Help Merk Build His Laptop

[Merkinball]

Alrighty guys, the time has come, my XPS M1210 is pretty much kaput. I need a new laptop. I'm thinking $1500 range but I am open spending more if someone can convince me that the power will be worth it.

A couple things I'd like it to:
Run Windows 7 nicely.
Run large cities in Sim City 4 nicely.
Run ANSYS
Run complex MATLAB functions
Do well with Photoshop

After talking with computer nerds at school, most of them have steered me to Dell. I vowed not to buy another Dell, but word on the street is that they've picked up their game again.

My primary questions revolve around memory options and PCU options, and 2 different PC choices

One is the Studio XPS 16: There are two different base models with different options available:

http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/performancedeals-/fs.aspx?refid=performance-deals&s=dhs&cs=19

The "Top Customer Pick" Has the following options I'm interested in:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T6600 (2MB cache/2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB) [Included in Price]

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9600 (6MB cache/2.8GHz/1066Mhz FSB) [add $300 or $9/month1]
Dell Recommended

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8700 (3MB cache/2.53GHz/1066Mhz FSB) [add $125 or $4/month1]

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9900 (6MB cache/3.06GHz/1066Mhz FSB) [add $575 or $17/month1]

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8800 (3MB cache/2.66GHz/1066Mhz FSB) [add $175 or $5/month1]

Memory

4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1067MHz (2 Dimms) [Included in Price]
5GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1067MHz (2 Dimms) [add $135 or $4/month1]
6GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1067MHz (2 Dimms) [add $160 or $5/month1]
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1067MHz (2 Dimms) [add $310 or $9/month1]

I will have about $300 in options if I go this route as I will be upgrading to ATI Mobility RADEON™ HD 4670

The second choice has the following options with the ATI HD 4670 standard:

Intel® Core™ i5-520M (2.40GHz, 4Threads, turbo boost up to 2.93Ghz, 3M cache) [Included in Price]
May delay your Studio XPS 16 ship date

Intel® Core™ i5-540M (2.53GHz, 4Threads, turbo boost up to 3.06Ghz, 3M cache) [add $60 or $2/month1]

Intel® Core™ i7-620M (2.66GHz, 4Threads, turbo boost up to 3.33Ghz, 4M cache) [add $180 or $6/month1]

The CPUs in both choices are totally different. What are the differences between these chips and the first PC's chips? What's preferred? And what the hell is power boost? Is it legit? Or a gimmick?

Memory options:

4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 [Included in Price]
6GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 [add $225 or $7/month1]
8GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 [add $375 or $12/month1]

Again, how do these options compare performance wise to the other upgrades?


So, which route should I go? I trust CFCers way more than Dell or some magazine. So what do you think I should do?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Dont get anything from Dell Home. ANYTHING.

Its pretty much guaranteed to die on your within a year. They have not picked up their game, they've instead gotten better at glamming stuff up so that it looks good. Dell's Home line has always been poo poo.

If you go with HP, Dell, Gateway or any of the other large manu's, get it from their business line.

Also, how much mobility do you want from this? How rough of a life is it going to have? Is it going to sit on a desk 90% of the day and the other 10% be in a nice and padded laptop case? Or is it going to be going about in your backpack? These questions should dictate how durable you need your laptop to be. If you're a gentle user, a laptop with lower build quality may save you some serious cash. Im not advising getting cheap, fall-apart-in-4-months laptops. then comes the question of specs. The HD4670 you have noted in your post is a good mid-range laptop GPU. Its not very power hungry and can most certainly play Sim City 4 (At least mine does >.>)

For the CPU, 2ghz+ i5 or i7 will be plenty fine. Most games will be GPU limited anyways.
FYI: Power boost is an automatic overclocking feature that, from what I've heard, works quite well.

RAM: get the minimum offered and buy the rest on your own. It will save you 10-15$ per GB.

 

[Grisu]

Dont get anything from Dell Home. ANYTHING.

Its pretty much guaranteed to die on your within a year. They have not picked up their game, they've instead gotten better at glamming stuff up so that it looks good. Dell's Home line has always been poo poo.

can't agree there. my first dell notebook (inspiron 8100) I retired after 5 years. the only thing that broke in that time was the battery

My second Dell notebook (Inspiron 9300) I bought in 2005, and it's still running like a charm, and it's not because I use it sparingly.

For my next Notebook I'll probably skip Dell since at the moment they can't seem to keep up with others (notably HP price-wise)

For the CPU, 2ghz+ i5 or i7 will be plenty fine. Most games will be GPU limited anyways.
FYI: Power boost is an automatic overclocking feature that, from what I've heard, works quite well.

from what I've heard the i7 isn't too well integrated into notebooks yet. Most I7-Notebooks suffer from excessive fanning/noise. I haven't been able to witness that myself, though.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

can't agree there. my first dell notebook (inspiron 8100) I retired after 5 years. the only thing that broke in that time was the battery

My second Dell notebook (Inspiron 9300) I bought in 2005, and it's still running like a charm, and it's not because I use it sparingly.

