Dell Studio 14z: Thin and Light Done Right

Dell Studio 14z Gaming and Graphics Performance

One of the biggest drawbacks about entry-level Intel-based notebooks these days is undoubtedly the inferior integrated graphics. Let's be clear: if you don't care about gaming performance, this really isn't a problem; the GMA 4500MHD can handle video decoding and general Windows use without difficulty. Still, Intel IGPs leave a lot to be desired. The solution for now? Why not try and NVIDIA chipset -- like Apple did with the latest MacBook offerings. Of course, this is only a temporary solution, since the latest Core i5/i7 processors will require QPI chipsets, and Intel isn't licensing that technology right now. Hopefully the next-generation Intel IGP will perform better and have the driver support necessary in order to make this a non-issue, but as you can see below the AMD/ATI and NVIDIA IGPs are clearly superior.

We mentioned in the MSI X610 review that their choice of a discrete GPU with an underpowered single-core CPU ended up resulting in lackluster gaming performance. As 3DMark shows, the HD 4330 certainly has potential, but the MV-40 CPU can't provide enough oomph. The Studio 14z takes a different route: Dell provides a CPU that is plenty fast and pairs it with a reasonably fast IGP. The 9400M combined with an Intel processor puts AMD's mobile platform to shame, delivering on average 60% better frame rates in our tested gaming solutions. Of course, the elephant in the corner is that even the best IGP still struggles to run modern games at minimum detail settings and native LCD resolutions. The 9400M does manage to offer about the same performance at 1366x768 as the HD 3200 at 800x600, with all of the settings at minimum, but you would still need something faster if you wanted to play Mass Effect or Dark Athena.

Focusing on the Studio 14z, when we change to native resolution many games remain playable, but five of the titles deliver frame rates that are not acceptable. Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty: World at War, Dark Athena, FEAR 2: Project Origin, and Race Driver: GRID (along with Mass Effect) need more graphics power, and Crysis and Far Cry 2 are right on the bubble. Take that one step more and set detail settings to medium (instead of minimum) and we find that the 9400M falls flat in every title, with the exception of Fallout 3. Also interesting to note is that the only time where the MSI X610 is faster than the Studio 14z is in FEAR 2, so we would recommend a dual-core 2 GHz processor as the minimum for any "gaming" laptop.

If you're only interested in "casual" games like the Sims or Spore, the 14z won't have any difficulty at all. Even medium detail settings at 1366x768 deliver acceptable performance in such titles.