Dell 17r N7720 SE - user review

Nice! Although, possible explanation is new thermal paste / better seated heatsink... still a win/win!

 

Considering you replaced the factory pad with new, better goop (what did you use?) , I would assume that your temps would go down. 4-5 degrees ain't shabby!

 

No. I had already replaced the paste with Arctic Silver 5 on the 3610QM and GPU. I cleaned the fan and heat sink again when installing the 3820QM. I put new arctic silver 5 and reassembled.

Temps were approx 60 degrees cpu and 50 degrees Gpu with the 3610, Now I get 54-55 degrees CPU and 45 degrees gpu with the 3820.

Go figure !!!

 

Your quoted temps are idle temps, startup temps, or max temps running something like Furmark, etc.??

 

Benchmark Preset 1080 on Furmark, gives 67 Degrees CPU and 65 Degrees GPU

 

I meant the 54-55 CPU and 45 GPU you referenced. Idle temps, or at startup or when?

 

Lapton on for a few minutes, with minor use. Internet surfing, and a few more apps open. So pretty much idling...

 

Bump. Just wondering.

 

I dont get it, why are at dell not using better paste as default shipped in. My idle temps are 58-60CPU and 55GPU after 2hours browsing. In heavy games CPU and GPU are attacking 90degrees with no overclocking. Cmon, its just a paste for 10euro...
If I buy it myself, will dell servisman come to me and apply it for free,when I ask them??

 

I don’t know if I have a weak piece or if it’s the 90W adapter but mine is unstable at as low as 1050MHz. That’s why I settled for 970/2400MHz via the use of P0 state without forcing it because it downclocks when in idle. Here is a temperature comparison with the default state:
Photo Album - Imgur

So far I don’t need to overclock it but as tomas87 wrote above me I also hope to apply some better cooling paste when I ask Dell to clean it for me.

 

tomas87...........buy a good high end thermal paste instead...........WAY more conductivity (this stock crap is....yeh crap)
i not even hit 90C if i bios mod and OC up to +3000 in 3dmark11.



zax............... ( yes of course it depends of your 90W.........it dont have enough with current to push up everything, especially if you OC)
buy a 130W adapter (the new slim model who comes with 7720 i7 is awesome)......

i OCed my m1710 with a 90W adapter one time....he he (i could fries eggs one it)

 

Thank you for the clarification and sorry for the confusion i probably caused

 

Are you after an OC to get a good 3DMark11 score, or an OC for heavy gaming? IMO, two different things entirely. With just a short benchmark, you should be good to OC to around 1000-1100MHz. There is a dedicated 650M thread on this forum, check it out, some impressive overclocks and benchmark scores are achievable with this GPU.

As for the 7720 and heavy gaming, to be honest there is not much room to OC, even with replaced thermal paste. If the game in question does not stress the GPU too much, there is little reason to OC anyway. However, if you're barely getting 20fps in a new gen game on 1080p/FSAA, chances are your GPU is doing as much as it can and getting plenty hot doing it. I can usually go up to around 900MHz max (using MSI Afterburner, not that it matters), before I run out of headroom in terms of keeping the GPU under 90C.

For ex. LA Noire on full eye candy, 1080p, 4xAA, the GPU was usually around 80C (75-83C, 35-45fps, depending on the scene) on stock clocks (835MHz). I could OC to around 870MHz, but then I was right up against the limit....

 

I would recommend to OC only P0 state to maximum, which is 950MHZ i think, for heavy gaming and overall usability without changing voltage level, higher clock and changing P4 state is imho good only for benchmarking.
This laptot is performing well with 650m@660m, but performance is not your only concern. This is not a deskop PC, i wouldn´t dare to change the voltage level at all for just few points gain.

 

Well, as I said in the overclocking thread, the i7 configuration drains about 90W fully stressed. I misread the power drain of my i5 so it’s possible that what I save there gets eat up by the overclocking the GPU. I’m happy with the 90W adapter because of the size and I didn’t buy the laptop just for gaming, otherwise I’d get an actual DTR. It’s just than I didn’t intend to overclock at all and now I found out that this core is quite easy to overclock, just not for me for some reason. I'll deal with it later on when I start needing the boost.

