Dell XPS 15z: Sincerely Flattering
by Jarred Walton on September 2, 2011 1:30 AM ESTDell XPS 15z Gaming: Another Midrange Mobile GPU
If you were hoping for a gaming powerhouse in a sleek form factor with the XPS 15z, you’re probably asking for too much. The GT 525M is a reasonable laptop GPU, but compared to desktop GPUs it would be strictly entry-level. 96 CUDA cores running at 600MHz with a 128-bit memory interface clocked at 1800MHz? That’s pretty similar to the desktop GT 430, which you can snag for $45 after rebate. Maxing out the resolution and detail settings with such a GPU certainly isn’t going to do you any favors on modern games.
We’ve included results at our Low, Medium, and High settings in Mobile Bench (as well as results for Civilization V and Total War: Shogun 2), but we’ll stick with the Medium and High settings here (since Low tends to look pretty awful in a lot of games). We’ve also run our Medium settings at the native 1080p resolution, which ends up being reasonably playable in about half of the titles we tested.
Medium Detail Gaming
As expected, the 15z with GT 525M falls right about the middle of the charts for the tested laptops. Nearly all of the games in our test suite break 30FPS at Medium settings and 768p resolution—Metro 2033 and Civilization V being the two exceptions. Bump the resolution up to 1080p, and even at Medium settings Mafia II, Mass Effect 2, and Total War: Shogun 2 join the sub-30FPS club. If you’re a serious gamer, you’ll want something more than the GT 525M, but for mainstream users it runs most titles well enough to make PS3 and Xbox 360 games look bland with low quality texturing.
High Detail Gaming
At our High settings, we start to lose steam. DiRT 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Mass Effect 2 are the only games in our suite to break 30FPS at 900p “High” settings. Considering the only LCD options are 768p or 1080p, and we’re very keen on the 1080p upgrade, you’ll usually need to temper your desire for nice graphics on mainstream notebooks like the 15z.
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Penti - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link
Every product just has a different downside. So have Apple's products too. It's not like a 15" MBP with high-res anti-glare screen and 6750M GPU is in (anywhere normal) consumer price range. It adds up to about 2500 USD. Especially gaming is hard on most pre-built machines. Gaming on laptops is mostly horrible. It's one of the downsides that never really nails it and compromises that has to be made.If you take 2000 - 2500 USD to other manufacturers you can get decent chassis and GPU performance though. Although aimed at slightly different customers. All depends on ones needs and prioritizes. Consumer stuff won't be easily serviceable on the Win PC front, but the business side should. And XPS isn't up to business quality. At 1000 USD gaming laptop you get a complete different product with a worthless screen though. But they are not premium products.
MobiusStrip - Monday, September 5, 2011 - link
Another moronic glossy screen, without even the option for matte.Glossy screens are the biggest regression in computing ever. Unbelievable.
akula57 - Tuesday, November 1, 2011 - link
If the same price, it's no contest. The 15 inch MBP feels very high quality and although I don't love glossy screens it has a good screen (better than the 1600 x 900 matte on the Samsung 7 due to low contrast on the latter and most laptops).Moreover, the new MBPs have the 6750 in the lower end model now. So the price difference is somewhat less.
Finally, customer service/ownership experience. Just walk into an Apple store for support or visit an Apple forum.
Individual choice and my opinion but using a MBP 15 is a nice experience. (Yes, I do wish it were cheaper, but at least reslae is good.)
P.S. I do own and like my Dell 8300 desktop. That's a different story for me. And desktops seem more durable (as well as cooler and quieter).
tarunactivity - Friday, November 11, 2011 - link
Anyone here using the XPS 15z / XPS 15 with the full HD display?I got my 15z recently, and noticed that Win 7 /apps are quite bad at handling the higher DPI settings . As a result, text is either too small , too big, or grainy (clear type does not work always!)
Also, are individual pixels/pixel boundaries supposed to be visible ? I seem to be able to see the pixel boundaries when viewing text/images , and this is quite a setback. Not something to be expected from a Full HD screen . (Were there any of these issues in the test system, or is it a problem with all 15" high DPI displays? )
jhl1989 - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
Hi! I'm planning to buy a better graphics card for the Dell XPS 15z. However I'm not sure whether there are any other graphic cards that fit inside the Dell XPS 15z. So basically is there any other graphic card that is better than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 2GB that will fit indside the Dell XPS 15z???tipoo - Saturday, February 25, 2012 - link
Doesn't look like its on a replacable module.