Dell XPS M1730: SLI, Penryn, and Overclocking

Benchmark Setup

The launch of the 8800M GTX allowed us to set several new records in mobile graphics performance in January. Armed with two GPUs in the fastest mobile Core 2 Duo to date, we expect to shatter every laptop performance record. We also have several new titles were adding to our benchmark suite, and we ran a selection of the benchmarks at the various overclock settings. Here's the system configuration we received for review.

One component that we wanted to talk about briefly is the LCD. We've complained in the past that laptop LCDs often offer significantly worse performance than just about any desktop LCD. They aren't as bright, they have poor viewing angles, nearly all of them use TN panels, and color accuracy even after calibration is relatively poor. Dell uses one of the newer 17" LCDs from LG Philips, the LP171WU1. This is the brightest notebook LCD we've tested to date, coming in at over 250 nits at maximum brightness. It has a glossy coating, but with Dell TrueLife - a technology that supposedly reduces reflection. We could definitely see reflections still, but perhaps they weren't quite as noticeable as on other glossy LCDs.

Besides having a brighter backlight, the LCD panel also boasts one of the best response times currently available in a notebook display. Many laptops still come with 25ms response times, but this new LG Philips display boasts 16ms TrTf/7ms GTG response times. For a gaming system, that can be a significant factor and we're glad to see Dell taking a holistic approach to the system. So far so good, right?

The only drawback is that the color accuracy is off the charts. Prior to calibration, we measured a Delta E of over 15.0, but even after calibrating the best Delta E we could achieve was still almost twice as high as the next closest laptop. We asked Dell about this, but we didn't get any real answer as to why the color accuracy was so poor. More likely than not, the display has been calibrated to be more subjectively pleasing at the cost of color accuracy - a case of Best Buy HDTVs meeting laptop LCDs. For gaming and watching movies in particular, there's a very good chance that many people will subjectively prefer the slightly  oversaturated colors.

Honestly, most people probably won't notice the color inaccuracies, but they will definitely notice that the display is brighter and the response times are better than competing notebooks. For those that really need accurate colors, however, this particular panel seems to miss the mark. For gaming and movies, we had no complaints, and even doing photo editing it wasn't a serious problem. Placing the display next to a calibrated 30" desktop LCD, however, clearly showed the differences in color reproduction. Given that this is primarily a gaming notebook, we certainly don't consider the high Delta E to be a major concern, but we'd be remiss if we didn't at least mention the fact.