Dell E1505 and World of Warcraft questions!

[digitalemperor]

Well it's crunch time. I need to make some decisions about my Dell E1505. Tomorrow morning the money for my new lappy goes into my checking and I'll be ordering a system. Basically everything is how I want it *except* I am having second thoughts on spending the money on a 2.0ghz Core 2 Duo vs. the 1.6ghz. Also, I am worrying about the SXGA screen vs. the XGA screen.

With the x1400 being a huge limiting factor, am I throwing money away on a 2.0ghz Core 2 Duo expecting to get better "clicking around windows" and World of Warcraft performance? And also, is the x1400 enough power to drive WoW @ 1680x1050 SXGA? I am afraid I will end up having to run the game at a non-native res. ..... would that look considerably worse than the lower grade XGA screen if I end up having to?

Basically anyone who has a SXGA + x1400 I need some opinions on this!! So hard to pull the trigger without having solid #'s for the main application being used on this thing ARG.

 

[Ruptga]

I can't tell you much about the graphics, but you should know the 1.6ghz parts are reject margin-reducers, they run on a 533 bus instead of the usual 667. If you just didn't want to type that last 6 in 1.66Ghz, that's fine cuz that's the 667 bus.
T2300s are 1.66, 667 bux, and 2250s are the reject 533 bus parts, and there's also a 533 part that runs at 1.86 but I don't remember its model number.

 

[digitalemperor]

Yes it is the 1.66ghz cpu. All of the Core 2 Duo cpu's run at 667mhz FSB. The cpu I am looking at is the T5500 vs. the T7200. The T7200 is a 2.0ghz part which runs @ 667mhz FSB and has 4mb of L2 cache vs. the 2mb on the T5500. The T5500 also is missing Intel's VT technology but I don't run multiple OS's so it is of zero concern to me.

 

[postmortemIA]

don't take XGA, it is useless.

 

[digitalemperor]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
don't take XGA, it is useless.

Useless how .. It will allow the x1400 to run at a lower native resoultion, therefore allowing for better performance at the cost of some image quality.

Remember, running at lower, non-native resoultions to get playable framerates will only make the image look worse on a higher resoultion screen.

If you had another reason to justify your claim of the screen being "useless" i'd be happy to hear your opinion. But a blanket statement like "it is useless" doesn't really do much in the way of understanding your opinion.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: digitalemperor

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
don't take XGA, it is useless.

Useless how .. It will allow the x1400 to run at a lower native resoultion, therefore allowing for better performance at the cost of some image quality.

Remember, running at lower, non-native resoultions to get playable framerates will only make the image look worse on a higher resoultion screen.

If you had another reason to justify your claim of the screen being "useless" i'd be happy to hear your opinion. But a blanket statement like "it is useless" doesn't really do much in the way of understanding your opinion.

XGA doesn't have enough screen estate for any serious use. You barely can open one program, and most development and multimedia software need higher resolution in order to be properly utilized. I'm doubtful somebody wnats laptop to play games 24/7 - that is very expensive business.

Yeah, he can play that particular game today. He won't be able to play upcoming games even on XGA resolution pretty soon, as we know graphic cards obsolete fast.

 

[Rockinacoustic]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA

Originally posted by: digitalemperor

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
don't take XGA, it is useless.

Useless how .. It will allow the x1400 to run at a lower native resoultion, therefore allowing for better performance at the cost of some image quality.

Remember, running at lower, non-native resoultions to get playable framerates will only make the image look worse on a higher resoultion screen.

If you had another reason to justify your claim of the screen being "useless" i'd be happy to hear your opinion. But a blanket statement like "it is useless" doesn't really do much in the way of understanding your opinion.

XGA doesn't have enough screen estate for any serious use. You barely can open one program, and most development and multimedia software need higher resolution in order to be properly utilized. I'm doubtful somebody wnats laptop to play games 24/7 - that is very expensive business.

Yeah, he can play that particular game today. He won't be able to play upcoming games even on XGA resolution pretty soon, as we know graphic cards obsolete fast.

I second you on that, I can't image my screen without the SXGA resolution on it. Icons look clean and crisp, and photoshop is awesome on the large display.

I have the MR x1400, and while it won't game at the full resolution, it can push decent frames at lower settings. I can push Far Cry at 1280x768 with no AA and AF set to 1, everything on 'high' except shadows, lighting, and special fx and get about 30-50 fps, which i find to be playable. I get about 1900 in 3Dmark 05 as well, which is low from what i've read, but synthetic benchmarks are nothing to cry about.

Honestly, if your intentions are to game decently on a laptop like this your gonna have to sacrifice image quality. Either that or pay up for your desires.

 

[digitalemperor]

I won't be doing any photoshop work. This is strictly going to be used for surfing the web, running office apps, and playing World of Warcraft.

I am not looking to run new games, I am looking to run WoW. I am not running a digital editing suite, I am running Word.

Those two applications I would consider to be fairly serious. Not sure which multimedia applications wouldn't function properly @ 1280x800. Even the bloated iTunes and Windows Media Player interfaces fit more than adaquately onto even 1024x768 desktops. And as far as being able barely open up one application at a time, the screen size has nothing to do with a systems ability to multitask background applications. All of that work is being done by the cpu.

