Is Dell Studio 15 good for 5 boxing?

[Cptan]

Hi all,

First post here. Need some advice on laptop for 5 boxing, and many thanks in advance.

I am thinking of this - Dell Studio 15 with following config.

- Intel Core i7-720QM, 1.6GHz, 4 cores/8Thread, 6 MB cache
- 8GB 1333MHz, DDR3 SDRAM (work at 1066MHz for Intel Arrandale CPU)
- 7200 RPM HD
- ATI Mobile Radeon HD 5470 - 1GB
- Window 7 Home Premium 64bits

Is this laptop good enough for 5 boxing , or even 6 boxing? Read from here, and other site that i7-720QM works fine, but just want to be sure before I spend the money.

My main concerns are
- heat problem? (dun wan to see a black screen while boxing...)
- low cpu speed of 1.6GHz
- is my SDRAM running at 1333MHz or 1066MHz?
- is ATI HD 5470 good enough for wow 5 boxing?

Any recommendation from you?

Once again, thanks :)

[Ualaa]

Not sure on the processor.
It is an i7, so won't suck, but 1.6ghz sounds slow.

Wow is not very graphically challenging, so the video card will likely be just fine.
Especially if you turn shadows off, and maybe view distance to medium on the slaves.
You can also have the slaves look down, which can help a lot.
You could easily make a mapped key, which is run on window: all without current, whenever you switch the active toon, so the others look down... just put a /script SetView(2);SetView(2) on that keybind, and save a top - down view.

8GB of Ram will be plenty.
You have a 64-bit OS, which is good.

If you can put an SSD in, that is an enormous boost.
Even a cheaper one, purely as the gaming folder.

[Sajuuk]

Not sure on the processor.
It is an i7, so won't suck, but 1.6ghz sounds slow.

If you can put an SSD in, that is an enormous boost.
Even a cheaper one, purely as the gaming folder.

It's a laptop, so he's more limited by thermals/size/expansion.

It still doesn't mean he can't get a larger size SSD (128GB), replace the hard drive in the laptop and keep most of his data on a 1tb external drive.

[Cptan]

thanks, Ualaa and Sajuuk. Will consider the SSD suggestion.

BTW, can someone delete the advertisement above? Or is that allowed?

[crowdx]

I have a Dell Studio 17 with a core duo processor which I multibox on when I want to relax on the coach. I can run 5 windows in the older areas and 4 in northrend. Overall it is not bad, my only real issue it that I got the HD screen whick runs at 1900x1620 (I think) and so when I go full window it pushes the video card. My workaround was with ISBoxer to have the main window smaller than the full screen and so this helped.
I think the 15" screen would be a little limiting though, not a lot of real estate :)

[Pocalypse]

I bought a Dell Studio XPS 16 a few weeks ago. I ended up returning it because of heat issues. It would overheat on everyday tasks, and the one time I tried boxing on it it almost melted on me.

This was due to the design. The single vent was on the back of the laptop, and the screen would cover it when open. See here (http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=418270&page=2) for pictures. As a result, heat couldn't escape the laptop.
I think the design was fine a couple of years ago, before the Intel Core ix processors. But when they put an i7 in there, it just couldn't handle it.

I'm not sure if the Studio 15 has the same issue. I can't really tell just by looking at pictures. It looks almost the same, but I think the screen doesn't go down as far.

I ended up buying a Sony Vaio Z. Was more expensive, but works great, even for boxing.

[Cptan]

The XPS 16 has a bad ventilation design!? OMG how on earth can such a critical spec slipped past the test phase?

I already ordered the XPS 15. Will have to call the support team for verification asap...

[Noids]

Having boxed more on notebooks than my ew desktop, I think those specs will be fine for boxing.

As mentioned above, the 15" will be limiting, I find my 17" lappie a bit of a pain now after the desktop, but you may get used to it I guess.

With regards to the heating issue, I am not sure if the XPS 16 suffers from a widespread heating problem or if it is just an isolated case. It is not uncommon to see isolated examples of overheating with laptops which may be resolved by a simple return for overheating issues and a replacement system that functions acceptably.

Keep in mind however that any laptop that you wish to play any recent game or box WoW on will produce some heat, so don't judge them too harshly for this. If you run a temp monitor, your CPU and GPU will get a lot hotter than they will in a desktop setup but will generally still be within design limits for mobile components. My solution has been to grab a $50 laptop cooler which goes between the computer and my lap.

I have recently been using an Asus N61JX with an ATI 5730 but otherwise similar specs to above. It runs nice and quietly, graphics are fine, screen is just big enough and heat is manageable.

From memory, Dell used to do a 21 day no questions asked return policy anyway. Stick with the order, try it out with your boxing and if it sucks, send it back and order something else.

Cheers

[Cptan]

Called the support team, and the lady support engineer admitted that the Studio XPS 16 had a heat dissipation problem, but was fixed. The Studio 15, however, is ok. She told me she played wow, and think that the notebook is fine for boxing.

I asked her about the SSD. She said NO, which is a surprised to me. She said SSD has higher failure rate than normal hard disk. Perhap you guys can comment on that.

Anyhow, will receive the notebook in few more days. Maybe I need to get an additional cable to link the notebook to a bigger screen...

[Noids]

The risk of failure was a problem initially but not really an issue with current genereation drives. Saying that, get an intel drive and you should be sweet for your OS etc. Good warranty, as long as you backup regularly your data should be protected so a hard drive failure (which can easily happen with a mechanical hdd too) should ot be a major issue for you. Most SSDs you would buy will have 1,000,000h MTBF which means on average, a drive used 24/7 will last over 100 years. Most 2.5" mechanical hdd quote an AFR of 0.5% which equates to about 2,000,000 MTBF.

Considering the higher tolerance SSDs have for shock than mechanical drives, use in notebooks is a good application.

With regards to monitor size an external monitor is a perfect solution, but keep in mind the video card in your system will probably have issues with driving multiple screens or high resolution screens such as 1920 x 1080/1200 24" LCDs.