For my next Notebook I'll probably skip Dell since at the moment they can't seem to keep up with others (notably HP price-wise)


from what I've heard the i7 isn't too well integrated into notebooks yet. Most I7-Notebooks suffer from excessive fanning/noise. I haven't been able to witness that myself, though.

I dont personally know anyone who's Dell notebook from the home line survived more than a year. And when it died, support was long, tedious, stressful and generally a bad experience. Do yourself a favor and avoid that by going with their business lines.

Ill aslo note that Inspiron is part-business line. Studio is completely home line and complete crap at that.

Anyways, take as example. I still have a 9 year old Dell Latitude that works like the day it was bought. My Dad's Inspiron (which I dont know the model of unfortunately) has died 3 times in the last 2 years and the only thing that saved us a headache was that his workplace simply replaced it instead of making him wait for Dell's support to come through.

So, YMMV, but with Dell's, and practically anyone's home line, dont hope for more than average.

 

[GenMarshall]

I would not wanna touch a Dell after going through the headache with my old laptop eating up videocards.

 

[Cutlass]

Everyone I know who had a Dell laptop, the thing quit working, and Dell support insisted that it was a dead hard drive. They'd send out a new one, all data would be lost, and the problem would not be fixed.

 

[civ_king]

I would not wanna touch a Dell after going through the headache with my old laptop eating up videocards.

dang...

 

[Genocidicbunny]

dang...

Crappy quality coupled with a bad design can often lead to problems. Its a hallmark of Dell's and HP's.

 

[GenMarshall]

dang...

Heres the story. The laptop I had was branded an XPS series, what Dell says is there Gaming line computers. It was chugging along just fine until a year later when the video card crapped out. Had Dell fixed it (tech came in and installed a new video card), then kept chugging along fine till a year later (roughly around the time I started to get into Half-Life 2 and other Source Games) video card crapped out. Had the card replaced twice in the same month. Then I decided to get away from Dell and get myself a desktop.

 

[Merkinball]

Hmmmm, my experience with the homeline laptops hasn't involved anything in regards to stuff breaking because of poor manufacture. I've the current XPS (like what CivGeneral has) for 3 1/2 years. Although I've had to do many many reformats, the hardware itself has held up. And that computer has made multiple drips back forth overseas and spent 9 months in a dusty third world country. The XPS is just utterly worn out. The battery is totally shot from being too old, I broke the monitor because of my own stupidity, and it has no T key because I've worn the keyboard out.

My other laptop lasted probably three years too. That one died because of my own stupidity from leaving on a bed which caused it to overheat.

So far as frying hardware, I never had that problem.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Until you have a problem and have to spend 2 months without a laptop due to Dell's incompetence. Also, 3 1/2 years is not current. Its not last gen, its not even last-last-gen. Its ancient. 3 , maybe even 4 seasons can make a world of difference. Back then XPS was a high-end consumer model, on par with the lower business lines in terms of quality. Nowadays XPS is one of their cheapest lines, aimed at students and those who just dont know whack.

There are far better alternatives is what I'm saying.

 

[Grisu]

Until you have a problem and have to spend 2 months without a laptop due to Dell's incompetence. Also, 3 1/2 years is not current. Its not last gen, its not even last-last-gen. Its ancient. 3 , maybe even 4 seasons can make a world of difference. Back then XPS was a high-end consumer model, on par with the lower business lines in terms of quality. Nowadays XPS is one of their cheapest lines, aimed at students and those who just dont know whack.

There are far better alternatives is what I'm saying.

if you regard 3.5 year old hardware as 'ancient' I wager you just have too much money

seriously, you could probably find somebody who says what you just said about dell about any notebook manufacutor...

a German computer magazine that I read (C't) yearly makes a customer survey where users can rate several brand's hardware quality, number of times where support was needed and support quality, etc...Dell often finishes at or near the top, so they can't be that bad.

of course, the home lines are never as relieable as the business lines, but that's the case with pretty much any manufacturer, no need to single one out...

 

[Genocidicbunny]

if you regard 3.5 year old hardware as 'ancient' I wager you just have too much money

Im a college student. I don't have too much money by definition.

Also, it's not I that considers it ancient, its the manufacturer. They release new models yearly in two major seasons from what I have seen. Start of year right after CES and before the school year starts.

seriously, you could probably find somebody who says what you just said about dell about any notebook manufacutor...

Probably, but I can also find people who still say the Earth is flat.

a German computer magazine that I read (C't) yearly makes a customer survey where users can rate several brand's hardware quality, number of times where support was needed and support quality, etc...Dell often finishes at or near the top, so they can't be that bad.

