E1705 Duo Core?

Question

Hello, I am looking to buy a new labtop for college.  I want this for gaming and work.  I would like something nice enough but i can't spend over 3000.  I was looking at the E1705.  I have herd that there are a lot of problems with the new processors.  If any has this computer yet, please tell me if you have had any problems with it so far and how you like the computer.  If you have any other suggestions for what I should get, feel free to tell me.  Thanks for your help.

hunterelite · Answer

I would push you to go for the Dell XPS M170 because the Core Duo CPU's are having a LOT of problems. THe M170 is both faster and more reliable than the E1705. THe GPU is MUCH better at gaming than the one that is on the E1705!

Excrazymac · Answer

I currently have an E1705. I would take this over the XPS M170 any day. The dual core nature of the laptop makes it much better for day-to-day uses. Multi-tasking is a LOT smoother.

Example: I've virus scanned, burned a DVD, and played Counter-Strike:Source with only a 5-10% penalty. No XPS M170 can do that.

The E1705 does NOT have the best GFX card. However, it has some of the most up-to-date features. 99% of the bleeding edge games will run at 1280x800 or 1680x1050 with details maxed (no AA/4xAF) well above 60fps. If framerates REALLY matter, get the 1440x900 display instead of the WUXGA.

The "problems" are for ALL of the new Centrino platforms. The battery life drops if you use USB 2.0 devices on battery. This is addressed by Microsoft and you can expect it fixed soon (1-2 months, max).

Personally, I love it. It's great. If you want to save money, upgrade the memory from newegg.com or zipzoomfly.com (much cheaper), but get a good 2-3 year warranty minimum.

ejn63 · Answer

If you're buying for next Fall, wait a while - Dell is about to release a flood of new models with dual-core support - including, no doubt, an XPS M170 replacement.

i8000_coastal · Answer

I agree with Excrazymac.

I absolutley LOVE the e1705. I just sold my Inspiron 8600 on Ebay and have already ordered an e1705. HERES A MONEY SAVING TIP: order the lowest and cheapest RAM and Hard Drive from DELL. DELL IS VERY EXPENSIVE on these upgrades! Then use www.froogle.com and www.shopper.com (CNETS shopping site) and search for the cheapest prices.

I order my RAM at www.crucial.com - some of the best RAM out there. The fastest GIG stick for the e1705 is 182.35 (there prices change all the time! - refresh and clear internet cache). DELL WANTS OVER $500.00 (both GIG sticks) FOR THIS UPGRADE - WOW! You can get two different GIG sticks for the e1705 the 533Mhz or the 667Mhz, with the latter being faster of course. The slower RAM is only about $40.00 cheaper. Crucial's e1705 RAM can be found here:
http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.asp?Mfr%2BProductline=Inspiron&mfr=Dell&cat=&model=Inspiron%20E1705&submit=Go

The best places to get hard drives for the SATA platform for the e1705 is www.onsale.com , www.sparco.com , www.buy.com , and www.zipzoomfly.com

I ave ordered from all these places and they are all good. Onsale.com has the 7k100 100 GB 7200 RPM Hitachi drive for $188.00!!!! DELL WANTS OVER $300.00 FOR THIS UPGRADE!

So stick with the e1705 YOU WONT BE DISAPPOINTED! All the known problems now are because of DRIVER/SOFTWARE PROBLEMS not because of major hardware problems! ALSO, I would DEF recommend the 4 year warranty and 4 year complete care. Having the onsite warranty is nice as they have to come to you to fix the computer - you wont have to mail it in! 50% of all computer problems happen after the first year! And being in college accidents can happen - which complete care covers!

Hope this helps.

