Dell XPS 410: Core 2 Duo for the Masses
by Jarred Walton on September 18, 2006 12:20 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Noise and Power
Another aspect of system performance that we like to test is the noise and power requirements. Dell is marketing the XPS 410 as a multimedia computer, and in that case lowered noise levels are even more important. We tested noise and power at three settings: idle, 100% CPU, and maximum CPU + GPU. 100% CPU load is achieved by running two instances of Folding@Home (FAH). For the maximum stress test, we leave FAH running and launch the Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory benchmark at 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF. Performing video encoding or other CPU intensive tasks while playing a game will achieve a similar CPU load.
Some of our readers have questioned in the past why we even perform such heavy stress test scenarios. After all, there are a lot of people that will never run two CPU intensive tasks along with a game to fully stress their computer, right? The problem is, we don't know what the future holds. Right now, most games and applications will not achieve the same load levels that we are using. In another year, however, newer products and games may actually reach the point where "typical use" scenarios put a similar stress on a system. We consider the maximum load test a worst-case scenario, but provided the systems can run fully stable throughout our testing then we can say with some confidence that they will be okay with future applications and games.
For the ABS system, noise results basically showed no difference between any of the clock speeds, as all of the fans run at a constant RPM. However, the water cooling fan does come with the ability to control fan speed, so we set that to minimum for idle testing and then a middle and maximum speed to show the difference in noise levels.
Starting with power requirements, it should come as little surprise that faster CPUs and GPUs require more power. In comparison to the ABS Ultimate X9, the power requirements of the Dell and PC Club computers are extremely low, with the Dell using slightly more power. Using two faster graphics cards, a faster CPU, not to mention the water cooling configuration and hard drives clearly requires a lot more power than a typical midrange computer.
Looking at noise levels, all the tested computers have a relatively consistent noise output. The ABS Ultimate X9 is louder than the others at maximum fan speed and very quiet at minimum fan speed, but again we note that the X9 was not entirely stable during testing in the original configuration, and for high stress situations you will definitely want to increase the fan RPMs.
The Dell XPS 410 does very well in the noise and power benchmarks. If you had any concerns about the 375W power supply, the highest power draw we were able to achieve was 240W, which should leave you plenty of leeway. The noise levels are clearly better than the competition, and only under maximum load were we able to generate slightly more noise than at idle. Of course, if one of the optical drives spins up to maximum speed, the noise readings jump up to about 46 dB, but we're talking about constant system noise and not optical drive noise. Dell's use of a BTX form factor chassis and motherboard certainly appears to have helped them keep noise levels low; now users just need to remember to clean the dust off the fan intakes every now and then.
Another aspect of system performance that we like to test is the noise and power requirements. Dell is marketing the XPS 410 as a multimedia computer, and in that case lowered noise levels are even more important. We tested noise and power at three settings: idle, 100% CPU, and maximum CPU + GPU. 100% CPU load is achieved by running two instances of Folding@Home (FAH). For the maximum stress test, we leave FAH running and launch the Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory benchmark at 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF. Performing video encoding or other CPU intensive tasks while playing a game will achieve a similar CPU load.
Some of our readers have questioned in the past why we even perform such heavy stress test scenarios. After all, there are a lot of people that will never run two CPU intensive tasks along with a game to fully stress their computer, right? The problem is, we don't know what the future holds. Right now, most games and applications will not achieve the same load levels that we are using. In another year, however, newer products and games may actually reach the point where "typical use" scenarios put a similar stress on a system. We consider the maximum load test a worst-case scenario, but provided the systems can run fully stable throughout our testing then we can say with some confidence that they will be okay with future applications and games.
For the ABS system, noise results basically showed no difference between any of the clock speeds, as all of the fans run at a constant RPM. However, the water cooling fan does come with the ability to control fan speed, so we set that to minimum for idle testing and then a middle and maximum speed to show the difference in noise levels.
Starting with power requirements, it should come as little surprise that faster CPUs and GPUs require more power. In comparison to the ABS Ultimate X9, the power requirements of the Dell and PC Club computers are extremely low, with the Dell using slightly more power. Using two faster graphics cards, a faster CPU, not to mention the water cooling configuration and hard drives clearly requires a lot more power than a typical midrange computer.
Looking at noise levels, all the tested computers have a relatively consistent noise output. The ABS Ultimate X9 is louder than the others at maximum fan speed and very quiet at minimum fan speed, but again we note that the X9 was not entirely stable during testing in the original configuration, and for high stress situations you will definitely want to increase the fan RPMs.
The Dell XPS 410 does very well in the noise and power benchmarks. If you had any concerns about the 375W power supply, the highest power draw we were able to achieve was 240W, which should leave you plenty of leeway. The noise levels are clearly better than the competition, and only under maximum load were we able to generate slightly more noise than at idle. Of course, if one of the optical drives spins up to maximum speed, the noise readings jump up to about 46 dB, but we're talking about constant system noise and not optical drive noise. Dell's use of a BTX form factor chassis and motherboard certainly appears to have helped them keep noise levels low; now users just need to remember to clean the dust off the fan intakes every now and then.
