Dell DTR Laptop Shootout - M1710 vs. E1705

Benchmark Test Configurations

There are many choices that you can make when configuring any of these laptops, and some of the decisions will impact performance to varying degrees. We have three laptops, and all of them are on the higher end of the performance spectrum. The E1705 with X1400 graphics is definitely going to struggle in gaming performance, and the other E1705 is only running with 1GB of RAM which will also have a smaller impact. Beyond that, though, all three systems come with the WUXGA displays, 100 GB 7200 RPM hard drives, and DDR2-667 memory. Here are the specific configurations tested.

Dell XPS M1710
Processor	Intel Core Duo T2600 (2.16 GHz 2x2MB)
Chipset	Intel 945PM 64-bit Dual-Channel
Memory	2 x 1024MB DDR2-667
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GTX 512MB (500/1200)
Hard Drive	Hitachi Travelstar 100GB 7200 RPM

Dell Inspiron E1705 "7800"
Processor	Intel Core Duo T2600 (2.16 GHz 2x2MB)
Chipset	Intel 945PM 64-bit Dual-Channel
Memory	2 x 512MB DDR2-667
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 256MB (250/658)
Hard Drive	Hitachi Travelstar 100GB 7200 RPM

Dell Inspiron E1705 "X1400"
Processor	Intel Core Duo T2600 (2.16 GHz 2x2MB)
Chipset	Intel 945PM 64-bit Dual-Channel
Memory	2 x 1024MB DDR2-667
Graphics	ATI Radeon Mobility X1400 256MB
Hard Drive	Hitachi Travelstar 100GB 7200 RPM

We did our best to include a variety of benchmarks that will prove useful in determining how these laptops perform. For the gaming tests, we ran all games with and without anti-aliasing. The M1710 can generally handle 4xAA in most games, but the other two laptops have difficulty with that setting. We won't bother including the results from the X1400 configuration with 4xAA, as there's little point in even thinking about it given the single-digit frame rates we experienced. The GeForce Go 7800 does better, but the M1710 is still in an entirely different league when it comes to graphics performance. The flipside is that battery life can be severely impacted with the faster graphics chips, and we'll find out just how much shortly.

One area that is quite surprising is the clock speeds Dell has chosen for the GeForce Go 7800: 250 MHz on the core and 658 MHz on the RAM, with 16 pixel pipelines and 6 vertex pipelines. NVIDIA lists the 7800 Go has having up to a 400 MHz core and 1100 MHz RAM, which would nearly double performance of the E1705 default speeds. However, running at those speeds would likely require more power than even the Go 7900 GTX. Since the XPS line is geared as the gaming option and the E1705 is more for multimedia, sacrificing battery life and temperatures for added gaming power might not be the best way to go. If you search around the Internet, you can find information on trying to volt mod and overclock your Go 7800, though obviously Dell doesn't encourage that sort of behavior.