Dell Studio 14: Defining Solid
by Dustin Sklavos on August 19, 2010 2:49 AM ESTStudio 14: Gaming in Practice
We've recently revised our gaming benchmark suite to make things more consistent and hopefully clean up the data we present to you. We're also adding StarCraft II to the suite and it's hard not to make a convincing case for it: the game is immensely popular, but also stresses a system fairly evenly, capable of being limited at both the CPU and GPU levels. If it has one fatal flaw, it's poor threading: StarCraft II doesn't take advantage of more than two cores, potentially leading to severe CPU-limited situations on quad-core processors that operate at slower clocks. We'll be looking at this more in an upcoming article, but here are some preliminary SC2 results (subject to change if we modify our test sequence). Because of the change in benchmarks, we won't have quite as few systems listed for comparison, but we will be adding more laptops to the mix over the coming weeks and months.
And here's where the HD 5470 gets dicey. You would think by 2010 that a dedicated graphics part should be able to handle any modern game at 720p (technically 1366x768 or 768p), at least at the lowest settings. After all, the Xbox 360 is nearly five years old, and 720p is the target for that console. But the Mobility Radeon HD 5470 can't: Mass Effect 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 are basically unplayable. You can probably make a case excusing Bad Company 2 (or drop it to DX9 mode to get frame rates up another 20%), but Mass Effect 2 uses an extremely common engine—Unreal Engine 3—and a fairly well-optimized implementation at that. If you bump the resolution down, you can get these games playable, but we're of the opinion that you shouldn't have to. If you're a glutton for punishment on the other hand…
Midrange Gaming? Not Hardly…
Bumping up to our new "Medium" test settings on the same set of games is pain inducing. Literally, the slideshow that was BFBC2 nearly caused me to toss my cookies. Obviously, these settings are not playable, though the 5470 does manage to put paid to NVIDIA's similarly anemic 310M. Less taxing titles might break the 30 FPS mark, but you'll definitely encounter games where even minimum detail is out of reach at the native resolution. The M11x from Dell's Alienware brand manages significantly better gaming performance, although there are instances where games may be CPU limited (i.e. StarCraft II)—we'll be looking at another laptop with a faster CPU and the same GPU soon to see if that's the case.
Paying an extra $160 just to get to this point is extremely difficult to justify; if you mean to do light gaming on the go and are willing to turn down settings, we're comfortable recommending going for the Mobility Radeon HD 540v instead. The 540v should perform very close to the 5470 while reducing the overall system price. If you'd rather get something that can actually handle gaming at medium detail, you might want to check out the ASUS K42JV and N82JV (a review of the latter will be posted in the next couple of weeks).
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JarredWalton - Thursday, August 19, 2010 - link
Windows 7 does use VRAM to cache windows, saving some system RAM and helping to smooth out Aero a bit. Outside of that edge case, if you haven't actually used a current Intel HD Graphics solution, you are way off base on most of the other complaints.OpenGL used to be horrible on ATI as well back in the day, and it was really 3dfx that started the consumer interest with glQuake--prior to that, no one outside of professionals really cared about the API.
Today, OpenGL is becoming a minor player compared to DirectX. Professional apps still use the API, but there are a ton of users that will never even use an OpenGL tool. Even if they do, my experience is that the Intel HD Graphics are at about the same level as ATI's HD 4200 series, with a few things like DX10 games not always running properly (but who cares at single digit frame rates?)
All things being equal, yes I'd prefer an NVIDIA or ATI GPU over an Intel IGP. That said, on a laptop you have to worry about power, and in that case you want switchable graphics. NVIDIA's Optimus trumps ATI's switchable tech right now, though it's not without a few concerns (i.e. Linux support). Anyway, the real problem is this entry-level GPU crap being foisted onto unaware consumers for $150 extra. For $150 you should get an HD 5650. I'm not sure they couldn't get it in there on the heat side either, considering you have GT 335M in 14" and 13" laptops. But then GT 335M would probably be better, since it has Optimus and you could still get the 6 hours of battery life.
