XPS M170 or E1705?

Well if you can wait for a little while, you could wait until the XPS has a dual-core then you won't have to decide.

now that is a solution fer sher.... good luck.... I am now looking at the e1705 as well since the 9300 went the way of the DODO....

waiting on the codes... just waiting on the codes...

Well, I was encoding and burning a DVD while playing Everquest II if that gives you any hint of the performance.

if you have the money to buy an xps i'd say wait coz dual core will be available for it soon

If you would play all the time, I would say XPS. But in your case e1705/i9400.

Marcuis

Let's hope that the XPS gets the t2700 (2.26 or 2.33 Ghz I think) - that's the proc that was VT enabled.

CiaO

I had the same problem, and while I ended up decideding on the i9300, that was partly due to a dell aus sales rep assuring me that the i9400 "would not be released in australia anytime soon" which I didn't put too much faith in as at the time it had been out in europe and the us for a while. Sure enough less than 2 weeks after the conversation and a few days after my laptop was delivered the i9400 was up on dell.com.au.

Anyway had been following dual core for a while and really wanted the multitasking performance and also to futureproof components and upgrades as much as possible.

However, considering that I could still run photoshop with no real issues on my i8600 - 3ds max also ran fine as far as I am concerned, it lessened the need to get dual core for these reasons even though you would get much better performance with a dual core processor. When it comes to multitasking and system responsiveness though, single core not HT cpus lose out big time.

Keep in mind the thing that will determine when you have to next upgrade your laptop (barring theft, or it blowing up) will probably be the video card. The 7800 gtx is a fairly recent and cutting edge card at the moment and outperforms the 7800 vanilla significantly going by benchmarking that has been done, and while there is a possibility of dell releasing an upgrade later, it is not guaranteed. At least with the XPS, you are guaranteed at least 7800 gtx performance and as games start becoming more gpu limited in these systems in the future, this is where the bottleneck will be, and not whether you have a single or dual core cpu.

Of course if you anticipate upgrading your laptop within a year or year and a half the vid card probably doesn't matter as much, both will get the job done till then.

If you can't wait for a core duo revision of the XPS then I would go with the E1705.

I agree with anettis, if you need a laptop soon and the xps core duo has not come out, I would go with the E1705 because of increase battery life (make sure you uninstall the USB2.0 drive for now, microsoft have a battery sucking driver) and great multi task performance. Good luck to you

stupid question: What does the DODO mean

Aren't there other companies than Dell selling 7800gtx+duo core?

"The Mauritius Dodo more commonly just Dodo, was a metre-high flightless bird of the island of Mauritius. The Dodo, which is now extinct, lived on fruit and nested on the ground." (Taken from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo.)

went the way of the DODO....

meaning... it dun went & got DED!!! (dead)