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Hi Teamliquid,
My laptop recently broke and I decided to invest in a new one. Out of the 2 shown below, which one is better? I will be making the purchase in a couple of hours.
Dell Studio XPS 16
Intel® CoreTM i5 520M (2.4GHz/3MB cache)
4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3
ATI HD5730 Mobility RadeonTM
15.6 inch display (1600x900)
7 Watt Integrated Stereo Speakers with Subwoofer
500GB5 SATA hard drive (7200RPM)
http://www.dell.com/ca/p/studio-xps-1647/fs
Dell Studio 14
Intel® CoreTM i7 740QM (1.73GHz/6MB cache)
6GB3 Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz
ATI HD5450 Mobility RadeonTM
14.0” High Definition (720p) LED Display
500GB4 SATA hard drive (7200RPM)
http://www.dell.com/ca/p/studio-14/fs
Both are $1099CAN. Any suggestions will be much appreciated.
Thanks!
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United States22883 Posts
Which form factor do you like better? The second has a nicer (brighter/clearer) screen, faster processor and probably has better battery life and portability.
The first has a bigger screen, better video card and better speakers.
The RAM is a wash for 99% of people, but you haven't told us what you'll be using the laptop for so we don't really know.
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Canada7170 Posts
Better for what?
What do you want to do with it?
EDIT: Dammit Jibba
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In general, the first looks much more like a consumer multimedia-focused machine, while the second is better as a professional mobile workstation.
The first has a larger, higher-resolution screen and much stronger graphics processing (i.e. much better for gaming). The second one has more RAM and a quad-core rather than a dual-core processor. For most games, the CPUs are roughly equivalent. The second one would be significantly better for A/V editing, encoding, and other multi-threaded or RAM-heavy applications.
You would need to find good unbiased reviews to determine if one is better than the other in terms of build quality, keyboard, touchpad, screen, etc. as those things can't be determined by us over the Internet.
Any particular reason you're just looking at two Dell models?
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I'm a third year uni student; I occasionally code (python, java etc) and do homework(latex, maple, mathematica, etc). I play starcraft2, and hoping that I will be able to play D3 and such. I don't plan on playing crysis or any of those games. The reason I'm only considering these 2 models is because they are the same price(in my price range) and they have quite good specs(imo) for their price.
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Okay, without knowing D3 required specs, the mobility HD 5450 is risky maybe. It's already not good for anything more than low settings on SC2. I don't think you'd need a quad-core or 6 GB of RAM for anything you're doing, so the Studio XPS probably makes more sense.
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Also, do you think its worth it to upgrade to NEW 2010 Intel® Core™ i5-520M (2.40GHz, 4Threads, turbo boost up to 2.93Ghz, 3M cache) on the XPS for $75?
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The difference between the two is the higher turbo boost and hyperthreading on the i5-520. They're not worth $75 for what you're doing. Hyperthreading is only helpful--maybe some 20% better performance in best real-world conditions--for the kind of applications that quad cores would be better at, which you're not really running.
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Under what conditions would a quad core be better because Im thinking of running virtual machines.
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Oh, If you're running VMs, more cores and more RAM would definitely help. The Studio 14 would be better for that. Of course, how much processing power and RAM you need depends on what the VMs need to do and what kind of computations, I/O, etc. they're handling. Maybe somebody else knows better than me the exact requirements needed based on specific types of VM usage.
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Canada7170 Posts
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I have the XPS 16 with the i7 quad core and the 5730. Its really good i recommend it. Also the i5 will preform just as well for just games as the i7. Starcraft 2 at least doesnt really support multi core processing
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just some personal observations from having a laptop at university:
- if you plan on carrying it to class / the library / moving it around in general, 14" will be serviceable, while 16" will be a pain in the ass in normal backpacks (unless you have something that will specifically carry something that size)
- personally, I find coding on smaller screens a nightmare. i try to avoid coding on my laptop as much as possible (13.3" 1280x800). Just feels like there's not enough screen space to see everything...I usually hook up to my 24" monitor when I'm coding. I imagine this sort of work would be a lot easier on a larger laptop.
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If your a uni student, i'd go for the 14". It will be much lighter than the 16". The i7 will consume more power than the i5 but the 16" will consume more power than the 14". If you plan on bringing your laptop around with you around campus, i'd go for the 14". If you want to keep it in your apartment/house/dorm, i'd go for the 16".
also, you could look into the lenovo ideapad y460. It comes with i5-520 and radeon hd5650m and 14". It is $999 USD if you use the student discount.
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EPT
