To buy or not to buy: hardware advice needed!

Alright guys. I'm buying a XPS M1530 shortly, i know i am, but i have some questions. I have read every post in the official thread for the review of that laptop, but there are outstanding questions that were either never answered, or not to the point where i had made up my own mind. I live in Australia.

1. Probably the most important question. For 2 more days in australia, they are giving a Free Upgrade from Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7250 to T8300. I'm wondering why. I really want to snap up this upgrade because its a free 2.0GHz to 2.4GHz etc. But the real question is why they are offering this. Do you think they are they going to upgrade the processor after this with the Penryn or Santa Rosa (i havn't read anything about these two processors for the last 6 months, are they in manufacturing stages now, which one is better?) and they are doing this free upgrade to shift the stock, or do you think it's a worthwhile bargain?

2. I'm getting 3 gigs of ram, but i'm not sure whether i get 2 gig in the system, and buy a 1gig stick from the local cheap computer hardware store, or get the 3 gigs built in. How many ram slots do the M1530's have, and does it void the warranty or jeopardize my ability to return it if it is unsatisfactory if i do plan to open the back and put in 2 more sticks of my own?

3. I have the choice of the 250Gb SATA hard drive, or with $38.50AUD more a 200Gb SATA drive running at 7200 RPM. I have read extensively the difference in RPM and what it means for battery life (close to nothing) and the performance of the drive, and it boils down to who makes the drives. Are 5400RPM drives as good as 7200 drives these days in terms of performance? If i'm making a killer system for use in photoshop, 3dsmax and other resource intensive digital media products, i know disk access is usually the bottleneck. If you had a client with my questions and needs, what would you suggest? Would dell tell me who makes the drives?

4. I'm upgrading from the default 15.4" widescreen WXGA (1280x800) TFT Display with TrueLife to the 15.4" UltraSharp Widescreen WSXGA+ (1680x1050) TFT display with truelife for an additional $117.70AUD. Screen quality and real estate is important for my digital media needs, and i have 20-20 vision. But where can i make sure i'm getting a glossy screen?

Thanks for the info guys!

 

T8300 is a penryn processor which started to appear on laptops in jan this year as for santa rosa it is not processor technology but a platform as far as know, so imo it is worthwhile upgrade......no question of shifting of stocks here

it is always gud to purchase memory form outside cause they charge too much for it ....memory upgarde will not void the warranty......

looking at your ussage i think u shud go with 7200 hard drive if it cost u just 40 bucks for upgrade

 

Yeah my main issue was is it worthwhile sacraficing 30 bucks and 50 gigs for speed, but i have 500gigs of combined storage at home on my PC so that's never a problem.

Thanks for your help about the Processor, i had just read the CPU guide before you posted and saw that the processor is Penryn - added bonus!

It's good that the RAM wont void the warranty, i will do it that way.

Can anyone confirm if this model has 4 ram slots?

Can anyone also confirm whether there are still screen problems with this model?

 

1. Go for the T8300 = Penryn. Not gonna go into detail as Harry has already done a fine job.

2. 2GB and 3GB to be honest isn't a noticeable difference, it really depends on what you will be running. I would suggest 3GB though since you mentioned that you will be using Photoshop and 3Dstudio which are memory intensive programs and will perform better with more ram. See below on upgrading though, and not through DELL.

3. To be honest, a 320GB 5400 RPM vs a 200GB 7200 isn't a huge difference in performance, infact, the larger 5400 drives are quicker at transfer speeds, whereas the 7200 are faster at random access by like 1.9ms. But these numbers are minuscule. If you were to spend $38.50AUD more, I would suggest getting the base drive and spend your money upgrading yourself as you will likely find the components cheaper outside of DELL. Save your money! It's the exact same component if you DIY.

4. TrueLife = Glossy screen, that's DELL's way of describing the gloss film on top of their panels.

 

Ah, thanks D3X, good to know!

Another quick question. After realising that the XPS only has 2 ram slots, i'm not sure what to do. I really do what 3 gigs of ram, but here is the problem.

Two of the RAM options listed are:
2GB (2X1024MB) 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM
3GB (1x2GB+1x1GB) 667Mhz SDRAM
There is a third option for 4 gigs using Dual channel DDR2 ram again, with 2x2gig sticks.

Why is the 3GB option only SDRAM, and not DDR2 Dual channel? I would really like a way to get 3gigs without the quality of ram deteriorating in quality. Will it make a large enough difference? I'm a stickler for details and getting extra juice, and i don't want to spend this much money on a computer without getting good quality dual channel ram. Help appreciated, thanks for the replies so far!!

 

I think it's likely a typo. It's definately DDR2, as you cannot have a notebook that support anything other than one kind of RAM. The only other issue is Dual Channel, and although it should be indicated there as well even under 3GB as assynchronous Dual channel. What DELL might be confused with is synchronous Dual Channel memory, which requires 2 exact same sized module kits. These are very minuscule performance difference and will not affect daily usage. You will not be sacrificing any quality when purchasing difference sized memory modules.

 

Thanks mate. I'll go on and ring support before i make a purchase to double check and advise them.

Think i might order that puppy now!

 

Good luck and enjoy your new laptop! leave me some rep

 

In regards to upgrading outside of dell, wouldn't it infact be more expensive in the end-run? I want to upgrade the RAM, and i don't want my hard drive to bottleneck the system considering i want a fast bootup time, fast execution of programs (opening up things, start menu) which all requires a quick retrieve time. So this is primarly RAM and HDD afaik.

The problem is that Dell's minimum RAM purchase is 2GB, and there are only 2 RAM slots as far as i know. Wouldn't replacing one of these sticks (1GB stick) with a 2GB stick cost more in the end run?

Ditto with the hard drive. You have to purchase one, so wouldn't going to a non-dell store post-purchase and buying a replacement negate any savings, because you are already paying for a drive?

 

On the RAM simple math, 3GB costs how much more than 2GB? In the States a 2GB stick is about $40 so how ever much more DeLL wants to go for 3GB tells you if it is worth it. Oh and you will have an extra 1GB if you go with 2X1GB and upgrade, you can sell trade or use as a paperweight. On to HDD, tougher, you said you already have outside storage so I would recommend the 200GB 7200. If you could make use of another external I might recommend getting the 250GB 5400 and get an enclosure then buy a fast one on my own. And as said above mixing size not a big deal. Intel calls "Flex Memory" 2GB vs 3GB about a 3% reduction in bandwidth in benchmarks with 3GB but having the extra RAM more than makes up for that real world.

 

After contacting Dell customer support they said that they only deal with dual channel ddr2 ram, so it was in fact a typo.

The problem with upgrading externally powerpack is that i only have 2 slots in the computer to upgrade, so i guess it is simple math, let me do it here for lack of anywhere else:

I could buy 2gb in the form of 2x1gb sticks. The upgrade to 3gb is $148.50AUD. So i have to get a 2gb stick of 667MHz DDR2 dual channel SDRAM for less than $148.50AUD. I'll go research now for pricings...

 

I think you will find! Good luck.

Edit: And just so you are not confused, the RAM itself is not "Dual Channel" that is the way the MoBo and chipset use it. So do not do a search for "Dual Channel" any PC5300/5400 200pin SODIMM is fine.