Dell Inspiron 1564: Mobile i3/i5 for the Masses
by Dustin Sklavos on March 3, 2010 11:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Dell Inspiron 15 3DMark Performance
The chip that powers the Inspiron 15's ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330—the M92, the desktop RV710's mobile derivative—remains extremely common as a dedicated option in modern laptops, routinely appearing as the higher-clocked Mobility Radeon HD 4570. While it sports an anemic 80 stream processors, that's still twice the number found in AMD's top-end integrated graphics part, the Radeon HD 4200. The HD 4330 also benefits from a dedicated 512MB of GDDR3 in the Inspiron 15 clocked at an effective 1.2GHz. While most gamers would scoff at such an underpowered GPU, we only need enough power to game at the Inspiron 15's modest 1366x768 resolution.
We've got a second point of comparison with the HD 4330 just to make things interesting. The MSI X610 uses a single-core AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 running at 1.6GHz. Obviously, that's a much slower CPU than the i5-520M, but it will be interesting to see whether the bottleneck is the CPU or GPU in our 3D and gaming results.
It isn't ideal, but in 3DMark the Mobility Radeon HD 4330 at least puts in a decent showing against NVIDIA's competing lowest-common-denominator, the GeForce G 210M powered by 16 of NVIDIA's CUDA cores—though granted the G210M is handicapped somewhat by the slower SU7300 @ 1.73GHz CPU. The CPU also makes a huge difference when we compare the MSI X610 and the Inspiron 15, with each succeeding 3DMark version showing a larger gap. We'll see how things stack up in our gaming results next.
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Hrel - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 - link
Haven't even gotten past the first page yet, but a 768p screen paired with a 5400rpm hdd just makes me lose ALL interest! Especially for almost $1000, wtf!wolrah - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
The 100mbit Ethernet connection is where I lose interest. Gigabit is cheap as dirt. There is no reason at all for any computer shipping today to not have gigabit, period. 802.11n not being there I can sort of see at the low end, since good 802.11n APs are still hard to find, but gigabit is an unacceptable omission.donjuancarlos - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
It's the Core i5--new technology that's jacking the price (not even available at dell.com right now). If you get a core i3, you can get one for under $600. I've seen them under $500 on sale. That's just fine price-wise.And I agree with Anandtech- the i5 in this laptop is overkill. For better performance you're much better off to get the $500 version of this laptop and throw an SSD in it.
T2k - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
I disagree: it's a DTR, remember?And if you do video/fx/cg/3D/graphics/etc jobs faster CPU and more memory always help a lot.
strikeback03 - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
a 15" relatively thin laptop isn't necessarily a DTR.dagamer34 - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
Because people who worry about stuff like that, Dell would rather you purchase a Studio XPS than from the Inspiron line of laptops.Hrel - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
Only problem with that is that they START at like a thousand bucks.JarredWalton - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
So skip the Studio XPS and look at the regular http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/notebooks/laptop_st...">Dell Studio line. I find those to be a lot better in overall features, customization options, etc.1: Please don't respond to spam posts, or you risk having your comments deleted. The following two comments were from other readers.
jecs:
Its ugly, but when a big fight involving big capitals has been beautiful???. Do you expect poetry? And then what is the point in a patent if it can't "protect" you or your products. And yes, I don't like it. But is better to have order and laws than not having them at all, or a system that can be fooled everywhere.
Apple is a corporation and is no better in that sense than the rest. Don be fooled because there are no angels here and there, and don't be naive, this is the world we live in. But again, ¿Why does a corporation exist on a legal basis? It does not includes just this silly method Apple is fighting for. What's involved here is the main reason why we need a legal system, clear rules and what should be protected and from who.
T2k:
Screw Dell and its price gouging - http://www.jr.com/acer-computer/pe/ACE_AS5740G6979..." target="_blank">take a look at here!
Yes, that's the SAME CPU there, bigger HDD, better screen, everything included and graphics is the LATEST DX11 Mobility Radeon 5650 1GB instead of Dell's outdated chip - all this for $750 SHIPPED.
Last year Acer became the #2 PC maker and it's not an accident: it's killing Dell with its faster model refresh rate, better quality-control and lower prices.
JarredWalton - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
Technically, T2k, that's the same size screen, same resolution screen, and a cheaper CPU (the i5-520M has a lot price of $225; Intel doesn't list volume pricing on the i3 or i5-430M, but I'd expect it's at least $75 less). But otherwise, yes, the Acer you linked looks like a much better buy.lyeoh - Friday, March 5, 2010 - link
Acers tend to be crappier than Dells though.http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/17/laptop-reliabil...">http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/17/lapt...-survey-...
(feel free to ignore the projections)
Dell's aren't that great but they aren't that crap either. They're smack right in the middle which I think is where they are aiming for anyway.