New Dell XPS M1710 laptop arriving next week

xander_uk2

xander_uk2

xander_uk2

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Joined
2 Dec 2003
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Inverness Scotland
Spec as follows:

XPS M1710 Core 2 Duo Processor T7200 (2.0 GHz, 4 MB L2 cache, 667 MHz FSB) 1 S
17" UltraSharp Wide Screen WUXGA (1920 x 1200) Display with TrueLife 1 S
4GB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x 2G) 1 S
Hard Drive 250GB Serial ATA (5400RPM) 1 S
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software - Vista 1 S
Battery Primary 9-Cell 80W/HR LI-ION 1 S
XPS 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS 1 S
Intel® Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini-PCI Card

Seeing as I'll be using it for gaming, would it be better to stick to Vista Premium or go for XP Pro?
I'll be formatting as soon as I get it to get rid of the rubbish that will be pre installed but seeing as it has 4gig of RAM (3 gig in the event of a 32 bit OS) I was just wondering if Vista would be the one to go for.
1st laptop I have even owned
 
I would go for vista. Your specs can handle it easily and it looks much nicer :)

Xp 64 bit is pretty rubbish. If you want to use all your ram get vista 64 bit home premium or ultimate
 
Cool, thanks for your reply. I'm just getting together the appropriate drivers for things like the graphics card. Notebookforum.com seems to be a great source of info

Hopefully my 7900 GS will be up to some LOTRO :)
 
I got if for £870 all in :) not too bad I guess

Only reason I wanted aXPS1710 was because my mate had one last year and the build quality was amazing
 
i would go xp pro.

if possible see if dell can do you an upgrade to a 7950 gtx.

personally i would have saved a bit more money and got a xps m1730
 
sadly the M1730 is out of my budget. My desktop is history at the end of this month (sold it) so need to get the best I can afford just now.
 
Yes, thats correct. Both the CPU and GPU are upgradable. The M1710 can accept the Geforce 7950 GTX but I would have to go to Dell themselves for it (or ebay) due to some sort of custom cooling solution they have going on
 
Correct. It's also possible to flash the 7900 GS bios to a 7900 GTX, but sadly not to a 7950 GTX.
Dont think thats something I'll be trying though :)
 
The 7900GS is a little low on memory for the screen res, definately check out ebay for a GTX at some point in the laptops life. It's a pretty easy change over, worst case scenario, you'll have to snip a small bit of plastic off the chassis to fit the dual heatpipe cooler in.
 
Yes, the 7950 GTX would be the best I could upgrade too but that will be more than enough for what I'll be using it for :)

Anyone here have any experience of swapping the cards out?
Emlyn, have you done it before?

~Rob
 
The 1710 has dual heat pipes on the 7900GS where as the 9400 7900GS only has one. I can't imagine its financially worth getting a 7950GTX from Dell, perhaps one from a damaged 1710 from the web maybe. I had a 1710 7950GTX for a while, the screen was faulty so I sent it back. I ended up with a 9400, 7900GS which has a really nice 1920x1200 screen which I love for work. I run it at 1400x900 in games though, mainly COD4, which it plays fine. The 7900GS uses less power so battery life should be better. The 7950GTX is noticeably quicker, but its nothing compared to the 8800GTX in the 1730. So you'd be better lumping up the difference for that rather than spending big money on a 7950GTX IMO. Lots of info on notebookforums.com about modding/overclocking if you want to search around there.
 
Inspiron 1720 CORE 2 DUO T7250 2.00GHz,800,2M
17.0" Widescreen WXGA+ (1440x900) TFT Display with TrueLife
Jet Black Colour with Matte Finish & 2.0mp camera
Memory Dual Channel 3.0GB (1X2GB + 1X1GB) 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Hard Drive 320GB SATA (5400rpm)
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software
NVIDIA® GeForce Go 8600M GT with 256MB DDR2 dedicated graphic memory
Intel® Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-PCI Card, EUR
European - Dell TrueMobile 355 internal Bluetooth Module
Software Drivers Inspiron 1720
English - Vista Home Premium
English Microsoft Works 9.0 (Word Processor, Database) with Recovery CD
Just got this for £530 inc delivery
 
Would there be that much of a diffenence in games if I format and install XP or do a clean install of Vista home Premium?

On the one hand I lke XP Pro because I know it so well, but on the other hand Vista looks great.....:confused:
 
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