This is the review of my newly acquired Inspiron 8600. Keep in mind I purchased this machine for games so my review, testing, and benchmarks were all done with that in mind. You may have read another review on this board by MikeyToo. He's a friend of mine and we both purchased our laptops at about the same time. They differ slightly in hardware so you can read both reviews and come to your own conclusions. Throughout this review you'll find liberal use of "in my opinion". This is my attempt to say what I really think and not offend anyone. For those that want to skip the review, my benchmark results are at the end.
When thinking about a gaming notebook I considered everything Dell (and other companies) offers with a decent video card. Early on I eliminated Alienware because I didn't like their body styles, and they weren't competitive as far as price. As such, I settled on Dell because they offered the best prices and seemed to offer far more configuration options over other companies.
With Dell now my choice; I considered the XPS, 9200, and 8600. I settled on the I8600 and would say it is a solid gaming notebook. I stress the word notebook because other competing machines in my opinion are not notebooks. Take the 9200 for instance, sure you can get better video (9700) but it's just massive with that 17" widescreen. I checked out some 17inchers at Best Buy and that was not something I wanted to lug around. Next, I looked at the XPS and immediately shut that idea down. The XPS in my opinion is not even a notebook, it is desktop components stuffed into a notebook "style" case. It weighs in at ~12 pounds (with power adaptor) and is two inches thick. I wanted something that plays games, doesn't weigh 12 pounds, and doesn't take up a huge footprint. The I8600 seemed to fit this need the best...
-My I8600-
Intel® Pentium® M Processor 755(2GHz/400MHz FSB) 15.4 WXGA (1280x800)
1GB DDR SDRAM 2 Dimms (purchased from Crutial)
128MB DDR ATI's MOBILITY® RADEON 9600 PROTURBO
24X CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive
60GB Hard Drive at 7200RPM
Dell® Wireless 1450 Internal Wireless (802.11a/b/g, 54Mbps)
Dell TrueMobile 300 Bluetooth Internal Card
First things first, lets start with the WXGA screen. Keep in mind I bought this machine for gaming and in my opinion the WXGA screen is the best choice. This is because the included video card (9600 Pro) is only good enough to push most games at 1024x768 or 1280x800 at the most. Any higher resolution and your framerate is going to suffer. Granted, you can turn down game options, but most gamers I know want the best detail they can get, and still have the game not be a slide show. The other reason for the WXGA is that it is the only 15.4" widescreen that has a resolution close to 1024x768. This is important because if a game doesn't support widescreen, 1024x768 is the resolution you will probably end up using. Since stretching looks like crap, you will want to set the machine to "stretch but maintain aspect ratio". This gives you a small amount of vertical stretching and black bars on each side of the screen. In my opinion "stretch but maintain aspect ratio" looks and performs the best if a game does not support native widescreen mode. Try this on one of the other screens and you are going to be playing in a small window or dealing with crappy looking stretching. Try to play at native resolution (1680x1050 or 1920x1200) on the other screens and you will need to turn game options way down to get the 9600 Pro to push out a decent frame rate.
Next I guess I'll talk about RAM. My advice would be to take the machine with the RAM it comes with and buy your upgrades somewhere else. I got my gig of RAM for $40 cheaper than Dell and I keep the 256MB chip it comes with. I'll be selling this chip and the free printer on eBay to recoup some of my loot. I got my RAM from Crucial, and I have had very good luck with them in the past.
I picked the DVD reader because I have no desire to burn DVD's on this machine. The only issue I have with the drive is the spin-up time. It's takes, in my opinion, longer than it should to spin up when you insert a CD or DVD. Hey, it's a small gripe, but that's what reviews are for.
As far as the hard drive, the 7200RPM drive is a must have. Level load-times are long enough as it is, they need no help from a slow hard drive. Enough said...
No big deal on the wireless card. I chose the 1450 because it does 802.11a and it uses less power when idle. It was only $8 bucks more, but I imagine any of the other wireless cards would be fine.
I'm extremely happy I chose built-in Blue Tooth. It was about the same price as many of those USB modules, but I don't have to waste a USB port. I know there have been many lamenting how BT drains your battery, but I don't seem to have a problem. Granted, the card is always using power (even when idle) but it's not a big issue. When the card is active it uses power, but what do you expect? I use Blue Tooth to access the internet from my cell phone. This usually isn't for long periods of time and is far too useful for me to give up. Those using BT keyboards or mice may have battery problems. When you get into that stuff your mileage may vary.
