Advice on buying an Inspiron 1720 and video card help please...

Hello, I'm looking to buy an Inspiron 1720 and was wondering how much room I have to talk down the price over the phone with a salesperson, especially since it's almost EOL for them and the 1735 will be released literally at any moment? I know there's a guide around here somewhere for this but I can't find it.

Second question has to do with the video card, it's the only thing about the 1720 that's making me have second thoughts. It's the Geforce 8600M GT 256, and Dell uses the lesser one clocked at 400 Mhz w/ GDDR2. I know the video card in the Inspiron 1720 is an accessible/replaceable part and -also- realize that I will never get an 8800 or be able to upgrade to any other card outside of the nVidia 8400 & 8600 lines to fit or correctly mate w/ the rest of the hardware in the 1720.

However, is it possible that an aftermarket GeForce 8600M GT 512 @ 700Mhz w/GDDR3 will fit in an Inspiron 1720 and has anyone tried? Thanks.

 

Talking down the price is possible, but your best bet is to wait for a good coupon code or promotion, and use an EPP or student discount if you can get one. Keep calling until you get a rep that will stack the EPP/student discount on top of coupon codes/promotions.

You will probably have to call in several times to get a rep that will work with you on the price. Most the time the best they can do is give you some freebies. Keep telling them you want a certain config, but you want to know what they can do with the price. Again, don't expect to save more than a little bit that way.

I don't know about the video cards.


Good luck.

 

Thanks for the tips mattocs I'll give it a try. I forgot to mention though that I'm in Canada and outside of the US Dell doesn't offer the amazingly generous coupon codes & promos. The best I could find was a $100 coupon from Dell Canada that didn't stack with the already discounted prices on the website, so it was essentially useless.

I am a student, I'm not sure but I'll check if my school or Dell Canada even has a program for student discounts. Thanks again.

 

I didn't realize you were not in the US. I had a 1720 ordered, and then went to a local store to check them out in person, and hated them. So, I ended up getting an XPS 1530. The 1720 was HUGE! I mean, sure, its more of a desktop replacment, which is what I wanted, but its like three inches thick and is just big. I got the 1530 and will hook it to a external LCD and stuff when at home.

I'm also not sure if Dell Canada will haggle at all.

You may be able to check on Dell's site if your school has a discount program with them.

 

hehe I don't mind the hugeness although getting 1530 in another possible route. I have a feeling Dell Canada will haggle, I did speak to someone from there earlier today and I have a feeling they're actually in Texas as well.

As for student discounts I found this:

http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/student_purch?c=ca&cs=CADHS1&l=en&s=dhs

but it's horribly vage, and clicking on any of the featured laptops lead to weird page dead ends.

 

Now for graphics cards....

Firstly, no, 8600M GTs are not underclocked in any DDR2 case. All of them have a standard clock of 475/950/400. DDR3 has a standard clock speeds of 475/950/700. The 700Mhz Memory in DDR3 makes the difference between the two. The XPS 1530s are using this.

Do you want to know which company uses the 8600M GT DDR2 being underclocked? The Acer Aspire 5920G, the shaders are clocked down by 50Mhz. So technically Acer users are only getting like 475/900/400. We're lucky we got ourselves a dell.

For the exchange of graphics cards on the 1720, that will depend on Dell if they're willing to do it, but I have doubts they would. Won't be surprised if the new 1735's can do it either. And no, you can use an 1530's DDR3 card into the 1720, as it is soldered onto the board unlike the 1720. The GPU part would be proprietary as far as I know.

I own a 1720 as well.

Good Luck.

 

SomeFormOFhuman, thanks for straightening me out on the card issue it's a shame the cards can't be swapped out for something better, even if Dell could somehow sell better aftermarket ones.

While the stock 8600M GT is an OK midrange card that will play most everything today at at least medium settings I'm still worried it'll be -horribly- dated in a year judging from the benchmarks set by the 8800 one, dx10 games and the fact that while it's dx10 capable it's completely meaningless w/o the processing power to back it up.

Other than that, I really like the 1720 and it's the gfx card issue that is keeping me from committing to buy it I guess. The price on the other hand is nice because it's closing out, the question now is should I buy or wait for the 1735?

Btw.. here are the specs of what I am planning to get:

Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB/3MB cache)
Operating System: Genuine Windows® Vista Home Premium Edition SP1
System Color and LCD cover Pattern: Midnight Blue Color with Microsatin Finish
Memory: 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 Dimm
LCD Panel High Resolution, glossy widescreen 17.0 inch display (1920 x 1200)
Video Card 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
Labels Windows Vista™ Premium
Hard Drive 250G 5400RPM SATA HDD
Network card and Modem Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 7.08
Optical Drive Blu-ray Disc Combo (DVD+/-RW + BD-ROM)
Sound Card Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy HD Software Edition
Wireless Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini Card
Integrated Webcam Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
Productivity Software Microsoft Works 9. DOES NOT INCLUDE MS WORD
Anti-Virus/ Security suite (pre-install) McAfee SecurityCenter with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 30-Days
Primary Battery 56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Hardware Services 1 Year Return to Depot Service and Technical Support
Optional Support Services DataSafe Online Backup 3GB (included with price)
Processor Branding Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
Internet Access No ISP requested

for $1519 CAD + %13 tax shipped.

