Studio XPS 1340 Benchmarks - Plus Driver Comparisons

I recieved my XPS Studio 1340 a couple of days ago and I've benchmarked it against a couple of games and applications. My specs are as follows:

P8600 2.4ghz
3GB DDR3
320GB 7200rpm
WLED WXGA
256mb 9500M G
6 cell
Bluetooth
Vista Home Premium 64-bit

General Performance

WPrime
32M: 32.666s




SuperPi 1.5
1M: 21.747s




HD Tune





9400M G vs. 9500M G (9400M G + 9200M GS)














Forceware 176.89 (default) vs. 179.48 (12/2/09)









Conclusion
For the love of god, upgrade your drivers.

Upgrading from the default drivers that ship with the laptop, to the latest Nvidia drivers gives extreme performance benefits in a couple of games. I think the largest benefits would be seen in newer games, since they're the ones which would recieve all the optimisations.

Note: By default I couldn't get the 179.48 drivers to install. I had to use a hacked INF to install it. YMMV, I haven't done extensive testing to see if it's safe to keep the 179.48 drivers permanently installed.

I'm currently running on the 178.75 drivers that can get gotten from Dell for Vista x64, and these drivers seem stable. I'll do a little more testing to see if these drivers yield the same performance increase as 179.48 does.

UPDATE 5th March 09: Included the 178.86 drivers, as well as fixed numbers for 178.75 (in previous tests they were artificially inflated because I hadn't fully uninstalled the 179.48's)
UPDATE 14th May 09: Added official Nvidia 185.85 WHQL drivers

 

This is really thorough, nice work. Your 3DMark 06 scores still seem kind of low though - most of us are getting around 3550 in hybrid sli with the original drivers from the Dell CD (same resolution).

 

The reason my scores are a bit lower is because I've only got 3GB of RAM, I think. That means I have a 1GB + 2GB stick in here, meaning they aren't in dual-channel. Since the 9400M works off system RAM, running in dual channel should net a small memory bandwidth increase for the 9400M.

 

Yeah sorry, I've got 4GB RAM and the 2.53Ghz so that'll make the difference. For some reason I only read your graphics card at first.

To contribute, I just ran it again with the latest Dell drivers (178.75) and went up 30 points to 3580, so they're a little better, but maybe not as much as the ones from NVIDIA.

 

+1 for a great set of pictures and graphs.

 

Thanks. I've updated the original post to include a comparison between the three drivers:

176.89 (default)
178.75 (from Dell)
179.48 (from Nvidia)

The 178.75's increase performance, but not as much as the 179.48's. For best performance, install 179.48. You'll need a hacked .inf to do so, however, and there may be unforeseen issues since it's not an officially supported driver.

I'm currently running the 179.48's, because I found out that Hybrid SLI switching was disabled in the official Dell 178.75's for some reason.

EDIT: I found the hacked INF's here.

 

Thanks for the link to the 179.48. I just got installed it and got loads more resolution settings for COD4.

 

Great work SC4freak. Have you tried using Laptopvideo2go's 185.20 drivers? I installed them but only scored 3280 on 3dMark06 with a P9500 and 4GB ram. Haven't tried 179.48 yet.

 

Nevermind, got 3680 with 182.05, and 3880 by OC'ing the 9400 to 550 core and 1300 mem and upping the FSB of the CPU to 280MHz. Can't seem to get to the 9200 (nVidia control panel tells me I have made an invalid selection when I try to change the clock speeds on the 9200).

 

Nice. Much difference in temperature?

 

Haven't had a chance to log temperature but I will see how it turns out when I try some more stress testing over the next few days.

 

Hi All,

Just joined the forums after reviewing the benchmarks results. I bought the Studio XPS 1340 about two weeks ago, and so far I have not been disappointed, but now that I see the gaming differences between the 9400M and the 9500M. I was wondering if it is possible to upgrade the video card, since mine came with only the 9400M. Thanks and ill await the response.