 

the new Slim 130W adapter is actually thinner then the standard 90W (i have several of them...(older, newer) i know)...it just slightly taller and wider....

by the way....my 7720 i7 Rig eats definitely more then 90W......(first, i have the True life screen which eats a bit more Watt then the matte does)

second what kind of software do you measures/see the watt consumption with ???? (a few of them is totally incorrect i can tell you)

 

There is no software to measure energy consumption. You can either take an educated guess, based on consumption of individual components, or you actually measure the current going into the PSU, using a clamp meter or something similar. ...strange you did not know this, seeing as you can eyeball the watts being consumed by your laptop so accurately

....on an unrelated note, Intel released an updated driver for the Centrino Wireless-N 2230. Anyone know what changed? It's being pushed out with today's Windows Update, and seems there is a pretty recent version on DELL's website as well. As always, absolutely no information about what the update is for.... reason I ask, my experience with drivers is they usually do more harm than good with updates.. anyone want to risk it and report back?

 

My i5 7720, config in sig, drains 80W from the mains outlet running furmark with cpu limited with the 99% trick. Display at 80%, wlan on, etc.
I'm running a Dell 130W slim adapter. The original normal 90W Dell adapter was getting hot in load and had some annoying clicking. I still have it, but i keep it in my backpack for the rare occasions the laptop will travel.

Edit: The power consumption was measured with a "Voltcraft ® Energy Logger 4000"

 

Machine arrived today! Switched up from 15R SE. From scratch the display, sound are much better. In terms of the spec this means one more hard drive (SSD+HDD upgrade potential); on paper its speakers are better and 300mhz extra cpu power does come in handy. The keypad has a bit more flex in the middle than 5720, and trackpad has less travel.

All it needs is SSD and backit keypad. Will post back soon.

 

I updated mine. Shows as 15.4.0.11. Not sure what was fixed, either, but it works fine. Wondering, though, how well a Killer 1202 Dual Band Wireless-N adapter would work? Would the F2 key still toggle the radios on/off with an Atheros card?
I had Killer-N in my Alienware M18xR2 and I liked it. This 2230 not being dual band kinda sucks.

 

You lose bluetooth with the killer card...

 

1202 has bluetooth. 1102 does not. Both are dual-band, dual antenna.

 

So how well do you guys think this laptop will do with the new games of 2013 thatll soon be released such as GTA 5? Also how does it perform with newer already released games such as Black Ops 2?

 

Anyone with com surrogate error when windows starts ? Any way to fix it ?

 

this laptop will be enough till the new generation of consoles released.

 

Works for me

 

well, with stock settings i play crysis 2 in 1080p medium/low settings and BF3 in 1080p also with medium/low settings

with my mod i play both this games in high settings... games in 2013 just going to be more and more gpu demanding....

................i already planning to a buy a Sager laptop with
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ $1400 (free shipping)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 670MX GPU with 3GB GDDR5 Video Memory

750GB 7200rpm SATA3 with 8GB SSD Secondary Hybrid Hard Drive

8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 2 X 4GB

3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM Processor ( 6MB L3 Cache, 2.40GHz

17.3" Full HD LED-Backlit Display featuring 90% NTSC Color Gamut (1920 x 1080)

i need a really great screen...this suppose to be as good as a True life (maybe slightly better)...cost me $150 extra
.....never had a Sager before....hope it has great build quality (i have Swedish support..thats fine)

 

WOW.....now its the time to buy 17R special edition.....................DELL now offers True life screen on nearly all configurations, (even the cheapest has true life, 900p though, still great colour gamut)

(usually its a £150-200 extra cost to get true life)

 

i have seen true life next to my anti-glare and the reflection is huge dealbreaker for me, colors are maybe more vibrant on true life, but that´s all. Even if the color gamut would be higher, which is not, unwanted reflections kills the whole potencial for photo editing and photoshop.
But i think it depends on personal taste.

 

I just returned the 17R SE that arrived 5 days ago, I decided to try it out before deciding to return it (in the case I find the laptop too good to resist).

