AW15 gtx960m vs 980m 8gb

(obviously meant to say 965M in the title)

Hi guys,

I'm shopping around for a new laptop. The machine will be used for development/compute purposes, mostly on the lap for 2h/day. My requirements are as follows:

* 4 cores (HT is not desirable so the i5 is fine)
* Fast NVIDIA GPU (960M is the lower bound) - more memory is good
* Must be usable on the train without any cooling pads etc
* Good battery life
* At least 32GB supported
* Thunderbolt 3 highly desirable
* FHD screen (don't need higher res, don't want to take a battery life hit)
* Good keyboard

I have initially short-listed the Inspiron 7559 as a decent budget option. However availability is currently poor.

Precisions are very weak in terms of the bang for the buck. Weak GPUs compared to AW. Poor availability. No TB3 on the 7510.

So, currently looking at AW15 in 2 configurations, both FHD:
1) i5-6300HQ 8gb + 960m 2gb - £1000
2) i7-6820HK 16g + 980m 8gb - £1500

Planning to upgrade to 32gb so the the 16GB config is a throwaway. Would fit my own SSDs to avoid the lottery.

Config 1. is almost a no-brainer, however, considering if 2 makes sense; thus I've got a few questions I'm hoping your expertise will help with:

A) Will either be usable on the train for 2h/day? Physically uncompromised, but obviously don't want to suffer prolonged heat discomfort etc.
B) What's the battery life delta between the 2 configurations? Obviously the 980m's 100W footprint vs 965Ms 50W is a worry
C) No downside to getting the 980M in 8gb Config?
D) Will the 980M run at full speed when plugged in or will it get thermally throttled so much, the speed advantage over the 965M would be significantly diminished (assume 240W PSU)
E) What's the unplugged performance delta between the 2 configs? I would assume very little due to heavy throttling
F) Are the 500 quid better spent on the 980M or on the Amplifier, from the perspective of maximising plugged-in, sustained performance (the 980M throttling looks real)


Obviously none of the questions can be answered based on Dell's marketing materials or discussions with the clueless reps, so you guys are my only hope

Many thanks in advance for any helpful thoughts you might spare.

 

A) Of course it will be usable on your lap for 2 hours. Don't forget that with all its performance, it is a laptop after all. You are not going to suffer any burns. If it gets slightly hot, do what I do: I always keep my laptop in a sleeve of its own and whenever I use it on my lap I just put the sleeve between the laptop and my lap.

B) The 980M draws more power, but what kind of computation are you going to perform? Unless it's going to use the discrete GPU extensively, it won't affect battery life in the least. I should also mention here that you are likely to get a better battery life with the 4K screen on account of it being IGZO technology. (Read up)
That said, 2 hours is perfectly doable in both the configs unless you are doing extremely demanding processes. (CPU + GPU at 100% or something)

C) No. More the merrier.

D) It will be throttled to a great extent on battery. You have to understand that these are gaming laptops designed to be used for gaming on AC power. It will work on battery of course, but there are limitations on various electronic parameters due to which it will not perform the same way.

E) Your question requires scientific experimentation to answer correctly which I doubt anyone has performed.

F) I would spend it on the GA.

 

Thank you very Mr Claw sir. Very helpful, pretty much set for the i5+965M order tonight. Just one comment:

B) Data analysis which may involve all cores + GPU. in that case even the i5 + 965M (45+50W) would be enough to finish the 99Whr battery off fairly quickly.

Thanks for the IGZO tip - will read up more, however, I'm slightly sceptical because 1) on the new XPS 15 it's well understood that the igzo panel takes a few h away from the battery life vs FHD. 2) Even if the panel itself is efficient, 4x the pixels need to be shifted around by the GPU in desktop mode, and I guess switching desktop res to FHD is a bit of a waste. Then there is the UK price tag of £300, whereas I understand I can just fit a best in class FHD panel for £100 if need be. I don't really care that much about colour gamut for this, just need it to be comfortable enough for reading and coding, however, the 220 nits brightness is in fact a worry.

Will fire another thread off later regarding SSD options.

One more thing: win 8.1 home or Win 10 (for max perfromance and stability)? Sadly no pro options in the UK.

Best.

 

Are you sure you dont want the xps15? Its a hell of a laptop and 965m to 960m are close. .

Sent from my SM-N910S using Tapatalk

 

Kind of leaning towards the AW15 as the more powerful option. Here is my thinking:

Pros of the AW15:
* 965M is quite a bit faster. 1024 cores vs 640...
* 99Whr vs 72Whr AFAIR
* Potential to fit 3 SSDs vs one
* GA (who knows when/if TB3 eGPUs will arrive and what the perf will be like)
* Looks like a better keyboard
* Better cooling
* Ships in a week vs a month

Cons of the AW:
* Weight
* Form factor
* Possibly worse FHD panel

 

I also toyed with the idea of getting the XPS15 for a while seeing as I had been using the older XPS15 (L502X) for the past 3 years, but the new one is worse when it comes to keyboard layout, touchpad, HDD options etc.
On top of that the price was higher than the AW on the US site for the specs I wanted. No brainer, really.

 

Yeah, good points. Specifically on keyboard: the key travel is supposed to be quite short. Then there is the Precision 5510 with its gimped M1000M (512 cores). Yes, you can get the 1505 Xeon (6820HK with ECC instead of OC), but for the price that will afford you a 6820+ 980m 8gb AW15... in light of those limitations, I think I can live with the larger form factor. Ah, AW support options are really as good as Precision's.

 

Couldn't resist pulling the trigger on the 6820HK 980M 8gb this Black Friday. ETA 2 weeks...

 

Well after 5 years out of the notebook game I've also returned to Dellienware with a M15 R2, UHD Screen, 6820HK and 980M

 

Ah yes, the 8GB VRAM trap. I'm getting less and less confused about the popularity of the Macs. Would just go to my local Apple store and sort it out (although wouldnt expect something like this - for those who missed the 8gb thread: multiple people ordered 8, received 4 - to happen in the first place)

 

coming from an alienware to macbook pro and now back to alienware 15r2.. Can't agree more. Apple service really spoiled me. I'm already stuck in the Dell returns machine day one.