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Upgrade Options - XPS Gen 2

post #1 of 14
9/19/07 at 7:30pm
Thread Starter 
I know this question has been repeated, but what are the best things that can be done with the XPS Gen 2 (M170) to polish its shine? Can a graphic card with 512MB be installed? Mother board replaced?

One more thing, Anybody succeeded in replacing his/her old system with a new one with Dell?
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post #2 of 14
9/19/07 at 11:37pm
No, No, No, and NO

If you have CC warranty and your system goes down Dell may replace it. But don't just throw it out the window and expect dell to give you a new lappy for free.
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post #3 of 14
9/19/07 at 11:39pm
Uhh.. 7800gtx is the only GPU upgrade.

Are you talking about scamming dell? i wouldn't recommend it. My xps2 WAS replaced with a 1710, BUT, it went through 5 video cards, 3 motherboards 3 CPUs, 2 screens. I would say that i was entitled with my complete care warranty.
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post #4 of 14
9/20/07 at 12:49am
WOW thats alot of stuff! I bet you were happy you decided to go with CC

I would always have CC no matter what!! "accidents" do happen... but dont push that statement with Dell.
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post #5 of 14
9/20/07 at 3:06am
Why exactly do you need to upgrade it. It can play every single video game at max settings at acceptable frame rates. What is the point? Just wait 8-12 months and get a worthwhile upgrade, nehalem.
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post #6 of 14
9/21/07 at 9:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by drizek View Post
Why exactly do you need to upgrade it. It can play every single video game at max settings at acceptable frame rates. What is the point? Just wait 8-12 months and get a worthwhile upgrade, nehalem.

Mmmm well I can understand where the OP is coming from. I've got the same generation laptop and it is over two years old now.
Hes probably got the 6800U, so newer games probably won't run that well (i.e. Bioshock, Crysis when it arrives etc). Even my 7800gtx struggles with some stuff, especially if its cpu heavy (i.e. large multiplayer supreme commander games).

If you've got the 6800U, I'd recommend getting a 7800gtx and 2gb Ram, and holding off for the next 6-12months when the "Santa Rosa Refresh" should be widely available.
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post #7 of 14
9/22/07 at 1:25am
Well he put "m170" next to xps2, so I assumed that means already upgraded his card, since that is the only difference between the two.

I don't play too many games, but all the ones I have tried work just fine:

WoW, Bioshock, Doom/Quake, ET:QW, Bioshock, HL2, Civ 4.

The most demanding game out there more or less is Bioshock which is based on Unreal Engine 3. The other two highly demanding engines are the HL Source engine and the Doom 3 engine, and the 7800gtx can handle both of those like butter, even with Megatexture in D3(quake wars) and HDR in Source.

It remains to be seen how well Crysis will perform though.
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post #8 of 14
9/22/07 at 2:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by drizek View Post
Well he put "m170" next to xps2, so I assumed that means already upgraded his card, since that is the only difference between the two.

I don't play too many games, but all the ones I have tried work just fine:

WoW, Bioshock, Doom/Quake, ET:QW, Bioshock, HL2, Civ 4.

The most demanding game out there more or less is Bioshock which is based on Unreal Engine 3. The other two highly demanding engines are the HL Source engine and the Doom 3 engine, and the 7800gtx can handle both of those like butter, even with Megatexture in D3(quake wars) and HDR in Source.

It remains to be seen how well Crysis will perform though.

Well my laptop uses 'mid' settings for bioshock. Sure it handles it 'fine' but i'm missing out on cool new graphics which is what new games are all about.

Hell even HL2 Cinematic Mod brings the card to its knees (it recommends 512mb VRAM).

And the graphics card isn't the only problem, there's also CPU bottlenecking. In CPU intensive stuff like Multiplayer Supreme Commander, the game slows itself down because of the CPU. At lans it pisses everyone off, as it forces all the computers to slow down to stay in sync. Think what will happen with crazy physics in Crysis everyone keeps on going on about.

So yeah, it still runs the latest game's well, but we are going to miss out on stuff in new games.