My impressions of the 17R SE compared to my Y570:

The screen being 1080p and 17.3" is two worlds better than my Y570 15.6" screen, enough said.

The keyboard on the other hand is not as good the Y570's keyboard, the Y570's keyboard feels a lot more natural and the keys have better feedback.

Overall the touchpad is better then the Y570's touchpad, the trackpad is bigger and smoother however the touchpad buttons and driver software is not as good as the Y570's.

Surprisingly the overall sound on the 17R SE is better than my Y570's sound, the subwoofer adds nice base to the good speakers (JBL speakers alone on the Y570 is better) and at high volume really fills the room; however the the WaveMaxx driver software has glitches not as good as the Realtek sound manger with SRS Premium on the Y570.

When it comes to CPU performance, the 17R SE's 3630QM slightly beats out my 2760QM in performance (10% real world), however my 2760QM has VT-d, Trusted Execution and unofficially supports DDR3-2133 on the Y570.

The HD 4000 on the 3630QM runs at 1150Mhz (DDR3-1600 max for 17R SE) which is not any faster then my HD 3000 at 1300Mhz on my 2760QM (DDR3-2133 max), however the HD 4000 does support DirectX 11 and Shader 5.0.

The GT 650M is 25% faster (real world) than my GT 555M, however considering the lowest resolution (1600x900) anyone would want games to play on the 17R SE, the GT 650M at 1600x900 does not perform any better than the GT 555M at 1366x768 (native on my Y570).

All things taken into consideration with the time had playing with the 17R SE, I decided it's not worth the money to upgrade from my Y570 basically just for the screen alone (no noticeably performance gains if any) and just stick to my plan on using the money on getting my bed frame and mattress replaced.

 

Wow, I'm surprised you're going back. Once I upgraded to a 1080p AG 17'' screen, I knew there was no going back. It's such a huge boost to productivity and ease of use. A lot less time switching between applications, less time scrolling texts and websites, much easier to view full pages of PDFs, enough screen estate to have two windows open side by side, photos and movies look a lot better, games as well when run in native resolution.... To me, the quality of the screen is the number one feature of a laptop, and the 7720's screen is especially good, compared to other laptops in this price range.

 

Nice recap.
I have seen Y570 only in store, so i cant say anything about ergonomy and keyboard feedback.
But have you considered 22nm process during your comparsion (fermi vs kepler)? It means much less heat and more efficiency.

 

Hello everyone.
Would you say an Inspiron 17R SE with an additional SSD is better than Samsung's 700z7c?
I can't decide between these two...

 

I've owned both (acutally owned 3 700Z7C's....)

In my book the 700Z7C is the best, except the WIFI $UCKS DONKEY BALL$$. I replaced 3 of them due to extremely short wifi range and very unstable signal strength. Yes I did try different wifi card (two different intels, one that I know to be very good and one atheros), so it's the antenna placement that's the issue, not the card. This issue alone made the computer useless for me, could only use it in half my apartment, disconnects during gaming etc.

But beside that 700Z7C is better, screen is as good, keyboard is a lot better and backlit, battery time is a lot better, sound is a lot better. It's lighter and thinner and better looking. Trackpad is worse though (or well clickpads in general is crap). Noise wise they are about same, Dell has better cooling - so the samsung gets a bit hot around the keyboard, but CPU/GPU tems are acceptable on both.

Since I couldn't get the 700Z7C to work for me I went for the inspiron - to me the "second best" alternative. I'va also had an Asus N56VZ - and that one too had its own issues.

No laptop is perfect, you just have to deside which flaws that you can live with.

 

To me a laptop is meant to be mobile (17.3" is fine for use at home, not much moving around), yes the extra screen estate makes a big difference for productivity but no worth it (expensive upgrade) if you have other means to work productivity (desktop PC at home).

Thanks for reading my post.

I have considered the 22nm process and fermi vs kepler. The 17R SE runs about the same temperatures as the Y570 with fan on normal and slightly higher than the Y570 with fan on high (Y570 has fan control and 3 settings), so the whole reduced process thing only works of the laptops have exactly the same heatsink/fan configuration.

