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Unique Dell XPS M1710 Review

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the review-with-actual-info dept.

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.'"

6 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Looks nice... by Jhon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well it looks nice. But will it explode?

  2. How is this new? by Thauma · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:How is this new? by Erwos · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Absolutely correct. Indeed, it seems like the recent trend has been to move away from docking stations with real PCI/PCIe slots, and instead have these awful USB docks. That's a real shame, because I think it would appeal to a lot of folks to have a 12" laptop with good CPU, lots of memory, and a very low-power GPU plug into a docking station with a PCIe x16 slot and maybe a couple of PCIe x1 or PCI slots. Your 12" laptop doubles as a full-blown desktop, but doesn't sacrifice on either end - that's a nice selling point.

      -Erwos

      --
      Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
  3. Dell does this on their other machines as well by Com2Kid · · Score: 4, Informative

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

    This is nothing new, please move along.

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    Need help treating your acne? Come here!
  4. Gaming laptops are over-priced by LaughingCoder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I never quite understood why someone would buy these really pricey gaming laptops. For my boys I built microATX cubes that have every bit as much performance as these high end laptops, for about 1/4th the price -- and they are easily and cheaply upgradeable down the road. When they go to a friend's house for a LANparty they just grab the cube by its handle and throw their keyboard/mouse into a bag. Monitors are not a problem -- most people have monitors leftover in their basement/attic from when they upgraded to LCD, so they just connect to the surplus monitor, plug into their network and off they go. Seriously, you can build a nice cube gaming box for about $550 (DVD writer, Athlon 64 3500+, 1GB DDR400, 300GB SATA HD, Windows XP license, box w/420W supply, motherboard) plus whatever graphics floats your boat (I find the $99 NVidia 6 series PCIe boards are more than adequate, though I have also found that many games are actually quite playable using just the embedded graphics like the NVidia 6150). Sure, you may be 10 or 20 fps slower than your buddies, with a little less detail in the shadows, but who cares (especially when most LCD monitors top out at 60Hz refresh rate anyhow ;-).

    --
    The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
  5. what is going on with graphics cards... by revery · · Score: 4, Funny

    Perhaps an upgrade to allow for standard or even Quad-SLI would be possible with such a dock.

    Hey, and maybe then I can get a docking station for my docking station that has QuadQuad-SLI, and then maybe I can get in a robotic exo-skeleton and become the first Headmaster, and we can finally take the fight directly to Unicron. Is the gaming industry out of its mind? Seriously. I mean, I am not going to buy four graphics cards to put into my computer to play games. Ever. Period. End of story. I'm sorry game developers, but you're just gonna have to make do with the measly bazillion pixels my current stand-alone graphics card can dish out.

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    Instead of imagining a beowulf cluster of PS3's, just wait three years and check out the PS4.