Getting a Dell... seeking some advice!

Hey everyone.

In the next week or so, i will be ordering myself, most likely, a Dell XPS Gen 2 laptop. (from dell.ca).

Anyways, the system specs of this laptop will be as follows:
the basics for this laptop,
with Windows XP Pro
with the dvd burner
with a personalization kit
internal 2.0 bluetooth
and the a/b/g wireless network card.
3 year next buisness day complete care warrenty.

So that means, as of right now, i am keeping the memory at 512megs of DDR2 and a 60 gig HD (rpm not stated).

Anyways, as I am fairly new to the laptop scene, I did some research and determined that this XPS is a thing of beauty. But there are a few things that i would like to upgrade in the future [this includes getting more ram, and a bigger, faster (7200 rpm) Hard Drive]. This is due to financial reasons and dells' overpriced upgrades.

But there is a problem. I cannot seem to find 7200 HD's anywhere. I have done some research on that and have discovered that Hitachi will be releasing their 7200 rpm laptop drives this summer, but what I couldn't find was the approximate price for these. What I am asking, is if anyone could help me generate a ball park figure for these new drives (for the 60, 80 and 100 gig versions).

Also, are there any brands of DDR2 laptop memory that you guys recommend?

/me begins rant
O, and one more thing.. Just to give myself some piece of mind.. am I making the correct choice with this xps gen 2? i mean.. how long do we figure before this laptop becomes obsolete and not powerful enough to play modern games at near highest settings? Or should i just hold off, wait for dual core 64 bit lappies to come out, and just buy myself a sub $1000 12"-screened lappy. This laptop was supposed to be a desktop replacement, as I was not planning on bringing my desktop to uni in the fall, but if it would be wise to hold off, im sure i could squeeze my desktop into my ever so cramped dorm room... My Gaming will be light since I will be swamped with engineering hwk , but it would be a bonus to be able to bring this to lan parties, and to travel with it.
/me ends rant

And last of all, what do you think of the overall setup? decent enough?
Thanks again!


raven

newegg / directron all carry the 7200 RPM drives already. and i would think most other onlien store

you can get them in 60g and 40g and their new 100g should be out soon.

The laptop is a great one the XPS and insprion 9300 are more or less the same - i have an insprion 9100 and it kicks some butt :d

you got a good 2 years of good use out of it in terms of gaming, in terms of everything else , heck, 3,4 years.

He's in canada, so no go on newegg. To be honest, if you get a 5400rpm 8meg or 16meg cache harddrive you really don't need to upgrade it. The cpu is rarely the limit nowadays unless you do crazy rendering and stuff like that. The videocard is what will be obsolete first and a 6800ultra will last you quite a while. You made a good purchase.

A couple of quick notes...

A 7200RPM HDD will run you close to the cost of upgrading to Dell's 7200RPM 60GB, so unless you absolutely need more storage than that, I'd go ahead and pick it up. If you do it yourself, you will end up with an extra 60GB 4200-5400RPM drive, but uh... the hell are you going to do with a 2.5" drive In all seriousness, unless you have a use for it or require more than 60GB, I think this is the way to go.

On the RAM, just keep in mind that you're screwed into buying pairs of DIMMs no matter how much RAM you get. This means that there's no buying 512MB from Dell and slapping in another 512MB stick. Still a definite financial advantage to purchasing on your own, but a lot less than if you could get away with only buying one DIMM from Dell and one on your own.

As far as your choice goes, I just bought a 9300 myself. It's currently on the UPS truck coming to my apartment. Your money versus performance ratio should be what decides the 9300 or the XPS 2. Keep in mind that while the higher res screen of the XPS 2 is nice for day to day tasks, it's going to force you (at least if you care about visual quality) to run games at that resolution. I intentionally did not get the higher res screen on my 9300 because of this.

Other than that, keep in mind that in the end you're basically paying an extra $300 or so for a 6800Go Ultra and a bunch of LEDs. The Ultra is nothing to scoff at, but when you take a look at what most people are scoring with the 9300/XPS 2s after they're overclocked, the difference seems to be between 500 and 1000 3DMark05 marks. Nothing to scoff at, but you aren't buying a whole hell of a lot more upgrade time with 1000 3DMark05 marks.

If you're willing to spend the cash, get the XPS 2. You come away with the fastest CPU the 9300s can upgrade to and a better GPU without upgrading a thing. But if you're really concerned about cash, spend that $300 difference on the 7200RPM HDD and RAM on a 9300.

Regardless, it's a solid choice. Unless you're right on the brink of a huge upgrade (ie buying a 9800 Pro the day before the 6800s came out), I don't think it's worth the time to wait... especially with laptops. Laptops are time released, disposable technology.

^^^^^ I'm in no way being forced to run my 9300 at 1900 by 1250... I can use whatever resolution I want and with the upgraded screen all the other resolutions look really crisp and clean except for 800x600 and lower (and who uses those resolutions when they got 1900x1250)?


see my sig for my current ocin results... I will be in the 5000 club before the end of the week and I hope I can push it to 6000 after I oc this laptop to 2.26ghz


for $1400 and a little modding/overclocking I can get allmost an equivilant performance to the XPS 2 which starts at 2600.






As for memmory recommendations... I bought a 1gb stick of trancend memmory from newegg for $101 and it's awsome in my 9300. it has a 5 egg out of 5 egg rating in the newegg reviews.

I'm with them above me. Although the specs seem very good, I would just go with a i9300 and get the better screen and better gpu, and then upgrade later.

Of course what this would mean is does ddr2 really mean that much to you? As far as I remember the i9300 uses ddr not ddr2 (due to the differences in the chipsets). But it doesn't mean you can't get close to the same performance.

