15-19w of the 5650.

My guess is you are taking notebookcheck's specs as gospel and they are very often wrong!

 

The Ati website gives the same tdp values for the 5730 and 5650. So those are correct.
Only difference between the two is that the memory data rate is double the speed with the 5730 compared to the 5650. But could that explain the 7 watts (26-19) difference?
Those chips must be different somehow.

Btw, why a variable tdp (15-19 watts) because of the variable clock speed depending on the manufacturers wishes. So 19 watt is when it's not overclocked. Still less than the 26 watt of the 5730!

 

Surely that memory data rate is a typo!? how can you get 3.2gb/s out of 800mhz GDDR3 at 128bit bus? The 5750 has a 3.2gb/s with GDDR5

 

How long does it usually take for new configuration options on the euro website to show up on the US side? Been waiting for a dell with a 5000 series video card and this one looks pretty good.

 

Its actually really unusual for us to get it first in Europe. We are usually 2 months behind the US

 

Hey,
I have ordered on with the 5650.
What do you guy think about the performance difference between 5730 and the 5650?
I know is the clock speed only...
Will it run Risen?

Ordered: i5 540m/ati 5650/ 4gb/500gb 7200/1600x900 LED/back lit keyboard

 

Anyone received their 1749 yet?

Like to know noise level, is the fan intrusive?

 

You should be fine with Risen. Play around with overclocking too (keep an eye on your temps though).

 

Mine arrives tomorrow. i5 540m 900p and 5650.

I will be overclocking and checking for temps and throttling and will post back.
Sorry havent got risen to check, is there a demo?

 

Yes, this is my big question, too.

 

Me too !
Want to buy the same laptop but without the 1745 Fan very intrusive behaviour...

 

OK well I have nothing to measure noise with but I can compare it against:
sxps 16
vaio CW
Clevo M860tu

Still waiting for it to be delivered. They said between 8 and 1 so it will probably arrive at 12:59

 

Hi Ninja2000,
You 're a lucky guy. This 1749 Laptop seems to be a very good choice and I plan to buy the same as yours.

My criteria about the noise and intrusive FAN is as follows:
On my 1745, the fan is stopped and kicks ON at full speed for about 10s every 2-3 min. With a CPU workload of about 10% to 20%, it happens every minute.
This is not disturbing in a noisy environment (at work in the office), but becomes very intrusive in a quite environment (like in a library). I would prefer the FAN to gently increase its speed according to the workload rather than kicking ON and OFF this way.

Many thanks for your forthcoming feedback.

 

Hi again,

Dell just confirmed that it is going to be delivered on the 24th (tomorrow)
between 8am-1pm.

I really want to push the graphic until the speed of the 5730 to get some extra fps.
If any of you have tried it would be nice if you could post it how much you overclocked your graphic card.
Also what software you have used etc...
I will try to give some update tomorrow when it arrives.

T

 

My i9300 (two fans) still works like a dream with a little programm called 8fangui, which controls the fans in an unbelievable way. Sure you've heard about. But I'm concerned this claim is much too high as we learned from the 1747. We'll see.

First Impression:
GPU: 550 MHz, (G)DDR3: 800MHz. Catalyst=DDR3, GPU-Z: GDDR3. First 3DMark06-Score: 7589

 

I used 8fangui on my i9300 too. Unfortunately it didnt work on my xps 1530 or studio 1555 so I doubt it will work on the Studio 17

And its now 1:25 and still no laptop! I hate Walsh Western

 

That's rubbish. Hope you get it soon, interested to hear your first impressions as I'm considering one myself.

 

Ok its arrived and I am just booting up.

First impressions:
Doesnt seem as big as I was expecting
Screen is ok but viewing angles are poor but this doesnt bother me. I got a Samsung panel
Running the WEI as we speak and then I will be running furmark and prime.

It takes approx 20-22w at idle with brightness at low so battery life should be reasonable surfing/note taking etc

More to come in a bit

 

I will put up a review but in the meantime here is some more info:

Keyboard is ok, small amount of flex just like my old sxps 1640. Backlight is great and also works the same as the other sxps and studio 15 models

Speakers are amazing for laptop speaker and I havent even tweaked the sound properties yet

5650 is clocked at 550/800 but gputool wont recognise it. Does anyone know what version I need to overclock?

tested with Prime 95 on 3 cores and furmark for 20mins.
No throttling at all, my 540m was running between 2.66 and 2.7ghz the whole time and temps were mid 70's for CPU and 70 for GPU

Very little external heat. Palm rest remained cool and WASD keys got warm (not hot like sxps 16)

So far the fan has been constantly humming along at a slow speed. It is quite noisy here at work so I will test more later when I get home

Any questions fire away

 

Try Ati Tray Tools.

