Calling All Dell XPS M1730 Owners & Upgraders

Buenas tardes. Amigo, que juegos puedes correr con la GTX9800m?

Good afternoon . Dude, that games can run with GTX9800m ?

Saludos. Que juegos puedes corren en tu equipo?

hey

I have a question

I have a Dell XPS M1730 and my question is if you have the nvidia geforce 9800 gt card graphical as 2x

Now if I upgrade changes the directx 3d shader 4.0 to 5.0?

Hello, i have had my XPS since 2008 and killed it with a beer accidentally in 2011, last year i pulled it out of storage and tried starting it and it seemed to work ok most of the time. I took it to a PC recycle shop to have a new keyboard put in when some keys stopped working, and they replaced the keyboard and one of the other boards inside and messed with the power supply/charging system and they got it working just fine for a while. I recently moved to the UK to be with my gf then last month the video card lost one gpu so i got online checked the prices on amazon for a replacement, it was just over 200 somthing so i ordered a new card for it and go the nVidia 9800m gtx 2gb, not realizing or temporarliy forgetting about the exchange rate to US dollars i spent like $350-400+ on that cards but it is a good card and worked fine after I put it into the XPS. my delema now is do i go ahead and put more money into upgrading bits of this system or dropkick it and buy a new one, even though i really really like the full sized screen and fullsized lighted keyboard but i hate the giant power brick. Waht do you people think?

Will changing the processor to the x9000 people mentioned in this thread and upgrading from 4 to 8gb of 800mhz Ram and installing a ssd 500gb hd really worth it?

Can i upgrade my motherboard itself in this system ?

Should i put the old vid card back in, resell the new vid card save my files off it  then wipe it clean and sell it?

i get attached to things i like, i've owned bouot a dozen and half laptops over the years and this one i've always liked using even though it often seemed like overkill and really klunky.

I feel if i can get decent upgraded performance from this system it might make me feel ok about spending $3.5k on it back in 2008, but would spending money on new memmory,  new proccessor and an new  ssd hd really worth it.?

if i do will a Samsung 850 Evo 2.5" Internal SSD - 500GB fit in my xps? 

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing-accessories/components-upgrades/internal-hard-drives/solid-state-drives/samsung-850-evo-2-5-internal-ssd-500-gb-10116701-pdt.html#cat-0 

and if i do do one of you guru's know exactly which processor i should buy for this system?

I know, very long post with lots of questions and statements and i thank you in advance for any and all replies :-)

I had an 840 EVO SSD in mine and it changed the windows Experience score from 5.9 to 7.1 on the HDD. It has the 9800 GTX and the 2.5 Ghz CPU.

 I read that the 8GB ram config was only for the 667Mhz flavor not the 800Mhz. Anyone with experience here would be appreciated. A friend of mine has 8GB of 667 in a Dell M6300 with the same CPU and 965 chipset as the m1730. So I'm confident that it will boot in the m1730 which has an identical MOBO chipset. Crucial.com is listing 8Gb compatible upgrades on both the 667 and 800 Mhz versions of ram. I just retook ownership of the m1730 from my Son, with a nice crack in the cover. grrrrrrr. He says Diablo III fps wasnt very good with 2 5400 rpm drives in raid 0.

So I sold him my Alienware R3 Aurora. for $400. He plays Diablo III on max with very high detail. He says it's a huge huge improvement. 

The addition of the Samsung EVO 840 to the m1730 bumped the Ram score up .3 and the graphics up .4. The SSD has appears to have an overall improvement in all WIN Exp scores everytime i put one in.

Typically, all the scores improve unless they are high already. Also cut boot time from 1:07 to 28 sec.

 I bought an extreme CPU the x7900. Its running in a Dell m6300 right now. Will swap CPU's and note improvements.  I too kinda love my big clunky awesome keyboarded laptop.

I have a couple core i7 and core i5 Precision laptops, but the cool factor always draws me back to this one. I'm for sure going to try a RAID 0 SSD config in this before I close the book on this machine. 

I installed the 2.8Ghz x7900 CPU last week. I just noticed that the x7900 is a Merom 65nm core with 290 million transistors @ 44 watts. And the 2.50 ghz  T9500 Processor i took out was a Penryn 45nm core with 410 million transistors @ 35 watts.

Windows experience scored for CPU only moved up .2. and frankly it feels slower in opening Diablo. The laptop I swapped CPU's with now runs cooler and dead quiet most of the time, and the m1730 doesnt seem to have gained anything in Diablo III.

( I found out my son had SLI "off" in nVidia settings. Diablo works fine after switching that back on.)

Oh, party bonus....Now the laptop wont run for more than 2-3 minutes on battery then it " auto offs" itself.

I'm thinking maybe the 44watt chip is not supposed to be in this machine?

I did notice however, that a magic overclock option does actually appear out of nowhere in the performance section of the BIOS. you can choose 2.6/2.8/3.0/3.2/or3.4 Ghz if i remember right.

I guess because the X CPU's are overclockable or unlocked....

I should have bought the x9000. My mistake. 

I did not try an X9000 if thats what your asking. I did swap the T9500 to an x7900. The x7900 causes more fan activity. The battery mode, now shuts off within a 30 seconds. Maybe its too much draw on the Battery mode? Maybe i need to turn off the overclock feature so Speedstep can do its thing? i don't know.

But it plays Diablo III Just fine with either chip. The x9000 would be the way to go. It's a 45nm chip vs the 65nm chip. the 45nm chips always seem to run quieter and a bit cooler as far as fan activity goes. 

I havent booted the laptop for 3-4 months.

thank you for your reply, I have a T7500 in your opinion for performance should upgrade gpu, cpu or both

Dennis                                

I'm thinkin once you tear it apart, you might as well do both.....just my 2 cents worth.  I bought a T8300 2.4 GHZ intel chip for it. I like that the T8300 uses 10 less watts than the x7900, and the performance didn't seem much different. .I sold the laptop with the original t9500 stuffed in it. my mistake. I still havent tried dual SSD's yet. I just ordered 2- 4GB sodims off ebay for 90.00. 

The only stupid reason I like the Laptop stillis because the keyboard lighting stays on ALL the time.

I hate hate hate the power saving backlit keyboards that have no option for always on...and  eventually go dim and off.

Hi Denny1514, I bought a T8300 and removed the x7900. Now it can stay running on battery again. I thought I screwed something up on the reassembly when it kept quitting on battery. but it's fine now. I think the x7900 is

not friendly with the system. I'm running 2 SSD-850 Evo's in Raid 0. Installed 8 BG of Samsung pc6400 soDimm Memory ( Used). So with the t8300. Windows experience index is 7.9 for HDD, 6.7 Graphics, but only 6.1 for CPU and RAM.

x9000 is tempting for 100 bucks on ebay....but im not much of a gamer.