^^^^ my laptop is currently running 200 pin dual channell ddr2 trancend memmory.

OK.... well I stand corrected. More the reason to get an i9300 instead. Save some $$$ and get better upgrades in the future.

Don't forget to get a good battery, it makes all the difference.

ozzlo - any links on how you overclocked your system?

I only overclocked my graphics card as of right now...


if you want to overclock your graphics card you should go visit www.laptopvideo2go.com and click on instructions link on the left to figure out how to install new custom forceware drivers. I am running currently the 76.50 driver and check my sig for up to date sucuessful clockspeed.





I'm currently in the process of buying an (overclockable processor) that runs at 400mhz instead of 533mhz so I can trick it into thinking that it is a 533mhz processor and thus receive a 33% overclock.





later on I plan on making a Pentium-m full volt modding and overclocking guide with pages and pages of tables and charts.

I would just like to thank all of you for you're help so far.

Going back to the Hard Drives. I called dell tech support and they told me that the rotation speed of my HD will be 4200 unless otherwise ordered (as in a 7200 which costs too much $$$ to upgrade to) and about the cache, my tech support guy was unsure since it "didnt state it anywhere in his tech manual". but most of the notebook drives ive seen had atleast 8 meg cache. So lets hope for the best on this one.

If the promotions on dell's site do not get any better this comming week, then i will be forced to make a purchase tomorrow. I am still currently in 'a pickle' of a situation between the price performance difference between the 9300 and the XPS Gen-2. To be honest with all of you, i do not know much about these laptop cpu's and havent seen many graphs comapring each different speed grade. Could anyone plz help me compre the performance difference between a 1.86 to a 2.0 to a 2.13 centrino (533 FSB)?? im just curious if it is indeed worth the upgrade.

If i do end up getting the XPS Gen-2, it will most likely best my current desktop system (look below) in things such as gaming, but how will it do in video rendering? Does the speed of video rendering relate directly to the raw speed of the processor? or do L2 cache and FSB also create significant bottlenecks? If at all possible, could someone help me compare the performance differences of video rendering between the different speed grades of the centrino and my current set up (in my sig).?

In the end I would definately like to save some money but if the performance differences are justified in me spending the extra $$$, i will opt into getting the XPS.

One last thing. I havent actually seen an XPS or a 9300 in person. I was wondering if there are any stores that carry dells or anywhere where i could compare the size and weight to different laptops. (its always nice having something to compare to)


raven

The only places I know of where you can see and touch different laptops are CompUSA and the like, and as far as I know they don't carry Dell laptops. You might be limited to just imagining the size based on measurements and something that weighs the same as the listed weight. Just be ready for a big notebook. I have the 6000 which is somewhat smaller than the 9300/XPS2 and it is really bigger than I expected. I know that personally I would not have been happy with any larger of a system.

I have the 9300 with the 6800 card. I put a 400FSB CPU in and pin modded the socket with wire, now the 1.7 runs at 2.26 and I can undervolt too. I would not spend the extra money on the XPS 2... not worth it to me. An OC'd 6800 in the 9300 will almost equal the Ultra in the XPS... and that is the only difference and the giga lan on the XPS. Battery life is horrible on the XPS, where on my 9300 I get about 3.5 hours with the 9 cell battery (the stock battery for the xps is 9cell, 6 cell for the 9300) and the xps gets maybe 1.25 hours on battery. Ram, HD's, CPU's and even the graphics card can all be upgraded...

DELL EVIL
Pm me raven if you wanted to know why I said this

Dell is not evil - everyone comapny has their own faults and Dell is not perfect - but they are not evil.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?p=3836304&posted=1#post3836304

post 64

The 9300 is quite large- 17" Wide screen, nearly the width of a standard 104 key keyboard. I wouldn't get the 9300 if portability is an issue.

no the XPS or 9300 is literally a "desktop" replacement. the m700 are for portability.

for some reason It feels like my 9300 is lighter than my 15" 8600... I know it's not possible but it's kinda weird.

My Ideal laptop would include a geforce 6800, a 1.86GHz centrino with 533 FSB, 80 gig 5400 HD, 1 gig of DDR2 (2 dimms), 15" widescreen top of the line LCD, would come with a 3 year completecare warrenty, would weigh approximately 6 lbs and cost around $2000 (canadian).

To bad there is no such laptop out there. =(

The reason (ive decided not to get the XPS since it is out of my price range) i am now looking at the 9300 is because it comes with the 6800 and is somewhat lighter and cheaper than the alienware computers. It comes with the completecare warrenty from dell and utilizes a very nice screen. It is a bit bigger and heavier then I would have wanted in a laptop, but so far, it has been the only one which can offer me most of the requirements of my ideal comp. So as of right now, the 9300 is at the top of my list.

I searched around dell's website and came across a section on dell stores (booths actually) and have located one in my area. I will head off tomorrow to go and check out what they have, and hopefully, they will have a 9300 for me to take a look at =).

bitethebullet: I have read ur posts but do not believe that dell is "evil". I realize that every company does have its flaws, and what happened to you was unfortunate, but there are many satisfied dell customers out there, and i will be taking my chances to end up as one of them. (unless someone can find me a better computer elsewhere).


Anyways, i still have a few questions i would like to get off my head.
1) I know it hasnt been possible to overclock a laptop in the past through means of raising the FSB, but with the speedstep technology in the centrinos, would it be possible to permanently over/down clock the cpu through bios or any software program? If so, then how?

2) I was wondering if anyone could compare say the 9300 from dell to my current set up (shown below). What would be better at what and for what reason? (im just trying to get a firmer grasp on all of this laptop technology).
Thanks for any help!