Icons should look crisp at any resolution if they're scaled properly. At any rate, if I can see an icon and click it, it's crisp enough for me. I don't spend a huge amount of time starting at icons.

As far as gaming 24/7 .. pretty sure you'd die in about 2 weeks without sleep.

 

[Rockinacoustic]

Originally posted by: digitalemperor
I won't be doing any photoshop work. This is strictly going to be used for surfing the web, running office apps, and playing World of Warcraft.

I am not looking to run new games, I am looking to run WoW. I am not running a digital editing suite, I am running Word.

Those two applications I would consider to be fairly serious. Not sure which multimedia applications wouldn't function properly @ 1280x800. Even the bloated iTunes and Windows Media Player interfaces fit more than adaquately onto even 1024x768 desktops. And as far as being able barely open up one application at a time, the screen size has nothing to do with a systems ability to multitask background applications. All of that work is being done by the cpu.

Icons should look crisp at any resolution if they're scaled properly. At any rate, if I can see an icon and click it, it's crisp enough for me. I don't spend a huge amount of time starting at icons.

As far as gaming 24/7 .. pretty sure you'd die in about 2 weeks without sleep.

You asked for opinions on people with a certain product and you got them. If your gonna sit here and mock our reasoning for why we'd recoment the higher resolution, then it's your own loss. It seems you already know exactly what you want so why not just get it.

 

[LiekOMG]

WoW will run just fine on that X1400 at high resolutions. In run WoW very smoothly at the same resolution on an x300 128mb, which is a good bit slower than an x1400.

 

[TuxDave]

I thought WoW isn't too graphic intensive (assuming you don't want to turn on all the bells and whistles)

 

[Ayah]

Originally posted by: TuxDave
I thought WoW isn't too graphic intensive (assuming you don't want to turn on all the bells and whistles)

WoW can run on an x300se at 16X10 with nothing on.. Cranked up, it'll lag you down when large populations are in the area (200ish 400ish+)

 

[LiekOMG]

Originally posted by: Ayah

Originally posted by: TuxDave
I thought WoW isn't too graphic intensive (assuming you don't want to turn on all the bells and whistles)

WoW can run on an x300se at 16X10 with nothing on.. Cranked up, it'll lag you down when large populations are in the area (200ish 400ish+)

My laptop has a x300 128mb. I run at 1440x900, 50% view distance, full texture resolutions, full detail, and I typically get between 35-60fps. Though I don't go raiding or anything, running around the crowded bank or auction areas doesn't bring my framerate below 30fps. Hell, there isn't even a stutter to speak of. Overall I was quite impressed. The x1400 has like 3x the fill rate of a x300, so you should be better than fine.

 

[digitalemperor]

Originally posted by: Rockinacoustic

Originally posted by: digitalemperor
I won't be doing any photoshop work. This is strictly going to be used for surfing the web, running office apps, and playing World of Warcraft.

I am not looking to run new games, I am looking to run WoW. I am not running a digital editing suite, I am running Word.

Those two applications I would consider to be fairly serious. Not sure which multimedia applications wouldn't function properly @ 1280x800. Even the bloated iTunes and Windows Media Player interfaces fit more than adaquately onto even 1024x768 desktops. And as far as being able barely open up one application at a time, the screen size has nothing to do with a systems ability to multitask background applications. All of that work is being done by the cpu.

Icons should look crisp at any resolution if they're scaled properly. At any rate, if I can see an icon and click it, it's crisp enough for me. I don't spend a huge amount of time starting at icons.

As far as gaming 24/7 .. pretty sure you'd die in about 2 weeks without sleep.

You asked for opinions on people with a certain product and you got them. If your gonna sit here and mock our reasoning for why we'd recoment the higher resolution, then it's your own loss. It seems you already know exactly what you want so why not just get it.

I'm not quite sure I have decided, infact there is a good possiblity I am going higher resolution. I just didn't like the rude opinion I was given. I was looking for a healthy comparison of the advantages of both, and what I got was "it's useless". Then afterwards when trying to elaborate on that "it's useless", I got back "not good for serious use", basically saying that if you own an XGA screen, you aren't able to use your computer.

I just was put off a bit by the tone of the response I got. I do very much value the opinions of people, I just don't like it when those opinions are not offered in a friendly manner. Sorry to offend anyone by my "defense" post about XGA.

 

[sjvlad]

I got the e1505 with 1.66 Core Duo and the x1400 about 2 months ago. Play WoW on it a lot, running 1680x1050 with most graphical stuff on the medium setting. Gets a nice 40-60 fps depending on if I'm in Ironforge or not


edit: and XGA is useless. Doesn't matter what you're doing with your computer, that's not enough screen space >_<

 

[Jaxidian]

Originally posted by: sjvlad
I got the e1505 with 1.66 Core Duo and the x1400 about 2 months ago. Play WoW on it a lot, running 1680x1050 with most graphical stuff on the medium setting. Gets a nice 40-60 fps depending on if I'm in Ironforge or not


edit: and XGA is useless. Doesn't matter what you're doing with your computer, that's not enough screen space >_<

It's good enough for StarCraft I bet.