 

Cheers ninja.

Do you get any backlight bleed on the panel? All my previous Dells have been dreadful for bleed (but they were all CCFL screens). What are the black levels like - any good?

 

No throttling, well that seems a result is that on battery or AC! What resolution did you get? Also interested in the WEI score as well. Do there seem to be any visual differences between this and the 1747?

Also the screen is multi-touch, correct? How do you find it and is the track-pad multi-touch as well?

 

Risco, did you use Unclewebb's ThrottleStop tool to check for throttling while running Prime and Furmark at same time? You have to check for CPU states, not just multiplier.

 

OK in answer to questions.

Fan noise - what idiot designed the fan profiles on the studio 17's? I have owned loads of dells and no problems but this one seems to idle with the fan off for 1 minute then I get a 10 sec blast of high speed fan then silence for a minute again! its rediculous. I am guessing it is the same as you were describing on the 1745

Screen - I have the 900p screen. So far no noticable bleeding, I havent really checked so will have a good look later. Blacks arent great and the viewing angles are poor. Dont buy this if you are expecting an amazing screen average although better than any acer screen i have seen.

Throttling - I tested for throttling on mains and no issues at all. I have been checking throttlestops logs whilst playing BF BC2, Forged Alliance and prime + furmark. I also had screen at brightest and also usb devices attached

BF BC2 ran like carp hoping its either driver related or all the dell bloat, will be giving it a fresh install tomorrow and installing cat 10.3's
Frame rate seems to drop through the floor when i am near explosions or flames (ie 15 ish) I expected the i5 hyperthreading and ati 5650 to play this game well

Havent been able to overclock the 5650 yet but stock temps are good so i reckon we can get some good clocks from it

 

Hi Ninja2000,
Many many thanks for taking the time to report us your first feeback.
Fully agree with you: exactly the same on my 1745.

A dedicated thread about the 1749 FAN issue stays here with some information :
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=459533

I also had many Dell laptops in the past and never encountered such a stupid fan management design... I hope Dell will fix it with next bios releases... but I don't know how to report this issue to the Dell design team...I've called the support to change the motherboard and the fan unit but it did not solve anything...
I guess it may come from bad settings of the thermal table parameters in the Bios...
it's so intrusive that it prevents me from working as usual. So far, i stopped all further purchase until they fix it.

 

What do you think, guys; is there any chance in near future for a better fan-management in a new bios? What we can read about the 1747 there is no improvement at all, A01-A07.

 

Well I have to say the fan bug is the only thing that is annoying me with this laptop. I am trying to decide if it is going to bother me enough to return it, but I think I can live with it and hope for a BIOS fix.

I have just managed to overclock the ATI 5650. The only thing able to overclock it I have found is AMD GPU TOOL version 0.9.26.
The stock clocks are 550/800, I am just testing at 600/900, so far so good and I am currently running 3dmark06. Will update with scores in a bit

 

How bad is the fan - is it really that loud and intrusive?

Ironically I could prob live with it, but I expect my wife will moan if the fan noise interfers with her watching her dreadful soaps on TV!

 

Its not that bad, just unusual. You will only notice it in a silent/quiet room. I am in the ofice today and I dont notice it at all due to the ambient noise. It was only at home last night sat in a silent room that I noticed it. I think the only time it may bother me is if I leave the laptop downloading close to me whilst trying to sleep.

So quick update on overclocking. 600/900 is furmark plus prime stable with no throttling. Max temps were 82 cpu 75 gpu.

3Dmark06 score at 1280x768 res: 8162 (sm2-2994 sm3-3714 cpu-2836)

So far played DOW2, Empire and BF BC2. DOW2 and Empire run spot on at 900p high settings. BF BC2 I cant comment yet as it is lag central today and when I did my initial test I forgot to patch it

 

It is past 1pm and it is not here yet... Where it is???
I want it now...