How do they collect this information, who do they collect it from? Dell has a slight upper hand in these surveys in that a lot of employers provide their employee's with Dell Business notebooks, which are of pretty good quality. This can affect the ratings.
We're talking about Dell Home, not Dell overall. Overall, Dell is not a bad company. They make excellent monitors for one, pretty much some of the best you can get.

of course, the home lines are never as relieable as the business lines, but that's the case with pretty much any manufacturer, no need to single one out...

Sure, I agree with you there, but there's also a grade separation between the different companies. Some don't do too bad at all, others like Dell you should try to stay away from if you can.

 

[Grisu]

How do they collect this information, who do they collect it from? Dell has a slight upper hand in these surveys in that a lot of employers provide their employee's with Dell Business notebooks, which are of pretty good quality. This can affect the ratings.
We're talking about Dell Home, not Dell overall. Overall, Dell is not a bad company. They make excellent monitors for one, pretty much some of the best you can get.

it's a reader poll, so the people taking part in it will mostly be IT professionals. So you might be right that a lot of them owned the business lines.

Sure, I agree with you there, but there's also a grade separation between the different companies. Some don't do too bad at all, others like Dell you should try to stay away from if you can.

fair enough

 

[damunzy]

May I humbly a Lenovo IdeaPad? The Lenovo IdeaPad Y550p is a pretty nice laptop. I just got one for my wife and it runs smoothly.

Pros:
Least expensive Core i7 on the market. $999.99 @ NewEgg (I need to become an affiliate!)
Light weight (compared to my HP beast which is about 5 y/o )

Cons:
Resolution is wonky (weird size) and lower than I like.
Not really a 'gaming' laptop.
Not really configurable.
Lots of crapware loaded (trial software and Lenovo programs).
No recovery disc or Windows OEM install disc (at least didn't come for my wife's computer).

I know there are more Cons than Pros but overall I give the Y550P good marks, I am just better at pointing out problems.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834146613&Tpk=y550p
Summary:

Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Processor ( 2.80GHz 1333MHz 6MB )
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64
NVIDIA GeForce GT 240M 1024MB
4 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz
15.6 " HD Wide LED 1366x768
Industry Standard Touchpad
320GB 5400
DVD Recordable (Dual Layer)

Details:

Model
Brand lenovo
Series IdeaPad
Model Y550P(324156U)
Part# 324156U
General
Color Black
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
CPU Type Intel Core i7 720QM(1.6GHz)
Screen 15.6"
Memory Size 4GB DDR3
Hard Disk 500GB
Optical Drive DVD±R/RW
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GT 240M
Video Memory 1GB GDDR3
Communication Gigabit LAN and WLAN
Card slot 1 x Express Card
Battery Life 3.50 hours
Dimensions 15.20" x 10.00" x 1.02" - 1.50"
Weight 6.06 lbs.
CPU
CPU Type Intel Core i7
CPU Speed 720QM(1.60GHz)
Chipset
Chipset Intel PM55
Display
Screen Size 15.6"
Wide Screen Support Yes
Resolution 1366 x 768
LCD Features VibrantView (glossy), LED backlight
Operating Systems
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Graphics
GPU/VPU NVIDIA GeForce GT 240M
Video Memory 1GB GDDR3
Graphic Type Dedicated Card
Hard Drive
HDD 500GB
HDD RPM 5400rpm
HDD Interface SATA
Memory
Memory 4GB
Memory Speed DDR3 1066
Memory Spec 2GB x 2
Memory Type 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM
Memory Slot (Total) 2
Memory Slot (Available) 0
Max Memory Supported 8GB
Optical Drive
Optical Drive Type DVD±R/RW
Optical Drive Interface Integrated
Communications
LAN 10/100/1000Mbps
WLAN Intel WiFi Link 5300 802.11a/b/g/n wireless
Bluetooth Yes
Ports
Card Slot 1 x Express Card
USB Two USB 2.0 and one eSATA/USB combo port
Video Port 1 x VGA, 1 x HDMI
Audio Ports 1 x Microphone jack; 1 x Headphone jack
Audio
Audio Integrated Sound card
Speaker Internal Speakers
Input Device
Touchpad Yes
Keyboard Standard
Supplemental Drive
Card Reader 6-in-1 reader (MultiMedia Card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, Secure Digital Card, Secure Digital Elite Pro Card, xD-Picture Card)
Webcam 1.3MP
Power
Battery 6-cell lithium ion
Battery Life 3.50 hours
Physical spec
Dimensions 15.20" x 10.00" x 1.02" - 1.50"
Weight 6.06 lbs.
Manufacturer Warranty
Parts 1 year limited
Labor 1 year limited