Nvidia GeForce Go 6800 / 6800 Ultra

I got just a hair under 2 hours of battery time doing AutoCad at 800MHz on a fullbright screen.

I say go with the XPS.

you and i were in a VERY similar if not identical situation.

I went with the i9300. The extra battery life did it for me. I rather get close to 5 hrs with that 9 cell batt on the 9300 then the 2 hrs on the xps. It is a portable notebook after all.

Go check out Dells academic pricing on the i9300, that was a difference for me. ITs 20% off overtop of 12% off if you get a 3 or 4 yr service plan. otherwise with a 1 or 2 year plan its a 6% discount with that 20% as well.

Good deal, great lappy. I ordered mine yesterday, so

good luck, hope this helps

Well lets take a look at the current benchmarks shall we?!

I'm sure you are familiar with FutureMark's 3dMark05 scoring?

The XPS and i9300 are pretty similar. The XPS Gen2 is just a shnazzy 9300 case with LED's (basically, in my opinion, cooler looking). The insides are the same - same motherboard same Intel Pentium M (with XPS having an option of getting the 2.13 780 Chip) and room for ram, etc. Same screen size (while the XPS Gen2 has standard WXGA 1900x1280 you can pick with i9300 for a lower res or WXGA). The difference lies with the 6800 Ultra and the Power supply. The XPS comes with a 130 Watt while the i9300 comes with a 90 Watt. Mostly due to the Ultra card probably sucking more juice.

If you look at the 3dMark05 score you are going to see this.

Stock, out of the box:
i9300: 3100-3300
XPS Gen2: 5050-5200

OC'd (numbers vary in much larger degree of course)
i9300: 3800-4200 (I think I saw a 4300 I believe)
XPS Gen2 (only Auto OC): I got a 6058 but a lot of people are getting between 5800-6100.

Even if you opt for an Ultra later on, I have heard some people having bios trouble, and it not performing as well. Also, that larger Power Supply does come in handy. I just think the XPS is built for gaming (it's a gaming machine), even though the i9300 is nearly identicle.

It does come down to the price, I'm sure. I would say, don't skemp on what you want and buy the XPS Gen2. It is very resilient system and you'll have the fastest and best lappy out there. I got my Vid card to Auto OC at 546 mhz core clock. That's higher then most Vid cards out there - even stock! The Ultra is a good card. And it comes with the XPS Gen2. You can save the trouble of trying to put it in your i9300 later and spending the 400 dollars for it....much less if you wait a while, however.

I had the 9300 and was amazed by its weight - it seems very light for its size and how cool it ran (w/ PM 2.00). I decided to change LCD’s because I thought I could get a better one. Unfortunately I went through 3 Samsung's and didn't like any of them. In hindsight, I really loved the original LG screen. Also, and this was a biggie for me, the XPS has Gigabit Ethernet - the 9300 only has 10/100 - HUGE difference. I’m betting that your college has Gigabit.

Anyway, just got my XPS and I'm totally satisfied! I have the beautiful LG screen and true Gigabit. The XPS runs much hotter and most people don't mention it but the XPS feels MUCH heavier in my lap.

So if you want long battery life, a true portable, go with the 9300.
If you want or need the 6800 Ultra and Gigabit, go with the XPS.

Either way you really can't lose. Both are great!

is the XPS much heavier?
How would weight/battery life compare?

I was in the same boat. I went with the 9300 and here is why:

1. The XPS 2 does game better, but not THAT much better. 15-20% will catch it. The 9300 still plays most of today's titles at max.

2. The 9300 gets 1 to 1 1/2 hours more batt life. I needn;t tell you how that works going from class to class at least when I was in school.

3. Outside of the video card, gigabit internet, and the lights these are identical machines using identitical chassis. Meaning: You will get as good of performance doing anything non gaming related assuming processors are equal of course.

4. You will spend significantly less (in the neighborhood of $500-$700 right now depending on the config).

5. Finally, you don't have to carry arround the huge powerbrick which you have to have for the XPS 2.

These were my considerations. I really thought about the gigabit internet, but it is not something I have nor will I be using in the immediate future so I couldn't justifiy the extra cash for something I might use in the future on some occasion.

This all said the XPS2 does rock as a gaming machine, but $500-700 more is a lot to pay for gigabit internet, a slightly better video card, and black trim and LED's. Mainly it's about batter life for me.

It sounds like you want an XPS 2. I know an i9300 couldn't run Counter-Strike: Source at 1920x1200 with all details at maximum fast enough for me. Even with the 6800 Ultra, I don't enable anti-aliasing...I can't have it dip below 30 fps ever if I want to play competitively. Of course, it's to the point where 45fps seems slow to me...my XPS 2 has really spoiled me. That's a good thing though.

Battery life is just about perfect for my uses...I often write java code on battery, and I'm done before it's out of juice. Haven't watched a DVD movie on battery power since I drive myself everywhere.

Did I mention that this is my first academic year at college? And that I waited 9 months for a Pentium M processor coupled with PCI-express and a beastly video card?