That's about it from a component-by-component standpoint. However, there are a few more things to say about the machine in general. I know many have been complaining about keyboard travel, and I now understand. I use a Dell Latitude C640 at work and the keyboard is rock solid. It's not so solid on the I8600. It's not enough to really bother me (or my typing), but I did notice. I would like to also mention the speaker quality. In my opinion the I8600 has the best speakers I have used on a notebook. The sound is loud, clear, and doesn't sound "tinny" like other notebook speakers. Something else that just came to mind are the system fans. They are loud. If noise really bothers you, be sure to download the fan control software or look into a quieter system. Another negative...only two USB ports. Two is nice, four is nicer. One last thing before I post my benchmark scores. I can't see how anyone could ever use this machine the way it comes from Dell. There were no less than 14 items loaded in the systray. The default build from Dell is so bloated and so slow it's ridiculous. I recommend anyone buying a Dell machine use the included Windows CD to reinstall the base OS.
Now for the benchmark results. It's very important to let you know that I did these tests with a BASE OS INSTALL. I simply reinstalled Windows XP Pro SP2 and the drivers to make the hardware work. I did not tweak the system, I did not install Windows patches, I did not change any settings to optimize the machine in any way. I did this so anyone reading can grab their Windows CD and duplicate (fairly well) the testing conditions. Does that mean my benchmarks are going to be artificially low? Yes, but how else could you compare the numbers if I had tweaked my system in any way? After some deliberation I decided to do two sets of tests. One with the newest Dell ATI drivers and one with the newest Omega drivers. The test results are...interesting...to say the least.
--I8600 Benchmarking--
All tests run under the following conditions:
Tests at 1024x768,32 bit color are set to stretch but maintain aspect ratio.
Tests are also run at native resolution (1280x800,32 bit color) when available.
Tests were run with Windows XP Pro management of power (dynamic switching enabled).
Test were run with vsync turned off for OpenGL and D3D in the video driver.
All tests use the DEMO version of 3Dmark and Aquamark and use DEFAULT test settings.
Radeon Omega Drivers 2.5.97 (Catalyst 4.12 Beta)
(AA=off, FB=double, TF=compressed, Zbuffer=24bit, and Rendering=D3D Hardware T&L)
3Dmark2001 - 1024x768: 9999 3D marks
3Dmark2001 - 1280x800: 8752 3D marks
(PP=none, TF=optimal, Max Anisotropy=4, Vertex Shaders=optimal, and Fixed Framerate=off)
3Dmark2003 - 1024x768: 2754 3D marks
(AA=off, , HLSL VS Target=2_0, HLSL PS Target=2_0, and Fixed Framerate=off)
3Dmark2005 - 1024x768: 678 3D marks
(FSAA=off, Anisotropic Filtering=4x, and Maximum Detail)
Aquamark3 - 1024x768: GFX=1887 / CPU=8129
Call of Duty Benchmark (using CoDBench / sound hardware enabled)
Demo=Timedemo1, CFG=Max Detail, Resolution=1024x768, Average FPS=35.23
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Series, v.8.05-040812a-017727c, A04
(AA=off, FB=double, TF=compressed, Zbuffer=24bit, and Rendering=D3D Hardware T&L)
3Dmark2001 - 1024x768: 10590 3D marks
3Dmark2001 - 1280x800: 9191 3D marks
(PP=none, TF=optimal, Max Anisotropy=4, Vertex Shaders=optimal, and Fixed Framerate=off)
3Dmark2003 - 1024x768: 2881 3D marks
(AA=off, , HLSL VS Target=2_0, HLSL PS Target=2_0, and Fixed Framerate=off)
3Dmark2005 - 1024x768: 1063 3D marks
(FSAA=off, Anisotropic Filtering=4x, and Maximum Detail)
Aquamark3 - 1024x768: GFX=2421 / CPU=9638
Call of Duty Benchmark (using CoDBench / sound hardware enabled)
Demo=Timedemo1, CFG=Max Detail, Resolution=1024x768, Average FPS=74.53
SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2005
CPU Arithmetic Bench - Dhrystone ALU=8099 MIPS, Whetstone FPU=2746 MFLOPS, and Whetstone iSSE2=3547 MFLOPS
CPU Multi-Media Bench - Integer x4 iSSE=18983 it/s and Float x4 iSSE2=21021 it/s
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I'm very pleased with this notebook and believe it will serve me well. It has played every game I have tried so far with no problem at all. Last night I played a good bit of World of Warcraft in native widescreen mode...good stuff. If you found this review helpful please let me know.