 

If you are in the US, and still whitin the 2 weeks of shipping, you should be able to return it for free.

 

Thanks for the reply,

I bought it at a local retailer, which came with a 9400M G. I just want to know from all the tech guru's if this is upgradeable since i hear the 9500M G is simply a 9400M G paired with a 9200M GS so is it theoritically possible to upgrade??? It should be from my logic, but if it is not please let me know. Thanks all.

 

Yes its upgradeable, by exchanging the motherboard = expensive

 

This is how it looks like:


9400M G to the left and 9200M GS (+ GDDR3 memory banks) to the right.

 

Theoretically, yes it's possible. Practically, no. The chips are generally soldered to the motherboard unless they use an MXM module. Your best bet is to return it if you can and re-order.

 

Sc4Freak, u wanna test and compare the new drivers that are out as well?

 

Sure. It's late where I live, I'll try to do the tests tomorrow and get the results out ASAP.

 

WOHO!!

 

I'm running windows 7, I have a WEI of 5.4,
6.0 CPU
5.9 RAM
5.9 Graphic
5.4 Gaming
5.9 HD

Anyone else running Windows 7? Apparently I get BSOD if I enable Hybrid SLI and try to play BF2. (This with the latest 179 driver, It runs with 176)

2.4GHz, 4GB 1066MHz, 320GB 7200RPM HD, 9500 GE, 13.3 LED , BT,

 

Tried with the new beta drivers from nvidia for win 7?

 

Hmm, I'm getting some odd results. I think my test results for the 178.75 drivers are incorrect - I didn't completely uninstall the 179.48 drivers and so the results are higher than they should be.

I'll have to redo some tests. I've already run some tests on the 178.86 drivers, and it looks like it performs almost identically to the 176.89's. I suspect the same is true for the 178.75 drivers.

 

Sc4Freak, would you mind doing the tests but renaming the .exe of the game to UT3, and rechecking with SLi enabled..

I saw some pretty substantial gains in games that didn't seem to support SLi out of the box.

 

I ran some 3DMark06 tests using various drivers in order to get a handle on what performs best, from an artificial benchmark standpoint, from the dizzying array of drivers out there.

I installed all drivers using the "Have Disk" method, although I did not completely clean (safe mode, driver cleaner, etc) in between. There is sufficient difference between scores that I don't believe this was a problem. All tests were run with the same processes/programs running, a strong fan on the bottom to negate temperature effects, and each test was run three times back to back and the results averaged. The machine is a P9500, 9500M, 4GB. No external monitor was used, so tests were run in native 1280x800. Commentary is welcome.

Code:

Version    	SM 2.0          SM 3.0          CPU             Total
178.86   	1290      	1395      	[b]2325[/b]      	3583
179.48   	1300      	1389      	2262      	3579
182.05D1	[b]1346[/b]      	[b]1397[/b]      	2274      	[b]3645[/b]
182.08   	1330      	1393      	2270      	3622
185.20   	1336      	1392      	2232      	3621
Combined        [b]1345[/b]      	[b]1398[/b]      	2273      	[b]3646[/b]
182.05D2        1341	        1393      	2260      	3633

Some observations
- the 178.86 (Dell supplied) and 179.48 drivers perform noticeably worse than the 182 and 185 series, although the 178.86 has the highest CPU score by far (not sure what this means and why others would be so much lower).
- 182.05 D1 is supposed to be using Dox drivers, although due to installation problems (described here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=359586) I was not able to verifiy the final 182.05 drivers were indeed the correct 9200M GS/MCP79MX Dox drivers.
- 182.05 D2 uses Dox 9200M GS Performance drivers on the 9200M and a forced install of the 9400M G Performance drivers on the 9400M, rather than the 9200M GS / MCP79MX combo that most installations will use as "supported hardware".
- Combined is my attempt to take advantage of the higher CPU score of the 178.89 drivers by using 178.89 for the 9400M chipset and 182.05 Dox Performance for the 9200M GS.