To the OP:
Well then buddy, your computer is as fast as it can be. Like drizek said, I'd still recommend holding off a year or so. Whats on offer at the moment isn't that great.
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post #9 of 14
9/22/07 at 3:02am
pin mod if you need it
7800gtx if you need it
2gb ram
SD card, for vista
bigger harddrive, there is a thread on the new western 250mb 5400 ata, beats 100gb 7200rpm hands down (I have the 100gb one doh!)
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post #10 of 14
9/22/07 at 3:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by megaphat View Post
Well my laptop uses 'mid' settings for bioshock. Sure it handles it 'fine' but i'm missing out on cool new graphics which is what new games are all about. Hell even HL2 Cinematic Mod brings the card to its knees (it recommends 512mb VRAM). And the graphics card isn't the only problem, there's also CPU bottlenecking. In CPU intensive stuff like Multiplayer Supreme Commander, the game slows itself down because of the CPU. At lans it pisses everyone off, as it forces all the computers to slow down to stay in sync. Think what will happen with crazy physics in Crysis everyone keeps on going on about. So yeah, it still runs the latest game's well, but we are going to miss out on stuff in new games. To the OP: Well then buddy, your computer is as fast as it can be. Like drizek said, I'd still recommend holding off a year or so. Whats on offer at the moment isn't that great.
You have better specs than I do(your card is even clocked slightly higher), yet I can play Bioshock(the demo at least) at 1920x1200 with all the settings on the right hand side on High. Im not sure what AA/AF are set at, but I didnt find an option for them and since I didnt notice any jaggies I didnt feel the need to mess with it. It is true that we are starting to get CPU limited in games, but at 1920x1200 you really are giving your video card a huge beating and I think a 2ghz cpu can keep up. I was just reading an article today about how we will have ray tracing in games within 2 years. My upgrade path is to get a quad core desktop with 45nm Nehalem sometime in the next 12 months(if it is released during that time, rumors say August) and then upgrading to an octalcore 32nm a year later. I havent heard of HL2 cinematic mod, Ill have to check that out.
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post #11 of 14
9/22/07 at 6:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by drizek View Post
You have better specs than I do(your card is even clocked slightly higher), yet I can play Bioshock(the demo at least) at 1920x1200 with all the settings on the right hand side on High. Im not sure what AA/AF are set at, but I didnt find an option for them and since I didnt notice any jaggies I didnt feel the need to mess with it.

I havent heard of HL2 cinematic mod, Ill have to check that out.

Wow... I must be using some really shitty drivers. Honestly, native, I can't run it above medium without heavy lag. Time for a format?
Even DiRT likes to chug along a bit. And I don't want to think of the time I tried GRAW at 1920*1200...

HL2 cinematic mod just sticks in HUGE textures. Looks REALLY good, but you need the VRAM, at least my 7800gtx chokes.
But its worth it cause it really hots up Alyx

But yeah the ageing CPU annoys me. Taking turns in a huge CIV4 map takes a while, and CIV4 is old! It can only get worse for us
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post #12 of 14
9/22/07 at 8:56am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by drizek View Post
Well he put "m170" next to xps2, so I assumed that means already upgraded his card, since that is the only difference between the two.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drizek View Post
I don't play too many games, but all the ones I have tried work just fine: WoW, Bioshock, Doom/Quake, ET:QW, Bioshock, HL2, Civ 4. The most demanding game out there more or less is Bioshock which is based on Unreal Engine 3. The other two highly demanding engines are the HL Source engine and the Doom 3 engine, and the 7800gtx can handle both of those like butter, even with Megatexture in D3(quake wars) and HDR in Source. It remains to be seen how well Crysis will perform though.
Well, I actually have never upgarded my 6800Ultra. I thought M170 is the same of Gen2. Thank you all for contributing. What would a pin modding add to the performance of the machine? I red the pin modding thread but couldn't understand what would it do. Dell XPS Gen 2 / 2.0 CPU / 1.25 G Memory / 60 G HDD / 256MB 6800 Ultra / Multi CD-DVD Drive.
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post #13 of 14
9/22/07 at 11:50am
ahh you've got an 2.0 processor, so thats fast already

I had an 1.73 so it was a big boost for me

Basically if you replace your chip with an older model and drop a tiny wire in the cpu slot, it increases the mutliper and gets you more speed. The 1.7 was about $60 on ebay, so its a very cheap mod

I muck around al ot, and have had all the cards in this machine. Honestly, the ultra is very fast and probably not worth the upgrade for you unless you can sell it & buy the 7800 for a net small amount. You may be able to if your patient, seen both cards for similar amounts, ~$200 The bonus would be it just simply drops in, easy upgrade.

2 gb is better for vista. if your in xp its not so much an issue

I'm at a similar impasse, I've been looking to get a new laptop for ages but wanting to wait until the new one is much more of an upgrade. Your machine is still very high spec
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post #14 of 14
9/22/07 at 2:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by megaphat View Post
Wow... I must be using some really shitty drivers. Honestly, native, I can't run it above medium without heavy lag. Time for a format? Even DiRT likes to chug along a bit. And I don't want to think of the time I tried GRAW at 1920*1200... HL2 cinematic mod just sticks in HUGE textures. Looks REALLY good, but you need the VRAM, at least my 7800gtx chokes. But its worth it cause it really hots up Alyx But yeah the ageing CPU annoys me. Taking turns in a huge CIV4 map takes a while, and CIV4 is old! It can only get worse for us
Ya, this is on a fresh install of xp pro. I have everything disabled(no AV or fw). I use linux for most things, so I don't care if my windows partition ever gets a virus or anything. The problem with buying an intel CPU now though is that there really is no upgrade path. They are going to release a totally new architecture next year and you will have to throw away your whole system. There are a ton of new technologies coming out, nehalem, PCIe 2, DDR3, USB 3. Buying a computer without those things is just pouring money down the drain. AMDs AM2+ socket still has a few years left in it, so that might be a better choice, but we still don't know how well it will perform. I just bought 2gb ram yesterday(put my 1.25gb in my dads laptop, since he "upgraded" to vista) so hopefully that will help out with some games as well. It is pretty useless for linux though, I have never gotten it to use more than about 500mb ram, and most of the time it is using less than 256mb. Right now I have 256mb in my laptop running linux with all the eyecandy and everything turned on and it is faster than my dads computer running vista with everything turned off and 5x the ram.
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