When thinking about a gaming notebook I considered everything Dell (and other companies) offers with a decent video card. Early on I eliminated Alienware because I didn't like their body styles, and they weren't competitive as far as price. As such, I settled on Dell because they offered the best prices and seemed to offer far more configuration options over other companies.
With Dell now my choice; I considered the XPS, 9200, and 8600. I settled on the I8600 and would say it is a solid gaming notebook. I stress the word notebook because other competing machines in my opinion are not notebooks. Take the 9200 for instance, sure you can get better video (9700) but it's just massive with that 17" widescreen. I checked out some 17inchers at Best Buy and that was not something I wanted to lug around. Next, I looked at the XPS and immediately shut that idea down. The XPS in my opinion is not even a notebook, it is desktop components stuffed into a notebook "style" case. It weighs in at ~12 pounds (with power adaptor) and is two inches thick. I wanted something that plays games, doesn't weigh 12 pounds, and doesn't take up a huge footprint. The I8600 seemed to fit this need the best...
-My I8600-
Intel® Pentium® M Processor 755(2GHz/400MHz FSB) 15.4 WXGA (1280x800)
1GB DDR SDRAM 2 Dimms (purchased from Crutial)
128MB DDR ATI's MOBILITY® RADEON 9600 PROTURBO
24X CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive
60GB Hard Drive at 7200RPM
Dell® Wireless 1450 Internal Wireless (802.11a/b/g, 54Mbps)
Dell TrueMobile 300 Bluetooth Internal Card
First things first, lets start with the WXGA screen. Keep in mind I bought this machine for gaming and in my opinion the WXGA screen is the best choice. This is because the included video card (9600 Pro) is only good enough to push most games at 1024x768 or 1280x800 at the most. Any higher resolution and your framerate is going to suffer. Granted, you can turn down game options, but most gamers I know want the best detail they can get, and still have the game not be a slide show. The other reason for the WXGA is that it is the only 15.4" widescreen that has a resolution close to 1024x768. This is important because if a game doesn't support widescreen, 1024x768 is the resolution you will probably end up using. Since stretching looks like crap, you will want to set the machine to "stretch but maintain aspect ratio". This gives you a small amount of vertical stretching and black bars on each side of the screen. In my opinion "stretch but maintain aspect ratio" looks and performs the best if a game does not support native widescreen mode. Try this on one of the other screens and you are going to be playing in a small window or dealing with crappy looking stretching. Try to play at native resolution (1680x1050 or 1920x1200) on the other screens and you will need to turn game options way down to get the 9600 Pro to push out a decent frame rate.
Next I guess I'll talk about RAM. My advice would be to take the machine with the RAM it comes with and buy your upgrades somewhere else. I got my gig of RAM for $40 cheaper than Dell and I keep the 256MB chip it comes with. I'll be selling this chip and the free printer on eBay to recoup some of my loot. I got my RAM from Crucial, and I have had very good luck with them in the past.
I picked the DVD reader because I have no desire to burn DVD's on this machine. The only issue I have with the drive is the spin-up time. It's takes, in my opinion, longer than it should to spin up when you insert a CD or DVD. Hey, it's a small gripe, but that's what reviews are for.
As far as the hard drive, the 7200RPM drive is a must have. Level load-times are long enough as it is, they need no help from a slow hard drive. Enough said...
No big deal on the wireless card. I chose the 1450 because it does 802.11a and it uses less power when idle. It was only $8 bucks more, but I imagine any of the other wireless cards would be fine.
I'm extremely happy I chose built-in Blue Tooth. It was about the same price as many of those USB modules, but I don't have to waste a USB port. I know there have been many lamenting how BT drains your battery, but I don't seem to have a problem. Granted, the card is always using power (even when idle) but it's not a big issue. When the card is active it uses power, but what do you expect? I use Blue Tooth to access the internet from my cell phone. This usually isn't for long periods of time and is far too useful for me to give up. Those using BT keyboards or mice may have battery problems. When you get into that stuff your mileage may vary.
