Unique Dell XPS M1710 Review

Searching4Sasquatch writes "Hot Hardware has just posted a unique review of Dell's flagship XPS M1710 notebook. They stumbled across some very interesting information within the BIOS which seems to indicate Dell is working on a docking station with its own discrete graphics. 'The user is given the option of using either the integrated GeForce Go 7900 GTX GPU found within the system or the extremely interesting option of using the graphics card found within a docking station. Could Dell be planning on releasing an enthusiast dock that features a high-end GPU that could not otherwise be crammed into the confinements of the notebook chassis? Perhaps an upgrade to allow for standard or even Quad-SLI would be possible with such a dock.'"

Comments

How is this new?

[Thauma]

There have always been expansion docks for laptops that allow PCI and even ISA bus access. Hell there have even been carbus based graphics adapters for notebooks. All this is a bridge to PCI Express bus. There is nothing new to see here... move along.

Re:How is this new?

[sk8dork]

if you want a Dell notebook that has a docking station connection on the bottom of the system so you don't have to use USB docks, then get a Latitude. *pets Latitude D620*

Latitudes have always had docking connectors. well, except for certain models like the X1 that doesn't have room for vents much less a docking connection.

Dell moved away from true docking connections on Inspirons some time ago. and yeah, XPS is now some generic word for Inspiron or Dimension pretty much now. XPS used to be THE high powered Dimension system, then the high powered Inspiron, now they make all these goofy flavors of XPS.

Dell does this on their other machines as well

[Com2Kid]

Their (very popular) D600 has the same option in the BIOS.

This is nothing new, please move along.

This isn't new...

[SilentJ_PDX]

My IBM Thinkpad has had the same option in the BIOS for ages. Seeing how 'boring' IBM is, I'm guessing there are lots of notebooks with similar options in the BIOS.

Re:Interesting

[Molochi]

The main reasons oem (not just dell but sony, hp etc...) tend to be much slower than one might expect.

1) Integrated graphics chips that share memory bandwidth with the system. Many (possibly MOST, I haven't checked the sales figures) Dells were sold in the last 5 years that had no AGP slot, just 3 PCI slots. Buying any cheap ( $50) PCI Videocard usually solves this... If you aren't already using the slots and if the bios allows you to disable the integrated graphics. There are a few integrated options that don't suck (the life out of your system), but Dell never used them until recently.

2) Slow memory. Early on, P4 systems were commonly equiped (because it was much cheaper)with single channel sdr-sdram (1GBPS) instead of dual channel "pc800"RDRAM(3GBPS). Woe unto the poor slob that wound up with a p4 running SDR memory and integrated graphics. Mid gen P4 cheapy systems usually (i845) came with single channel ddr266 or if you were lucky DDR333 and these weren't too bad for day to day use, tho' they were pretty weak compared to top of the line i850E or better chipset. The P4's performance "feel" (as well as benchmark scores) is closely tied to memory speed; much moreso than P3, PM, or Athlons of any stripe.

3) Crappy initial BIOS issues. I couldn't tell you how many systems I've worked on that started behaving like real computers once they recieved a bios update that was released 6 months after the system was sold to the customer. However most of those were HP/Compaq or momandpopbrand. Intel often has a bios update that will work better with a standard intel spec'd mobo than anything the OEM delivers.

4) Craptastic drivers, particularly IDE controller drivers that let the system fall back to PIO mode. This is oftem fixed with an update issued months into the model's run. Intel's own drivers sometimes fix this better than anything issued by the OEM.

I wouldn't say that every Dell I've worked on is slow. I would say that the majority of Dells I've worked on has an economy level motherboard, and below average performance parts that cost the owner less than $600 shipped. They paid for a crap level system and they got it. Congratulations. Here's your sign.