Josh

Message Edited by i8000_coastal on 02-28-2006 08:24 AM

i8000_coastal · Answer

HERE IS MY INSPIRON e1705 order:
Inspiron E1705, Intel Core DuoProcessor T2500 (2GHz/667MHz FSB)                                                           Qty: 2   Unit Price: $2,002.95

[222-1022] Inspiron E1705, Intel Core DuoProcessor T2500 (2GHz/667MHz FSB)
[320-4559] 17 inch UltraSharp TrueLife   Wide-screen WUXGA, for        Inspiron 9400/E1705
[464-9485] 1GB, DDR2, 533MHz 2 Dimm, for Inspiron 9400/E1705
[320-4562] 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 for Inspiron 9400/E1705
[341-2942] 60GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive for Inspiron 9400/E1705
[412-0689] Image Restore
[420-5755] Microsoft Windows XP Media    Center Edition 2005, English without Media, for Inspiron
[420-4830] DELL SUPPORT 3.0
[420-4928] Windows Media Player 10
[463-2282] Dell Owners Manual installed on your system,click on icon after system set-up to access
[420-5460] Complimentary courses: Look   for EU icon
[420-5476] Dell Direct Download
[420-5769] Internet Search and Portal
[430-0493] Integrated 10/100 Network Cardand Modem, for Inspiron
[464-9484] 8X DVD+/-RW Drive, for        Inspiron 9400/E1705
[420-5775] CyberLink PowerDVD v5.7       Decoding Sofware for DVD      Drives
[430-1518] Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g    Mini Card (54Mbps), for       Inspiron 9400/E1705
[462-3905] I chose the promotional       security package with service
[312-0374] 80 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion     Primary Battery, for Inspiron 9400/E1705
[412-0359] Soft Contracts - Qualxserve
[900-4333] Type 15- Third Party At Home Service with Nights and Week ends, 24x7 Technical Support, 3 Year Extended
[900-9753] Warranty Support,3 Year Extended
[950-7447] 4 Year Limited Warranty
[960-6520] Type 15- Third Party At Home Service with Nights and Week ends, 24x7 Technical Support, Initial Year
[960-6910] Warranty Support,Initial Year
[982-1628] Dell On Call, 30 Days,        Getting Started Assistance,   Unlimited Incidents
[981-0879] Dell Education Services - Complete PC Package Online Training with 90 Days access
[412-0358] Soft Contracts -              Consumer Complete Care
[960-9189] CompleteCare Accidental DamageProtection, Inspiron, 4 Year
[983-2207] Thank You for buying Dell
[983-2217] Please visit WWW.Dell.COM
[983-4327] $150 SERVICE REBATE           72205. Redeem within 30 days of ship date at:              www.dell.com/epprebates
[464-7866] Network Associates McAfee 7.0 English, 2 Year Subscription
[412-0763] Remote Control for Microsoft Windows XP Media Center       Edition,English,for Inspiron
[430-1468] Dell Wireless 350 Bluetooth   Module (2.0+EDR), for Inspiron9400/E1705
[412-0856] Paint Shop Pro Standard
[412-0865] Basic digital Music,Photo and Game experience
[310-7149] Backup media for XP Media     Center,Inspiron

$2002.95 for each one! NOT BAD! (DELL had to match a previous Cart I had saved from Presidents Day Sale)

Subtotal: $4,005.90 (2 e1705s)
Shipping and Handling: $0.00

Tax: $200.30
Total: $4,206.20 (2 e1705s)

Message Edited by i8000_coastal on 02-28-2006 08:26 AM

Cpt_Jack · Answer

I must admit I do love my E1705. I sold my 9100 on eBay for $1000 and bought my E1705 for $1590 after $650 off coupon. Best $600 I ever spent! I'm a software engineer and the E1705 is my primary computer. The machine is very fast and responsive.

I can only assume that by "having a lot of problems" that you're referring to the USB power consumption problem and the errata, both of which are non-issues. The USB power consumption problem has been addressed by a Microsoft hotfix and the errata problem is "mountain from molehill" material. 34 errata in the Core Duo? The P4 has 64 errata and the AMD Athlon has 136. These common flaws in microprocessor design are worked around in software and have rarely been a problem (none, in fact, since the famous P1 FDIV bug).

The only problem I've had with my E1705 so far was with the stand by and hibernate modes. This problem was corrected by updating my Dell Quickset software to the latest version.

Cpt_Jack · Answer

I also get at least two hours battery life even under heavy gaming.  I have my GeForce 7800 overclocked to 350Mhz and I can play FEAR at settings well beyond what Sierra recommends as the maximum (I quote the Readme, 'You should avoid resolutions above 1024x768 on any current generation card.'), but 1920x1200 at 32bpp with 60fps is no problem for the E1705!

