Anyone got a Dell 1730 XPS?

Metalface Mark · 23 Sep 2008 at 10:33

Im considering buying one of these with the following spec.

2.5 penryn
4gb ram
200gb 7200rpm hard drive x 2
17" screen 1920x1200
dual 8800gtx
physx card

I just wondered how noisy they are, how hot they get (to the touch), and how people find them for gaming on?

Metalface Mark · 23 Sep 2008 at 15:23

L33 said:
I'm a happy owner
There was a big M1730 thread that was locked for some reason :S
EDIT: Here

Don't bother with the PhysX card unless you really want it. Extra power consumption, heat and fairly pointless considering nVidia's PhysX-on-gpu drivers!

Its from the outlet, no choice but to have it im afraid.

Its £1400 inc VAT, about £600 saving off new.

Metalface Mark · 23 Sep 2008 at 20:48

Senture said:
I don't use my M1730 for anything other than folding now, but our specs are almost identical (except I have the T9500 and the PPU)

The palm rest ares stays quite cool but directly above the keyboard gets toasty (that's where the GPU's are). Gaming wise it runs everything I throw at it on max detail (for Crysis I had to back the res down to 1680x1050 otherwise later on in the game it gets choppy). The creen is very comfortable on the eyes and the keyboard is great to use (if I could replace my desktop's G15 with my M1730's keyboard, I would).

Noise wise it is a very quiet machine. I've not heared the CPU fan go to its highest setting because it has never gone over 60 . Depending on the game, GPU load tempratures are between 74 and 83. The GPU fan kicks in at 82 but most games don't generate that much heat. Only times I've got the GPU fan to kick in is when folding.

GPU overclocking wise (if you're interested) is very good. You get a stock clock of 500 c / 799 m / 1250 s (core/memory/shaders) on the 8800m GTX, mine will do 625 c / 925m / 1700 s but yours may do better (I remember seeing some one who got 730 core out of theirs )

EDIT: Just noticed you were looking at one with a PPU. As said, don't bother. The PPU performance really sucks and the newer nvidia drivers alow PhysX to be done on the GPU.

Thanks for that, as i said i have ordered from the outlet and it had the ppu in it.

Metalface Mark · 24 Sep 2008 at 00:25

Yeh it does thanks, id be using it on a table, if it was hot to touch (like my previous dell 1530 was) it made gaming very uncomfortable as the wrist pad got hot, i dont mind a bit of noise when gaming, but it annoys me if fans are spinning up and down or noisy just browsing windows.