As for power efficiency, the 3630QM and 2760QM are both 45 watts TDP and the GT 555M and GT 650M are both 55 watts TDP; probably no real gain in efficiency.

Don't get me wrong it's the most ideal 17.3" laptop so far that I would consider (price/performance ratio) but being served as an upgrade to my Y570 just for the bigger screen alone doesn't fit the bill for me.

 

valid arguments about processors - there are no major changes in architecture (sandy vs ivy)
but look at results of these graphics cards - NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M - Notebookcheck.net Tech has only 5381 in 3dmark vantage GPU score, not sure about overclocking potencial, but 650M is easily clockable to 660m level, which means more than 10000 points in vantage gpu score. Huge difference. Iam not a big fan of benchmarks, but in lot of games, there is almost 80% difference between these two;-)

But you right, 17.3 is pretty heavy and bulky for transport, so it´s a deskop replacement first and it doesn´t compete with mobile laptops, which is different category.

 

New BIOS A12 is out.

 

I got "invalid File I.D. The file does not exist."" error.. :/

 

Any idea what's changed/fixed?

 

i hope they solved gpu boost bug....

 

1. System reliability improvement
2. Add Diagnostic tool panel test feature

 

Some games goes up to 60%, not a lot like you've suggested. The majority of games stick around 30% faster which when played on a 1600x900 resolution only equals a 555M at 1366x768. Increase in resolution lowers the frames a lot and in some cases more than increase frames difference between the 555M and 650M: ASUS GeForce GTX 650 Ti Direct Cu II 1 GB Review | techPowerUp

Check out GTX 650 Ti at 1650x1050 vs. HD 7850 at 1920x1200 from same link above, despite the fact the HD 7850 is up to 60% faster than the GTX 650 Ti they are about the same performance when going up in resolution.

If we're talking a XPS 17 with GT 555M at 1600x900 vs. a 17R SE with 650M at 1600x900 then yeah the GT 650M will up to 60% faster but when talking a Y570 with GT 555M at 1366x768 vs. 17R SE with 650M at 1600x900 then they are about equal.

 

So how many years do you all think this laptops GPU will be able to play current games at OK quality?

 

right, 1920x1080 (17R 7720 SE) needs more gpu power, so the advantage of 650m is reduced, but still - look at this video for example - GT555M vs GT650M Battlefield 3 comparison video (FPS) [GT 555m vs GT 650m] Game test - YouTube -- same resolution and settings - 650m vs 555m.
555m suffers with higher fps drops.

Also there are more benchmarks done by users here on forums - http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...minary-benchmarks-up-67-faster-than-555m.html

 

GPU boost bug wasn´t solved even after updating to A12...
i have created a post here - Dell Inspiron 7720 SE - Gpu boost is turning off - Laptop General Hardware Forum - Laptop - Dell Community
it would help if anyone else confirms in this topic, that the bug is still there. I think Dell doesn´t take this seriously and still thinks its overheating protection...

 

Thanks. I urge every owner of a 7720 to register and leave a comment on Pada1's thread on Dell's forum. I think we need to make a push for this issue to get noticed again. Complaining here is obviously getting us nowhere

 

The antiglare screen sucks. One of the worst I have ever used. What brand is your screen? Mine is Chimei CMN1720 and it's positively useless. It has no detail in bright areas and darker areas are almost completely black. My old dell XPS laptop has a much better screen. If I saw the screen before buying instead of reading reviews, I would have never bought this machine.

 

I read of another 7720 user with that same screen complaining about poor quality. Is yours a 1080p or 900p screen? I think most 7720's with 1080p have the excellent LG panel. It's a remarkable panel with great color accuracy, near perfect sRGB from what I've read. The hardware ID in device manager for the LG is LGD02DA.

 

Weird. Maybe yours is defective?
To be honest, I'm exactly on the other side of the fence on this issue: i really love my CMN1720 while i really hated the 900p true life screen on the previous 17R SE which went into package and back to the store after only a couple of hours of usage.

 

I thought there was a temp fix or way around the bug now?