- Average user rating:
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
-
4.0 stars
"Expensive, but CPU performance is out of this world"
Pros: X7900 Extreme CPU compiles faster than most desktop machines; beautiful screen; numeric keypad; decent sound quality;
Cons: Chintzy keyboard: keyboard is silver (it should be black to match the case better); screen back LEDs not customizable like previous XPS models; 8800GTX aftersale SLI upgrade $1000! (too costly, Dell!); 8700M SLI performance heavily disappoints.
Summary: I got this machine at launch, at quite a bargain (Dell.ca was offering the X7900 CPU upgrade for only $300 over that of the 2.5 GHz Core 2 Duo) with the honking Dell XPS backback. All in all a great deal.
I use this computer mostly as a development machine with 2 monitors (the built in screen and an external WUXGA 24"er): the 8700M GT SLI card only sends signal to one screen when SLI is enabled, and the early drivers were terrible. I wasn't prepared to reboot the computer to switch between gaming and other tasks, and playing games on the single non-SLI 8700M is too depressingly painful due to poor performance.
So this Editor's Choice gaming laptop doesn't get used for much gaming, really
Rumour has it that the 8800GTX performance in NON-SLI mode is decent (at an additional $700 cost) so there's less of a gaming / desktop compromise, but for the money, the 8700 version is all about compromise (except the price).
If you can afford the top-of-the-line configuration, you won't be disappointed, but i think there are other machines by other vendors that are competitive.
If I could do it all over again, I'd have waited a few months for the 800MHz FSB version.
