Dell XPS 17 vs. MacBook Pro 17 (grid)Using the XPS 17 outdoors is possible to an extent. The glossy display surface partly leads to intense reflections that stress the eyes enormously, depending on the ambient light. It is mandatory to look for a perfect place indoors to remain spared from annoying reflections for the most part.Inspiron N5010R battery
The low viewing angle stability is another flaw of this display. Changes in color and brightness already turn up at relatively slight deviations horizontally and vertically, which makes it necessary to adjust the display. When all single points are added up, we would have expected more from the prime multimedia machine. Dell wastes a lot of potential and can't distance itself from the (mediocre) competition with the display.Inspiron M501 battery
The high-end XPS 17 model is generally equipped with a strong Intel quad core processor. Our test device could fall back on the Core i7-840QM, which costs an additional 300 euro in comparison to the Core i7-740QM. The Core i7-840QM has a larger L3 cache (8 instead of 6 MB) besides a higher clock rate (1.86 instead of 1.73 GHz).Inspiron M501R battery
Both processors have the Hyperthreading technology in common, which simulates four virtual cores. Up until now, the possibility of processing a total of 8 threads simultaneously doesn't have a noteworthy advantage in games, but optimized applications can benefit greatly.Inspiron M5010 battery,
Another treat provided by Core i7 processors is the so-called Turbo Boost technology: Given that the temperature and load situation permit it, the Core i7-840QM's clock rate is increased up to 3.20 GHz (Core i7-740QM: max. 2.93 GHz). The disadvantage of the CPU manufactured in a 45 nm structure width is its fairly high power consumption. 45 watts doesn't guarantee good battery runtimes.Inspiron M5010R battery,
We have executed a few processor-biased benchmarks to find out if the upgrade from Core i7-740QM to a Core i7-840QM is worthwhile.Inspiron M5030 battery The differences in Cinebench R10 (64bit) are rather insignificant. While the Core i7-840QM can exceed the Core i7-740QM by 10% in single core calculating (4224 to 3828), the advantage shrinks to just only 7% in multi core rendering (11513 to 10780). Cinebench R11.5 (64bit) shows a similar picture. The Core i7-840QM has the lead by only 6% with 3.31 to 3.13 points.Inspiron M5030R battery
Exciting fare is provided by the graphics card. Dell uses the brand new GeForce GT 445M from Nvidia. The DirectX 11 capable GPU, manufactured in a cutting edge 40 nm process, presents the link between midrange (e.g. GeForce GT 420M) and upper range (e.g. GeForce GTX 460M). It is well equipped with 144 unified shaders and a 3072 MB DDR3 video memory.ASUS G73JH-X2
In opposition to most midrange graphics card, the memory bus doesn't turn into an extreme bottleneck. 192 bits are first fully exploited by very demanding games. The clock rates are also remarkable. The tool, GPU-Z, recorded 590 GHz for the core, 800 GHz for the memory and 1180 MHz for the shaders.EPC 1215 Battery
The highlight of the GeForce GT 445M is the vast amount of supported features.EPC 1016P Battery Apart from GPU based physics and video acceleration ("PhysX" & "PureVideo HD") and an automatic graphics switching ("Optimus", not available in this model), the GeForce GT 445M is also capable of stereoscopic 3D rendering ("3D Vision", requires the corresponding kit and a 120 Hz monitor). Other features, like CUDA, DirectCompute 2.1 and OpenCL, are rather more interesting for professional users. However, CUDA can provide for an extreme speed increase in practical use, for example in video converting. Particularly smartphone users could profit from this.EPC 1016 Battery
5.9Windows 7 Experience IndexProcessorCalculations per second7.2Memory (RAM)Memory operations per second5.9GraphicsDesktop performance for Windows Aero6.8Gaming graphics3D business and gaming graphics6.8Primary hard diskDisk data transfer rate5.9GPU Performance EPC 1015PE Battery
We mulled over which graphics card would likely be the proper opponent for the GeForce GT 445M for a long time. Ultimately, we settled on the Radeon HD 5850 DDR3 (Acer Aspire 5943G). The GeForce GT 445M isn't quite able to reach the ATI competition in the DirectX 10 based 3DMark Vantage. The Radeon HD 5850 takes the lead by 9% with 5056 to 4627 (GPU score).EPC 1015P Battery
We additionally checked the DirectX 11 performance that is becoming increasingly important for the future with Unigine Heaven 2.1 benchmark (1280x1024, high, tessellation normal). As previous tests have shown, the graphics cards from the GeForce 400 range cope very well with the latest DirectX expansion stage. Therefore, it's not really surprising that the GeForce GT 445M places itself before the Radeon HD 5850 by 10% (16.2 to 14.7 fps).EPC 1015 Battery
Swift SSDs or modern hybrid hard disks are unfortunately not available for the XPS 17 in the online configuration at the moment. Nevertheless, the offered HDDs can at least score with a fast revolution speed of 7200 rpm. Dell installs two HDDs with 500 GB each from Seagate (ST9500420AS) into our test device right away.Asus Eee PC 1215N Battery
Their speed proved to be agreeably high. There's no reason for complaint with an average transfer rate of 77.1 MB/s (HDD1) and 85.4 MB/s (HDD2). The hard disk configuration also looked good in terms of the other characteristics. The sequential read rate (86.75, respectively 110.1 MB/s) and the sequential write rate (82.79, respectively 109.4 MB/s) are superior to most competitor products (CrystalDiskMark).Asus Eee PC 1215 Battery
Due to cutting edge and strong components, the XPS 17's efficiency is on a very good level. Especially Intel's quad core manages even most demanding tasks easily. The processor doesn't know the meaning of performance bottlenecks. The GeForce GT 445M can be seen as a good addition, ATI's dominant market position in the (upper) midrange is finally a thing of the past.Asus Eee PC 1016P Battery
Beyond that, four RAM bays and two hard disk slots provide a certain amount of future proofness. There is nothing in the way of an upgrade later on. Incidentally, you can save yourself the extra charge for a Core i7-840QM. The performance gain was usually less than 10% in comparison to the Core i7-740QM in our tests.Asus Eee PC 1016 Battery
As in the graphics benchmarks, the GeForce GT 445M had to stand up to the Radeon HD 5850 DDR3 in the practical tests. For keeping the processor's impact as minor as possible, we will only deal with the results of the FullHD resolution, 1920x1080. The comparison rates originate from the Acer Aspire 5943G, the Acer Aspire 8943G or the Packard Bell EasyNote LX86 – depending on the game.Asus Eee PC 1015PE Battery