That's about it from a component-by-component standpoint. However, there are a few more things to say about the machine in general. I know many have been complaining about keyboard travel, and I now understand. I use a Dell Latitude C640 at work and the keyboard is rock solid. It's not so solid on the I8600. It's not enough to really bother me (or my typing), but I did notice. I would like to also mention the speaker quality. In my opinion the I8600 has the best speakers I have used on a notebook. The sound is loud, clear, and doesn't sound "tinny" like other notebook speakers. Something else that just came to mind are the system fans. They are loud. If noise really bothers you, be sure to download the fan control software or look into a quieter system. Another negative...only two USB ports. Two is nice, four is nicer. One last thing before I post my benchmark scores. I can't see how anyone could ever use this machine the way it comes from Dell. There were no less than 14 items loaded in the systray. The default build from Dell is so bloated and so slow it's ridiculous. I recommend anyone buying a Dell machine use the included Windows CD to reinstall the base OS.
Now for the benchmark results. It's very important to let you know that I did these tests with a BASE OS INSTALL. I simply reinstalled Windows XP Pro SP2 and the drivers to make the hardware work. I did not tweak the system, I did not install Windows patches, I did not change any settings to optimize the machine in any way. I did this so anyone reading can grab their Windows CD and duplicate (fairly well) the testing conditions. Does that mean my benchmarks are going to be artificially low? Yes, but how else could you compare the numbers if I had tweaked my system in any way? After some deliberation I decided to do two sets of tests. One with the newest Dell ATI drivers and one with the newest Omega drivers. The test results are...interesting...to say the least.
--I8600 Benchmarking--
All tests run under the following conditions:
Tests at 1024x768,32 bit color are set to stretch but maintain aspect ratio.
Tests are also run at native resolution (1280x800,32 bit color) when available.
Tests were run with Windows XP Pro management of power (dynamic switching enabled).
Test were run with vsync turned off for OpenGL and D3D in the video driver.
All tests use the DEMO version of 3Dmark and Aquamark and use DEFAULT test settings.
Radeon Omega Drivers 2.5.97 (Catalyst 4.12 Beta)
(AA=off, FB=double, TF=compressed, Zbuffer=24bit, and Rendering=D3D Hardware T&L)
3Dmark2001 - 1024x768: 9999 3D marks
3Dmark2001 - 1280x800: 8752 3D marks
(PP=none, TF=optimal, Max Anisotropy=4, Vertex Shaders=optimal, and Fixed Framerate=off)
3Dmark2003 - 1024x768: 2754 3D marks
(AA=off, , HLSL VS Target=2_0, HLSL PS Target=2_0, and Fixed Framerate=off)
3Dmark2005 - 1024x768: 678 3D marks
(FSAA=off, Anisotropic Filtering=4x, and Maximum Detail)
Aquamark3 - 1024x768: GFX=1887 / CPU=8129
Call of Duty Benchmark (using CoDBench / sound hardware enabled)
Demo=Timedemo1, CFG=Max Detail, Resolution=1024x768, Average FPS=35.23
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Series, v.8.05-040812a-017727c, A04
(AA=off, FB=double, TF=compressed, Zbuffer=24bit, and Rendering=D3D Hardware T&L)
3Dmark2001 - 1024x768: 10590 3D marks
3Dmark2001 - 1280x800: 9191 3D marks
(PP=none, TF=optimal, Max Anisotropy=4, Vertex Shaders=optimal, and Fixed Framerate=off)
3Dmark2003 - 1024x768: 2881 3D marks
(AA=off, , HLSL VS Target=2_0, HLSL PS Target=2_0, and Fixed Framerate=off)
3Dmark2005 - 1024x768: 1063 3D marks
(FSAA=off, Anisotropic Filtering=4x, and Maximum Detail)
Aquamark3 - 1024x768: GFX=2421 / CPU=9638
Call of Duty Benchmark (using CoDBench / sound hardware enabled)
Demo=Timedemo1, CFG=Max Detail, Resolution=1024x768, Average FPS=74.53
SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2005
CPU Arithmetic Bench - Dhrystone ALU=8099 MIPS, Whetstone FPU=2746 MFLOPS, and Whetstone iSSE2=3547 MFLOPS
CPU Multi-Media Bench - Integer x4 iSSE=18983 it/s and Float x4 iSSE2=21021 it/s
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I'm very pleased with this notebook and believe it will serve me well. It has played every game I have tried so far with no problem at all. Last night I played a good bit of World of Warcraft in native widescreen mode...good stuff. If you found this review helpful please let me know.
