XPS 17 L702x 3D or not to 3D

Well, after jumping around I may get the L702x with a 2820 (wish I could get the 2860 instead) and the 1 or 3GB 555 w/ tvtuner. Question though - is it worth getting the 3D model cause of the screen? Granted you do loose optimus, but is the display worth it for the clarity as well as brightness?

 

Well regarding the CPU, if you can wait another week or two, you will likely see the 2860 being offered on the XPS. Apparently the Alienwares have them offered now, and other countries apparently have the XPS with the newer CPUs too. So it's just a matter of time methinks.

Regarding GPU: If you can afford it, get the 555m over the 550m if you do anything that demands GPU power. The 555m is a decent bit more powerful, but the bigger thing is that if you want to, it is one of the best overclocking laptop GPUs. It will overclock pretty cleanly to roughly a GTX 460m level, a much more powerful card at stock, but you still get Optimus and the like. The 550m isn't a bad card, but Dell's 555m for whatever reason is more powerful than the NVidia reference, they have more memory bandwidth or something like that (it's late, and I forget exactly what it was).

I can't speak to the 3D screen, I know a lot of people love it, but for me losing Optimus and thus half my batter life was a deal-breaker. That one is up to you. You also get more constant fan noise with the 3D as the NVidia card is constantly on. You also lose wireless display (to TV) and a few other lesser features, but this is up to you to decide if it is worth it to you. I can say that having the non-3D 1080p screen, I don't regret the decision. Yes, It isn't the highest contrast/bright screen ever, but it is much more forgiving in bright areas and is a solid overall screen.

 

@madmattd, I am going to wait for the newer CPU. I saw they they were in the AW models, just didn't think they would send them over the XPS way as well.

The GPU is no doubt going to be the 555 with TV. No sure about the memory size, but like everyone is saying - this card is not really made to handle 3GB anyway. So I may go with just the smaller option.

The screen is one option I really am unsure about. As much as I like the better battery life with optimus I heard horror stories about it as well. Guess I have some more time to decide till the new chips come out....

Thank you for the help in my decision though

 

There is only one VRAM option for the 555m from Dell: 3GB. The 1GB is the 550m, a different card that is decent, but not as powerful as the 555m.

Optimus is fine except for a very few isolated cases. It doens't always decide the correct GPU to use, but this is easily overridden in the NVidia control panel for those odd cases. I've had zero Optimus issues myself, and the same is true for most. Battery life is great, 5-6 hours on 40% brightness, surfing the web actively (with the 9-cell, slightly more than half that if you get the 6-cell).

 

Don't wish to hijack your thread, but does anyone know where I can buy a 3d blu-ray drive for the L702x, which would be fully compatible with the 3d display?