Latitude 15 3000 - Gaming system for $780? Too good to be true?

That's correct - the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility app is showing the graphics frequency of the HD 4400 GPU. I think that's because that is what the Intel ETU was designed to do - to monitor the Intel hardware including both Intel CPU and Intel GPU.

While using other apps like AMD System Monitor and GPU-Z, you can see that the HD Radeon 8850m carries a load of 100% (ranges between 90 and 100%) while the Intel HD GPU carries a load of 5% - all while running FurMark. At this point, I am confident that FurMark's OpenGL Burn-In test uses the HD Radeon 8850m.

Oh - and AMD System Monitor shows that the HD Radeon runs mostly at 575mghz (CORRECTION: 625mghz) while being stressed with FurMark. I realized this AFTER I had taken the screen shot. I apologize.


EDIT: When stopping the OpenGL Burn-In test, the AMD System Monitor app shows that the HD Radeon 8850m drops to 0% load and 0mghz frequency.

 

Hmm, I wouldn't be surprised if the drivers are set to prevent the 8850m from enabling Turbo Boost while running Furmark. It's not uncommon for AMD and NVidia to do that for that particular program.

Have you ever seen the 8850m jump up to 725 MHz? I'm wondering what Dell has the max Turbo speed configured for.

 

No I have not. AMD System Monitor shows that the 8850m likes to stay clocked at 625mghz during gaming. There haven't been any conditions in which the clocks modulate higher or lower - even when being stressed by FurMark.

 

Hmmm, one of the things I was hoping to do, was bump the HD 8850m up to 725 MHz, which would put it as the same level as the 8870m. This would only work if it ran cool, which I guess we don't know for sure yet.

 

Prolly running a heck of a lot cooler than the Latitude E6540, that's for sure. Been watching that thread and while I try not to react, I hafta be truthful to myself. The Latitude E3540 runs quietly, cool, and without problems. It's a pretty satisfying purchase to know that I don't need to monitor the system for heat or performance issues (asides from inquiries or requests from outside folks, like in this thread).

It's a bonus that it's able to run some of the latest pc games.

 

The Latitude 5000 is now available on Dell.com.

I had high hopes based on the specs of the 3000. It adds the few things that I found missing with the 3540 (dock connector, digital display connections, faster CPU), but they ruined it by pairing it with a crappy GPU. What a shame. The 3540 is still currently an excellent buy for a gaming business laptop with an anti-glare screen. At least while it's on sale for $780, after that it's not that great.

 

Here ya go. The outdoor shot was taken with the brightness all the way up. The indoor shot was with the brightness around 20 percent. Photos were taken with a mobile phone - I apologize for the lack of professional photography.

 

Sorry, ignore me, just saw your first post.

 

My latitude 3540, which i bought because of the good reviews here, arrived a couple of days ago.

I think I'm the first to actually put in a SSD right away, so I'll place a quick review on what it does to the system.

Firstly I want to point out that it is extremely tricky to change the drive you replace the optical drive with to 'master' instead of slave (Dell issue).
So what i did is: clone windows to SSD (in my case with samsung 840 pro migration tool) and then just swap the two drives; this fixes the problem.

So then the mind blowing part of the SSD:
- Windows 8 starts up in about 5 seconds
- Applications start instantly
- Battery life increased to (a mind blowing) 11 hours when browsing the web! This of course is with the 6 cell, 65 watt battery.

 

I had no idea that the 14 inch 3000 series would be so much more efficient with battery life. 11 hours is rad!

Also, thanks for your quick review on it. Glad someone also bought into the Latitude 3000 series.