xps 15 nvidia optimus problem

i have a new XPS L501X with the nvidia 435m graphics. nothing new except VLC & Firefox has been installed yet. all drivers & system software is factory.

since dell provides its own drivers, i want to know if optimus has been enabled by default.

also unlike the original nvidia drivers there seems to be no option to manually switch between GPUs. is there a way to do this?

there is also no indicator to show whether the nvidia GPU is working or the integrated one. what can be done to find this out?

according to the nvidia video tutorials, all these options should be present in the nvidia control panes, but the control panel on my XPS shows no such options. should i upgrade to the nvidia verde drivers to enable all these features?