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JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
No problem - gotta do my job as author! :)You might want to email Gary on the HDD stuff, as that's basically beyond the scope of system testing. He's handling HDD reviews, so maybe you can pass on your suggestions. I think he's covered HDD performance well, though getting repeatable results with real world tests is going to be somewhat difficult.
JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
^^ Er..."defragment" not "the fragment"
*EIGHT* thousand words, not "a thousand".
LOL Stupid Dragon NaturallySpeaking! (Stupid editor for not proofing my post before hitting reply.)
biggersteve - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
An amazing story. XPS has a special support number 800-999-3355. We called this number and the guy in India was pretty efficient and helpful. XP had died with a reboot loop. Could not even safe boot. The guy advised us to use ctl-F11 to completely erase the HD and start over. We'd only had it a week so that was ok, though I suspect we could have done a roll-back, though we couldn't even safe boot. Anyway, all this happened after Microsoft helpfully installed 37 automatic updates. The guy at Dell said half the calls they're getting are because of this. (The other half must be the battery recall...) So he told us to turn off Windows Automatic Updates and never ever ever use it again. I only have one data point, but it looks like Microsoft released an automatic update that whacks all the XPS 410's out there and maybe more. So now we have a standoff where Dell is telling everyone to never use Microsoft automatic updates. Who wins? The virus and spyware writers. And Apple... since Apple controls the hardware and OS alike, they'd never release a cluster-fsck like this one.yyrkoon - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
well, this should be obvious, but the person who told you to turn off windows automatic updates, and to 'never ever ever turn it on again' is an idiot. Sounds like either you had/ have spyware, or a virus, OR, you installed a hardware update from MS, instead using Dells drivers. I have personally run into 'MS certified drivers' issues with Dell systems in the past (more than once). I dont own a Dell myself, but the majority of our customers, that want a prebuilt in-expencive systems, we recommend to buy from Dell, so we do see our share of them.My recommendation, would be to USE automatic updates, but instead of having it download, and install the updates for you, configure it to notify you only, then you can manually download, and install yourself. When installing the updates, make sure to choose 'custom', and read what each update is all about. 9 times out of 10, if it isnt a critical update, or a security fix, you dont need it.
mino - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
Agreed on the auto-off stuff.However it is possible some MS priority update will not like some HW/drivers even WHQL-ed ones. Compatibility is the word. Windows world is simply too diverse to check all of the possibilities.
mino - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
Experienced such a story many times... SP2, .NET 2.0, specific "hot-fix" ...Cynic would say "Welcome to the world of Windows!". ;(
JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
Interesting. I did download and apply all of the currently available patches from Microsoft without any problems. Note that I downloaded these manually rather than letting Windows do the patch automatically during the night. I don't know if that would make a difference, but I don't particularly like having the automatic update process running all the time.mino - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
Most of the times things work, the problem are the situations when they do not.Not once have I had to spend a day installing a few updates a time, just to find out which one was incompatible .. so that some Windows feature would work.
Pastuch - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
I am actually a Dell employee at their technical support centers in Ottawa Ontario Canada. I can say with all honesty that if you get anyone in north america youll probably get great support. The problem is that Dell phone support has a large number of different queues and our customers tend to get bounced around quite a bit. The company is really trying to improve their customer service which is why they have moved most of their tech support to Canada. If you know someone that isnt tech savy they have the option of buying a "Dell on Call" plan. This is an annual plan or single incident that provides support for pretty much anything. If you are going to get a Dell you can get a 30day trial of DOC (Dell on Call) support with your system. A typical DOC call will have the agent remotely connect to your computer and show you the basics of spyware/adware prevention, updates, system maintenance , etc. I have been an Anand reader for years and I think the type of people likely to buy this PC would benefit from Dell on Call software support. I actually worked in DOC for the last 6 months and was resently promoted to IT operations for the building here in Ottawa.For the record: I've never bought a dell and I'll continue to build all my PCs from scratch and overclock the $hit out of them. Nothing like taking an Opteron 146 (2.0) to 2.8 on AIr!
P.S. In the next year you will be able to get almost any of our machines with AMD or Intel chips. I was one of the thousands of Dell employees that have been pushing for this for a long time. ;)
regpfj - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
To Jarred - great review, nice job. I liked the discussion of the case features and proprietary motherboard. It's fun to see a legacy-free setup, although serial and IDE have their place too. These unusual things make Dell stuff a bit more interesting to read about.On to my question -
On page 9, the fps vs resolution graphs confused me a tiny bit. For all games except Bf2, performance is a bit lower at 1600 x 1200 than at 1680 x 1050. I think 16x12 is about 9% more pixels than 16.8 x 10.5, right? So is Bf2 just weird, or did the numbers get turned around a bit?