ESetter - Thursday, August 19, 2010 - link
I'm glad to here the Intel drivers are better nowadays, but just 4 years they were quite buggy. I've never had problems on ATI GPUs in the last 6-7 years, though.If you look at the battery life charts, this notebook seems comparable to similar models with integrated graphics and similar batteries. The power consumption of these entry level GPUs is very low at idle.
In the end it all depends on what you're looking for, but in my opinion there is still reasons to get entry level ATI/nVidia GPUs.
mino - Thursday, August 19, 2010 - link
They are still, and NOT getting better.For example during their latest driver refresh with Win7 & i7 they managed to remove display profiles ...
So now EVERY single time I plug/unplug notebook to display device I have to manually configure everything.
Funny thing is that Intel was the first with profiles - it was the only thing they had better even ~5 yrs ago ...
yyrkoon - Sunday, August 22, 2010 - link
There are no major issues with Intels mobile graphics solutions. Where the issue lies, is the end user not doing enough research on hardware they can afford for certain task(s).I myself own a laptop, with Intel 4500 IGP, and am surely a little disappointed in its performance for certain situations. With that said, I did look into the situation before I made my purchase, and am willing to live with my decision. Blaming Intel for my mobile choice in graphics only serves to make me look foolish, and accomplishes nothing else.
Inform yourself. Then if something does not work for you, do not buy the technology. Intel, and the other technology companies out there are not in the fire fighting business. But they are more than willing to extinguish many a fire, by accepting that hard earned cash burning a hole in your pocket.
hybrid2d4x4 - Thursday, August 19, 2010 - link
I think you hit the nail on the head here, rootheday. If you don't game, you don't gain anything from "moving up" from integrated. And if you do intend to play games, these bottom-of-the-barrel solutions aren't going to give you a good experience unless all you want to do is play the good games you missed 3-7 years ago. The one thing I think they do right (and I'm probably in the minority here) is that they at least use low-res 768p displays- I'd hate to see single digit FPS @ native res on a higher res display. If only they made GOOD QUALITY, MATTE 768p displays...As an aside, I've seen some notebooks that advertise switchable graphics with the ATI 5 series. Any chance one of those might be finding it's way for review?
futurepastnow - Thursday, August 19, 2010 - link
If it's not adequate for playing games, then why bother with a discrete GPU in the first place?If the integrated graphics are good enough for non-gaming use (and they are), then the GPU is just a leech.
cknobman - Thursday, August 19, 2010 - link
Sell it for a decent base price but add any meaning full upgrades to it and the consumer gets raped.My Sonly 14'CW has a Intel i520 cpu and gforce 330 in it and also has 4gb ram and a 500gb hd and it was $900 just like the dell.
Dell needs to stop the business practice of trying to lure people in with low base prices and then gouge them on upgrades, its downright despicable and frustrating and the sole reason why I have never purchased a dell and probably never will.
Hxx - Thursday, August 19, 2010 - link
Dell almost always has the studio lineup on some sort of sale so if you do some research you will end up paying around 700 for a config that would otherwise be 900. I got mine for 660 back in april when studios were going for arround 1k.Either way this is a great laptop for the price and Dell does what everyone else does when it comes to imflating prices on upgrades.
mino - Thursday, August 19, 2010 - link
I feel Dustin that you at AT are a bit too comfortable using HD5850 a "low-end" rig.For a WORK/BUSINESS notebook anything above current AMD/NVDA low-end mobile GPU's is not feasible from the power POW.
That is, at 40nm.
We can hate TSMC/Glofo for that, but that is about it.
ismailfaruqi - Thursday, August 19, 2010 - link
Could you review HP 8540w with Dreamcolor 2 display configuration? It has 15 inch, IPS, 10-bit screen that maybe the answer for anyone dreaming laptop with excellent screen. Also could you measure its power consumption, because when configured with Dreamcolor 2 the power brick should be changed to 150W.