Just bought this for 530bucks

Dell Factory Outlet: System Specification
was it a good deal?

 

decent deal

 

not too bad. decent laptop

 

Not bad....decent performance lappy.

 

Wow, I didn't realise the cheap as chips Inspiron line came with a decent GPU now.

An Intel + NVIDIA combo would have been better though. AMD under performs given their price.

 

Great deal, especially because you get quite a decent GPU with it.

 

Yea, I think you did great.

 

For ~$500, that's a great deal. It's hard to get a 5650M for less than $700.

Not sure why they list is as 64-bit though. Is this a stripped down version, I didn't know about?

 

In Canada there's a Gateway with i3-370M with 5650M brand new @ 550.

 

Do you have a link? I need to bookmark that for friends.

I would take the i3 equipped machine, any day.

 

Use this link: futureshop.ca

Currently FutureShop has shut down the site for boxing day flyers but check back later. It's probably back to normal price or out of stock by now though.

 

Just so you know:
Micro Center - microcenter.com - Reviews, Ratings and Prices at ResellerRatings

 

@ OP - That is good considering any other machine with an HD 5650 and similar CPU will cost more than $600.

Unless you have a store near you which I do, they have great customer service that I've dealt with and took care of me. Maybe for online orders not so good, I don't know.

 

Am I the only guy here who thinks (edit: knows) this is going to perform horribly in games?

That N920 is miles behind the N930 (sig) I had, which already made my Acer unplayable in a lot of games which were meant to be played well on ATi 5650.

See this thread (made by same OP) where we discussed this issue. If OP bought this laptop for the sake of playing modern games with that GPU, he'll be sorely disappointed.

 

Well, at the budget of $500 USD, I thought it was by far the best he could get. I'd take the i7 +330M from Microcenter over it though.

 

I suppose :/

A little more dough and he'll be able to have a much less CPU-bottlenecked gaming experience, but eh, to each his own.

 

HD 5650 is better than GT 330. And considering you can game using an Atom and ION, I figured this wouldn't be so bad.

 

I guess my point was that the guy will only be playing many games at half of the 5650's power, simply because the lone core speed is so low on the AMD N920. That's what I experienced on my N930+5650.

And considering that my N930 has 25% higher core clock than the N920 in this case (2.0 GHz as opposed to 1.6 GHz), so I can only assume he'll get an even bigger hit of performance.



Edit: Oh wow that Toshiba deal is sweeeeet. Even if the GT330M is a bit behind on power compared to the 5650, the bottleneck won't be there since the i7 will turboboost, and that means that (The Toshiba) laptop WILL perform noticeably better in almost every new game compared to the Dell.

 

How did you know it was CPU limited? I'm not challenging just asking. Depends on the game I guess. Bad Company 2 for example is severely CPU and memory limited.

Call of Duty on the other hand is severely GPU limited.

My M11x only has an SU7300 that overclocks to 1.6GHz, but can run most games perfectly fine with the GT 335m.

So I guess if you could find another laptop with a more powerful CPU and at least the HD 5650 power for the same price or less, I'd say ok, but I don't see anything else. If anything the M11x R1 on a good sale might be the only thing to compare.

 

To put it simply, I've put in so much time trying to prove it was NOT cpu-limited all through december that it almost drove me mad.

Probably made over 100 posts and a dozen threads inquiring various aspects of this issue over the 2~3 weeks that I've possessed that laptop.

It just was. I've done every kind of test suggested by NBR veterans and it, just, was. Everyone agreed too. I'm a bit too sick and tired of that whole fuss to explain it all again. You're welcome to search up threads I created / posted heavily in to know more about it

I'm just glad I was able to return it for refund. Getting an Acer TimelineX soon as soon as I get the refund credit.

 

Right. Ok, thanks.

But I guess back to my original point, is there another laptop more powerful CPU and comparable GPU-wise for about $500?

I got my M11x as a Cyber Monday refurb deal for $499, and that was a bargain, with probably similar specs to the OP's laptop.

 

sure.
here's a random example..

Not even refurbished. same GPU, an intel i3 CPU with a reasonable intel-clock. Definitely much more powerful than the L3cache-less turboboost-less AMD-clocked N920.

And this is not even much savings at this time of the year. I see a lot of laptops with 100+ (up to 200$) savings.

E.g. saw an Acer 5742G-7221 for...599$. GT420M which is maybe 10~15% weaker than the 5650? But has an i5 460M. I actually BOUGHT this laptop in November, it DID perform ridiculously better in almost all games than my sig laptop despite the weaker GPU. (I returned that 5742G because it was actually universally specced with the GT420M instead of GT425M in Canada, so I felt kinda ripped off and asked to return it)

 

lol that was my post.

 

Hehe, well, small world right. Besides Htwingnut must have missed your post.

 

I think when I clicked the link it was dead.

Either way, those are canada, the OP linked to Dell US so assuming US.