Getting an XPS 15 soon, a couple of questions

Hello all,

I've decided to replace my current 3 year old Vaio as it has started to get a bit clunky, especially a very annoying 'jolty' effect on all sounds, videos and games. I have pretty much decided on a XPS 15. Whilst not being extreme high end, it fits my budget and seems to tick all the boxes.

Briefly, I plan to run it as my main home computer, so some gaming (not into cutting edge games though), films, net, low level photo editing etc. Before anyone says 'get a desktop', yes that is a fair point but a laptop I have and a laptop I want, as illogical as it may be.

A couple of questions please to those with experience of such things.

I'm planning on getting it with the i7-2630qm as other threads on this forum suggest it is worth the extra money. Would an upgrade in RAM to 6 or 8GB be worthwhile or indeed noticeable?

Likewise, is it worth the extra £54 to upgrade to the GT 540M graphics?

As it stands my spec takes the price up to £650, which I don't really want to go above. If anyone has a suggestion for something to *not* go for, and instead go for something else, I'm all ears.

Many thanks for your time.

 

Given your usage, 4 Gb RAM is pretty sufficient, IMO. You'd have to be heavily multitasking to need more I would think.

The 540m is a slight upgrade from the 525m. Is it worth the extra cost? Well it depends. You don't game much, so probably not, but it's also something you can't really upgrade in the future.

 

+8gb of ram is not necessary. and this is a personal preference, but i think 4gb is enough for most people nowadays. and it would probably be cheaper to upgrade/buy more ram somewhere else if you end up wanting more ram.

+if money is an issue, the 540m is not much different than a 525m. just 72Mhz and more VRAM. 525m can easily be overlocked to 540m speeds and the video card itself is too slow to really use all the VRAM that is on the 540m so they're essentially the same cards. (aka if you want to cut back to save money, get the 525m)

+make sure to get the 1080p screen

 

Thanks for the replies.

I've just had my ideas shot down, or at least delayed a little as I hadn't realised the Dell prices are all ex-vat, so I'm now looking at £800 for the same thing, but no bother.

I did see the Inspiron Q15R for sale, which seemed to have similar spec to what I've decided on for the XPS. I wonder of that might be worth looking at again.

Whilst I have your attention, does anyone have any ideas about the syptoms my Vaio is suffering from? Every second or so, regardless of activity, the HDD light flashes very briefly and any vids/music or games very briefly freeze. Any thoughts?

 

Have you ever defragged your Hard Drive? Ever done a fresh install?

You can also get some free software that will "diagnose" your hard drive.

 

Regularly defragged since it was new. Never done the fresh intstall because I really don't know enough about computing to be confident about things like that.

What's the name of the software?

 

Definitely get the 1080p screen for the XPS 15. And yes, the 2630QM is worth it, it will last quite a while for you. The XPS 15 sounds like a good fit for your needs, just what it is geared towards honestly.

As for RAM, just get the 4GB. You can always get more RAM, it is easily upgraded, and you can currently get 8GB (2x4GB) of Corsair RAM for the system on Newegg for $40...(killing myself, I paid over $70 2 months ago, sigh). I know you are not in US, but you can get similar pricing on Ebay, Amazon, etc. Not worth Dell's exorbitant upgrade pricing on RAM.

You already have advise on 525m versus 540m. Unless you are a real gamer (in which case the XPS 15 isn't really your system anyway), it won't be very noticable.

 

No, for dell xps just a mid model. alienware a high-end, cpu can update to I7-2820.

 

Don't recall anyone saying the XPS was high-end model. Several said it was decent though, which it is. And the XPS can take the 2820 no problem. It's even an option straight through Dell...Heck, people have put the 2920 into the XPS just fine too!

 

+3 for getting the 1920x1080 display.

The XPS 15 is a waste of money if you buy it without upgrading the screen, because the screen is the most important upgrade. The 1366x768 display has bad image quality due to a low contrast ratio and very narrow vertical viewing angles (it's one of the worst 15-inch screens available right now), but the 1920x1080 B+RGLED display is one of the best 15-inch laptop screens and certainly just about the best available near the $1000 price point.

Aside from this, 1366x768 is a mediocre resolution for a 15.6" screen. It makes things huge and limits you to one window onscreen at a time. 1920x1080 lets you fit two side-by-side windows and makes a huge difference for multitasking.

The screen upgrade makes more of a difference than anything else. You should not skip the screen upgrade for another upgrade because no other upgrade is nearly as important, and you shouldn't even buy the XPS 15 if you're not getting the 1080p screen upgrade.

 

I recommend getting the 8gb of ram...
Anything that avoids the os from paging to the hard drive is good, because the hd is very slow compared to memory...

The 1333mhz memory controller and bus for the new i7 processors is very fast... is good...
Also if you have any programs or code that leaks memory (a common problem), your system won't slow down for a while, because you have extra to handle it...
Photoshop is very responsive with 8gb of ram...
Dell price on the memory is reasonable if you get the right package...

__________________
Dell Xps15, 2630qm, 1080p, 8gb Ram, nvidia 525m, 750gb HD, Blu-ray, BLit Keyboard, 1030 wifi+bt, 9cell

 

+4 on the 1080 screen....please tell us your getting the 1080 display !