Is this a good deal or can I do better if I wait?

The crappy Canadian standard warranty, smaller hard drive and base wireless card are all also inferior to the identical US configuration which came to $1458 USD w/coupons.

 

up.. for afternoon crowd...

 

..........

 

Get a real gaming notebook. Check out the Alienware and XPS1730. The 1720 is not a gaming notebook.

 

Yeah the 1720s are just considered a decent multimedia and performance notebook. Not really much into games. More like Home and Office use.

XPSes for gaming, Alienware if you have the budget. LOL, period.

Psst... If you really want and -need- to buy a 1720 (We Singaporeans have a Singlish slang for this; "die die must buy", lol) You can just overclock your GPU like what I did. I ran Crysis for over 3 hours straight and everything was perfect - the framrates was just fine, temps was just at a constant 65... Unless if you intend, to OC, then yeah. If not, then I wouldn't recommend ocing or getting this model.

What kind of games do you play?

 

Well I don't know if gaming is really my focus, this will be my first notebook and I'm more familiar with desktops and how easy it is to upgrade. And I guess I'm just needlessly petrified over the GPU becoming horribly obsolete.

Alienware and 1730 are out of my budget range for sure and on a more superficial note I think they're ugly. I really hate, hate, hate about 80% of PC design, most of it is stupid & pointlessly ornamental. Alienware computers and to a smaller extent the XPS just remind me of dumber designs with flashing lights that serve no purpose or cases that look like a giant robot's head raped a jet engine intake and then vomited on itself.

I guess that sounds like what I want. I don't really play games that much, just old ones and you have to understand with this laptop purchase I am coming from an 8 year old P3 866 with 512 megs of ram. :lol:

But, i do like games, FPS', RTS' whatever is fun. I just haven't been able to play many new ones at home. How hard was OC'ing the 8600M?

 

8 years for a laptop??? Wow... You really took good care of your machines.... Actually if you don't really intend to play much of games, 8600M GT is actually more or less good enough without any Ocing... So will you be playing games like what you played on your desktop, you're going to play it on your 1720 too? If so, what are they? Are they intensive games like Crysis or HL?

 

Well, what I'm typing to you from right now is an 8 year old Dell Dimension 4100, other than a faulty power supply a while ago, everything original still works (or worked till i replaced it w/an upgrade) fine on it. But it is horribly slow if I want to do multiple things on it or browse and forget about new software.

I do intend to play some games, I'm just not sure what. I really haven't kept up much but like I said any current or future FPS, RTS, racing, PS2 or 3 emulation, MMORPG I'm open to as long as it's fun. This will be on top of music, movies, browsing and word processing.

I don't know if I will be playing many of the games I did on my desktop, I don't really do much of that nowadays even. But, even if I wanted to I'm sure they'd run or there's something out there that'll make them run on a newer machine.

 

Old games will be fine on the 1720...but don't expect to play Crysis at high settings.

 

LOL, then more or less the 1720 should be alright for your type of use. And yeah, you *can* game crysis, but with alot of set backs, you have set everything to low and 1280x800 res to play and you'll have to OC your GPU to the max for an optimal gaming experience on the 1720. But on 800 width resolution the quality is just very pixelated and, you may not enjoy playing it. It's best not to play on that game like what mattocs pointed out.

But for your needs, I guess it should fit you well. CS should be able to game to max 60fps on it as well as other 2001 - 2006 games.

If you want to know how the 8600M GT performs on games, check out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIVBpsSd-HU

Though using MSI, but the card is practically the same.

 

yep, I didn't really expect to run Crysis at the highest settings or even with dx10. but i am still interested in OC'ing my GPU.

I have another question for you guys.. i have trust issues, how do you guys know whether what you're being sent from Dell is a refurbished product or not, despite what it says on the invoice? how can you tell?

 

Refurbs usully have a sticker on the bottom.

If you buy new, you'll get new. But, if you do an exchange, you may get a refurb in return.

If you have trust issues, do not call Dell and speak to a rep to check on an order. They will lie to you. They will say anything to get you off the phone.

 

that doesn't seem fair, reading all the horror stories on the forum also make me anxious. it feels like Dell's quality control has slipped a lot.

 

After the sale, they seem to very a great company.

I had to get a new 1530 because of a screen issue. Should be here at the begining of next week. If its a refurb, i'm calling to see if I can just swap screens, as other than that, my first one is perfect.

Good luck.

PS. Get an extended warranty and complete care. You'll be set if you have any trouble if you do that.