Vurnakes · Answer

so... am I correct in assuming that it will be relativly safe if I buy a new E1705 this month?

hunterelite · Answer

With recording software and autocad, you definitely want dual core!!!

Vurnakes · Answer

i am not to much of a gaming freak.  I will use this computer for games, school wrork, recording software for my band, and possiblly one day autocad.

hunterelite · Answer

If you aren't a gaming freak, don't buy the M170 when you could get better features on the E1705...

jedikman · Answer

Hi there,

Well I'm a hardcore gamer, and I'll give you a rundown of how my experience with the E1705 was:

As far as multimedia, this laptop is awesome. It plays DVDs and videos with absolutely AWESOME quality. However, that has nothing to do with games.

The day I got my E1705 in, I installed Rainbow Six: Lockdown. I expected to at least be able to run it at 1600x1200 with 4x Anti-Aliasing/Anisotropic filtering, but I was dead wrong. The graphics card in it, theoretically should be better than my desktop, which has a 6800 GT (16 Pixel Pipelines, opposed to the 20 in the Go 7800), however I saw a huge performance difference. I also had some major issues in World of Warcraft. Mostly it was framerate lag, and choppy movements. Well I started to experiment a little, and tried disabling the dual-core processor and running it with only one core, and BAM, World of Warcraft starting running great! The best I'd ever run the game. However, my framerate issues still remained in Rainbow Six. I think it has a lot to do with the processor. It's just a little behind its time. Granted, very soon, games are going to start utilizing this feature. And yes, I updated all the drivers. I even tried some that had modified INF files from www.tweaksrus.com, which I highly suggest if you are using the Go 7800.

Ultimately, I sent mine back to Dell for a refund, after a ghastly call to their tech support and sales department (which were unbelievably rude, to my surprise)

Battery life was a bummer, too. I got around 2 hours on a good day. However, plugging it in isn't really that big of a deal, and if you're gaming, you'll want to keep it plugged in anyway. Also keep in mind that there are games out there that simply won't run using dual-core processors. If time isn't a big deal for you, I would suggest waiting until the new XPS with dual-core. By the time it releases, Intel will have fixed all the errors in the Core Duo. Hope this helps.

Kelsey

Message Edited by jedikman on 03-01-2006 07:23 PM

SR45 · Answer

AA and AF are framerate killers on most video cards.  If you have the resolution set to 1600x1200, than you really don't need AA/AF turned on.  Try it, and you will see a world of difference in frame rates

i8000_coastal · Answer

ALL,   Anti-Aliasing/Anisotropic filtering (AA and AF) will bring almost any video card to its knees.  To get the best gaming experience from the e1705 or any laptop for that matter you def. need to do a clean format.  CLear off the hard drive and reload everything how you want it.  Make sure you download ALL of DELLS NEWEST drivers from the internet and label them well in folders BEFORE you format, and back these drivers up on seperate media.    Getting any computer to run smoothly after you reload everything is a must for performance as well.  Get rid of 90% of the junk that starts up in your startup folder and by using MSCONFIG and going to the startup tab.  There can be TONS of stuff that runs in the background without your knowledge. Also go into Windows Services under the ADMIN tools and disable all unessary windows xp services that are not needed (you can find hundreds of guides on this by doing a google search.  You should DEF disable indexing services and windows system restore (as these are resource and speed hogs!).   ALSO, IF YOU ARE USING A VIRUS SCANNER - MAKE SURE YOU PUT YOUR GAMING FOLDER ON THE EXCEPTION LIST (the folder wont be constantly scanned) - OR THE VIRUS SCANNER WILL CONSTANTLY TRY TO SCAN THE GAMING FILES AND SLOW YOUR GAME DOWN BIG TIME.  - THIS IS A MUST!   Also make sure you use gaming tweaked drivers especially for the Mobility and GO (laptop) video cards.  Dell's video drivers ARE NOT GAMING DRIVERS.  They are updated hardly ever and are not geared towards gamers.  Check my other posts to find out 3 or 4 links to get gaming drivers for the ATI and NVIDIA cards if you cant find them. Message Edited by i8000_coastal on 03-03-2006 12:39 AM

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E1705 Duo Core?

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