Dell Refurbished VS Dell Deals

Hey, this is my first post here.

I've been lurking and reading and reading some more of the reviews and comments that this forum is so rich with.

I have finally limited my options for a laptop to two options and I'd appreciate it very much if you could help me pick which one.

Now to the juicy stuff.

Dell Refurbished
Approximating between $2400~2600 + $150 Shipping (just the laptop)

Certified Refurbished
Dell XPS M1710
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7200 (2GHz/667MHz/4MB)
2 GB DDR2 SDRAM 677MHz (2 DIMMs)
512MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX
100 GB EIDE Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
17 inch (Formula Red Chassis) UltraSharp Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife
Weight (lbs): 8.71
3 Year Warranty

I am opting for a Formula Red Chassis as there is a higher chance that these are newer than the black, and new = good .


Dell.com
$1,987.20 + $130 for shipping (just for laptop)

E1705
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB)
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (Is 667MHz worth $100 more with these specs?)
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS
100GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife
Weight (lbs): 7.94
3 Year Warranty

So please, give me advice
The biggest difference is the graphics card, is it really worth the extra cash? (Bare in mind, it is a refurbished price)

P.S
As I don't live in the US, I need to get at least 3 years of warranty to get it transferred overseas, so the only warranty option I have is (complete care is not available here)
So you suggest 3 years or 4 years? (Will be going with 4 years from dell.com since they offer a $70 coupon and it's $70 extra)

P.P.S
How do you know if your eligible for the $125 MAIL-IN DIM REBATE from Dell? (Before purchasing)

P.P.P.S
Is it worth $100 to upgrade the processor?

 

I have no experience with Dell refurbished notebooks, therefore I cant say anything about that. Here is a review comparing mobile 7900GTX vs 7900GS, since there is not much of a difference between 7900GTX and a 7950GTX, you can take that review as a very close approximation. According to that graphics performance difference is roughly about 25%. Almost proportional to the price (if you don't consider the refurbished factor)

Edit : And welcome to the forum

 

Typically the Dell deals are better than the refurbished units. With you being over seas it might be different. It might help if you posted which country you are in.

 

^ I wouldn't be so sure about Dell deals being better than refurbs... If you can wait, wait for another 10-20% off Dell outlet coupon. They usually come out every month or so and only last for a few days. You can usually buy a coupon off ebay for $2-3. And it will save you tons of money! The last coupon dell had was several weeks ago, and it was 15% off all Insprons and Dell outlet notebooks. Just think... that $2500USD notebook would only cost a little over $2100 with the 15% off.

I would not spend any more money on upgrading the CPU. The T7200 is the perfect balance between price and performance. The 1.86 for example only has 2MB's of cache. But the T7200 has 4MB's.

When going from the 7900GS to the 7950GTX your gaining several things. The first is 4 more pixel pipelines. 20 vs. 24. The second would be the most obvious 256MB's VS 512MB's. Lastly the Memory and Core clock on the 7950GTX is a decent amount higher. I would agree that you'd notice about 20-25% increase in performance.

 

I live in New Zealand. (The land of the long white cloud )

Thanks for the review Phoenix

The Dell E1705 laptop is the price after their $368 off, 20% off coupon (saw a 25%er so will definitely try and get that).

I will be buying from Dell US via an uncle, as it has deals that surpass the deals available here by a considerable margin.

I read a review that the Go 7900 GS for a desktop can be overclocked to actually perform (nearly) at the level of the 7900GTX.
What's the story with this for the laptop?

Also how do battery life compare for the 7900GTX, the stock 7900GS and the overclocked 7900GS compare?

 

To me it really depends on your needs. The XPS is really a gaming laptop. It has the beefier video card. I have read in other posts that the video card in the XPS is equiped with two pipes for cooling versus just one in the E1705. In addition it can support 4GB of RAM versus the 2GB for the E1705.

As you have stated though, the video card on the E1705, 7900 GS, is easy to overclock. I have done it myself. Will games still be very playable - most definitely.

What are you going to use the laptop for? If you are not a serious gamer, I say save a few bucks and go with the E1705. If the latest greatest video card is a must however, the XPS is the one.

 

Have you noticed considerable difference from the overclocking?

Also now with the 15% in discount, the price has become around $2100~$2300.

Decision decisions >.<

 

I am not a game player unfortunately. I have a wife and too many kids for those things

I overclocked really just for the sake of trying it. My 3DMark06 scores went from around 3500 to 3800. That works out to about a 8% gain. Again, I only did a small overclock just for the sake of trying. I was not near as aggressive as people have posted here in other threads.