Dell 1720 or 1710

I'm sorry, I've already post this question in another thread, but nobody helped me, so I'm trying my luck here

Can somebody from experienced users advise me, if there is a big difference in performance between these two notebooks? I would prefer 1720 because I think that for my eyes this lower resolution (WXGA) is better then (WUXGA) and also its keyboard is expected to have a numerical part. But what about the graphical card, is geforce 8600 GT a lot worse than 7950 GTX?
But I don’t like vista, so do you think it would be a problem to change vista on 1720 to win xp by myself?

1720:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.20 GHz,800MHz,4 MB L2 cache)
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium - English
Jet Black Colour with Matte Finish & Integrated 2.0 mega pixel web camera
17.0" Widescreen WXGA+ (1440x900) TFT Display with TrueLife™
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
240GB (5400RPM) SATA Dual Hard Drives (2X120GB)
nVidia® GeForce™ Go 8600M GT with 256MB DDR2 dedicated graphic memory

1710:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200 Processor (2.0GHz,667MHz,4MB L2 cache)
Genuine Windows® XP Professional - English
Base Warranty - 1 Year XPS Premium Hardware Support (incl. Gaming and On-Site Support)
17" UltraSharp™ Wide Screen WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT Display with TrueLife™
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
160GB (7200RPM) SATA Hard Drive
512MB DDR3 nVidia® GeForce™ Go 7950 GTX graphics card

 

It really depends on what you want it for. The main difference between the Geforce 7950 and the 8600 besides the memory ddr2 or 3 is that the 8600 fully supports directx 10 for vista, games for windows they call it. Both are good systems but if your a gamer go for the one with the 8600 if not and you use it for work or study, its really your choice.

 

Although 7950 lacks Dx10 support, it is much faster card than 8600GT - 8600Gt performance is on par with that of 7900GS. 8600Gt is a card made mostly for 15.4 inch laptops. For 17inch laptop with DX10 support, the ones with 8700GT are appearing now, but even 8700GT will have hard time compete against 7950GTX, I believe. For something that truly replace 7950GT, you will have to wait for 8800.

 

Higher resolution is generally better. If you are worried about text being too small to read, then you can adjust it by changing DPI settings. In Vista DPI scaling is very smooth. Don’t hesitate to buy a higher resolution screen.Have a look at the following screen shots
Same resolution but different DPI settings : 96 DPI (Default), 120 DPI (125%, 144 DPI (150%), 192 DPI (200%)
Quoted from :Windows Vista DPI scaling

7950GTX is considerably faster than 8600GT in DX9 titles. However since it doesn’t support DX10 the margin will be smaller. I’d say almost every game that is going to be released in the next couple of years will have DX9 backward compatibility (since majority of the users still have DX9 hardware). Therefore you will still be able to enjoy upcoming games even if you buy a DX9 series graphics adaptor, but you may not experience the graphics quality to the fullest (you might miss some detail settings which cannot be effectively implemented under DX9).

You can find XP drivers in DELL support site : 1720 Windows XP drivers

 

I have fretted over a similar decision for a few days now. The 1710 is available on the AAFES/military Dell website with the 7900GS and the 1440x900 LCD for $1580. It would cost $400 to add the 7950GTX. I think the 7900GS will drive any DX9 games I play at 1440x900 just fine. I don't think the 7900GS has enough horsepower to drive the same games at 1920x1200. I sold my XPS M170 a few months ago so I know the (very similar) M1710 is a solid build with, by the way, a DVI video out. Plus the 7900/7950 has known good XP drivers available - whereas the 8600 may have to use modded drivers if you expect to run XP. So, long round-about answer to your question, I would get the 1710 especially since its a known quantity. Edited to add: Didn't know Dell has XP drivers available for the 8600 - Good news.