New Dell XPS M1710 laptop arriving next week

xander_uk2 · 6 Jun 2008 at 12:20

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

xander_uk2 · 7 Jun 2008 at 21:12

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

xander_uk2 · 7 Jun 2008 at 21:58

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

xander_uk2 · 7 Jun 2008 at 23:32

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.

xander_uk2 · 8 Jun 2008 at 10:58

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

xander_uk2 · 8 Jun 2008 at 12:03

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

xander_uk2 · 8 Jun 2008 at 13:31

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

xander_uk2 · 9 Jun 2008 at 11:48

Completed the build on the Dell website, then phoned them up over the course of a few days to haggle on the price

xander_uk2 · 11 Jun 2008 at 10:55

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: