KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
First indications from the Windows Experience Index show that the machine performance is limited to the mechanical hard drive, which is a 7,200 rpm Samsung unit with 16mb of cache.
The software installation isn't too bad, although as always Dell include McAfee, an immediate deinstall for us. While we also appreciate the fact that Skype and other social networking software is preinstalled, we do wish Dell would offer a ‘bare bones' software configuration like some of the smaller, dedicated system builders in the UK.
The Intel Core i7 840QM is at the heart of this machine. This is a £280 optional upgrade from the 740QM processor. Both are 4 core designs with Hyperthreading (4 physical, 4 logical), but the 840QM has an additional 2MB of cache (8MB) and runs at 1.86ghz, an increase from the 1.73ghz of the 740QM.
The nVidia Geforce GT 435m handles the Dell XPS 15 graphics. It has 16 ROPs, 96 unified shaders with a hefty 2GB of GDDR3 onboard tied into a 128 bit bus. The core runs at 650mhz and the memory at 800mhz with shaders running at 1300mhz. This will be no gaming powerhouse, but it should manage most titles at moderate or lowish settings. The screen is a full 1080p panel (they do offer 720p screens in the configuration tool), so the GT 435M has a fair amount of pixels to push if you want to game at the native resolution. Intel HD graphics are also onboard and with nVidia's Optimus technology it will switch between both, depending on the task at hand.
There is 4GB of Samsung PC3-10700 (1333mhz) memory installed which is running at 9-9-9-24 1T timings.
That really is a fucking sweet laptop. even without the bluray and dropping down a CPU, its under a grand. t hat is excellent.
Always great when I get a new Kitguru review alert on Twitter 🙂 awesome review man and that is a hell of a good looking machine. I am not sure im sold on the appearance, that two tone thing looks a bit messy, id prefer it was darker, like the front, but I suppose you arent looking at the underside much. the intel core i7 cpu is great.
Wow that Intel QM CPU blows me away
Well what a great stoke of luck. I was looking at this machine on christmas eve and didnt know if it was going to suck. ill aim for a lower specification than this, but I need a new laptop for 2011 for work, and ill bill it to the company (just need to keep it realistic).
Excellent, I like the skins, some really cool looking ones
njice to see dell reviews here, only thing I will say is that I have had a terrible time with dell batteries failing after 18 months to 2 years time. Not sure if it has been a batch, but google shows quite a few people seeing the same thing.
excellent machine, I just bought an Acer for £500 quid in PCWORLD though :p
Great machine, however, Dell took away the 1080P screen option though! Hopefully dell will have that option back soon, or else the CPU and the GPU will be wasted! (This option is back in other country except for the US)
They actually arent selling the 1080p machine in the UK either? what happened?
I think the 1080p machine is available in parts of europe now, but it might be due to 1080p screen demands and lack of stock. very unusual to pull a system mid range though.
The 1080p option will be back at some stage. Dell said this “We still offer the screen but had to temporarily take it offline as our supplier had to de-commit on certain quantities. It can still be ordered over the phone if one doesn’t mind an extended lead time. “
The 1080p option is back in Canada
Conservative design in my opinion, and it’s even kinda of thick for laptops nowadays.