Conclusions:
Dox comes out on top here, although there *may* be some small advantage if you want to go to the pains of tricking the OS into taking two drivers in the Combined approach. Normally, if I install one version on the 9200M first, the computer asks to restart and automatically installs the MCP79MX (9400M) driver for the other half. If I rather install the MCP79MX driver first, then install a separate driver for the 9200M, then I can get two different drivers (at least as stated by their version numbers in the properties) to work at the same time.

Does this make sense?

-Aaron

 

Updated first post with some new driver performance numbers.

 

I ran one more set of tests, this time running Combined 179.48 (9400M) and 182.05 (Dox Performance 9200M). I was having terrible DVD playback problems with the Dox Performance drivers on the 9400M, so I switched back to a true laptop driver for the chipset. The combined seem to be working best of all:

Average of three tests:

SM 2.0 - 1363
SM 3.0 - 1404
CPU - 2266
3DMark06 - 3673

 

Aaronbeh, any chance you could do some gaming benchmarks with those combined drivers? It'd be interesting to see what they provide. Newer games would be great: ie Fallout 3, Empire Total War etc,.

Thanks in advance

 

misplacedaj,

The only games I currently have are The Witcher, COD4, IL2 Sturmovik, and NWN2. I will see if I can get some FPS numbers with the current drivers but no promises.

 

No problem Aaron. If you get around to it, it'd be great. If not, that's fine too.


EDIT:
Answered my own questions.. doh.

 

so I'm trying to use win 7 build 7057

what new driver can i use that will still support the hybrid gfx fine

looking to try one of the 180 to 185 series drivers?

sorry if this if a stupid question, but can somebody point me in the right direction

 

Hey guys. I just ordered my 1340. I got the p8600, 4gb, 256mb graphics and 128 ssd. I'm trying to understand everything in this thread and, well... I just don't. What is all the talk about the hybrid sli stuff and how does that effect my 256 card? What do I need to do to ensure optimum performance? While I may do some light gaming, the most graphically intense operations I'd be doing is photo editing and graphic design. Which driver should I install and any clarification on the hybrid stuff (as I don't even know what it is) would be awesome! THANKS!

 

Just installed Dox's 185.66 drivers. Wow. Windows Performance score on graphics jumped from 5.2 to 5.4 and 3dMark06 is 3702. That is over 100 points more than the Dell drivers.

Now to test some games...

 

I've updated the OP with results for the 185.85 drivers - official WHQL from Nvidia, released 8th May 09.

Appears to be several performance increases, although I had to use an INF hack to get the drivers to install. I wouldn't recommend upgrading to these drivers just yet - they might not be stable. I've had a few issues resuming from sleep after installing these drivers, for example. I'll report back after a few days after I do a little more testing.

 

Can you post the location of the INF hack for version 185.85 drivers ?

Which drivers would be best at this time for win7?

 

How does this computer run TF2?

I would like to see some benches.

 

I had to make my own hacked INF. I used the definitions from laptopvideo2go.com to get it to recognise the graphics chip.

It should be attached.

 

Hi Everyone!
Im new to this forum.
I would like to know whats are the best programs for overclocking Studio XPS 1340. Im interested in overclocking Nvidia GeForce 9400m G and the processor speed.

Here are my computer specs:
2.4 Ghz intercore 2 Duo P8600 processor, 1066MHz frontside bus, 3MB L2 cache.
500 gb 7200 rpm hd
4gb ddr3 ram
Nvidia Geforce 9400m G 256mb ddr3 integrated video card.
(best buy model)

Since its a dell computer i know their bios wont let me overclocked but i've seen many reports with this computer pushing from 2.8-3.0 Ghz speeds.
and Im mostly interested in boosting my 9400m g card a little...anyone knows any reliable programs that will let me overclock my studio xps 1340??