Dell XPS 15 Haswell Edition: QHD+ with a Refined Design
by Jarred Walton on March 6, 2014 7:00 AM ESTDell XPS 15: Gaming Performance
With that lengthy preface about throttling, let’s just make it clear that all of the benchmark results here are from post-reboot testing, so throttling should not be present. What we find is that the GT 750M is a reasonable mainstream mobile GPU that can easily handle our “Value” settings and outside of the most demanding titles (e.g. Metro: Last Light) it can run our “Mainstream” settings as well. Not surprisingly, “Enthusiast” quality is mostly out of the question, except with older and/or less demanding titles. As for gaming at the native 3200x1800 resolution, that’s generally more than you can hope to get out of the GT 750M. Some games will certainly break 30 FPS at low to moderate settings, but in most cases opting for a lower resolution with higher quality settings will provide the better experience.
I also want to make note here that with 2014, we’re going to be reducing the number of games we test in our laptop reviews. There’s a real concern that running too many GPU-centric tests can distract from the overall target market for a device. While I’ve gone ahead and included most of the games from our 2013 test suite in Mobile Bench, moving forward we have decided to focus on just four games. Our current list consists of Bioshock Infinite, GRID 2, Metro: Last Light, and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm. These should provide a sufficient amount of data that we’ll be able to say how well a system handles gaming workloads. In some reviews we will also include other titles (e.g. if there’s a new GPU that warrants additional investigative work), including some less demanding games that will better illustrate the “casual gaming” aspect.
Considering this isn’t really being targeted at a gaming audience – Dell has their Alienware brand if that’s what you’re after – the XPS 15 still manages to hold its own in the gaming tests. Throttling concerns aside, when the fans and GPU are running as expected, gaming at one fourth the native resolution and high detail settings is easily accomplished, and even 1080p medium/high detail is possible.
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tipoo - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
If a Haswell 15" rMBP review is coming (I assume it is?) I'd like to see this laptop plopped in as a data point.tipoo - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
So running the panel at non-native res like 1080p doesn't cause any ugly interlacing blurring, like running 720p on my 1080p monitor would?A5 - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
It's happening, but it is probably harder to notice on a 3200x1800 panel. It's probably just easier to save the money and get a native 1080p panel, though...hfm - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
I would say if you plan on keeping the laptop for a couple-few years get the qHD+ panel if the scaling doesn't bother you. If application developers/Microsoft come up with better ways of handling the HiDPI issue you are ready for it with a HiDPI panel.Sort of like getting 16GB instead of 8GB of soldered on RAM in the case your memory requirement goes up in the future but you don't want to throw out the laptop.
skiboysteve - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Great review thank you! Any chance you could post the color calibration file for those of us that have an xps 15 but don't have the equipment? I realize it won't be the same for everyone but its better than nothingJJHayesIII - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Check out the XPS15 (9530) wiki for a display profile (and other great info):http://xps-15.wikia.com/wiki/Calibrate_Your_Displa...
Illes Judy - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Love my HPdragonhype - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
I found that when I scrolled using the two finger trackpad scrolling that the laptop would make a mechanical whizzing noise. Did you find that With any of the models you were using?jphughan - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Sounds like you're describing is the coil whine issue that's being widely reported and discussed. There's a Dell Community thread going where Dell has officially acknowledged the issue and is investigating (http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop... and it's also being reported in two NotebookReview.com threads (one for the XPS 15 and the other for its sister the Precision M3800).jphughan - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Ok, looks like my link broke because the close parenthesis was included as part of the link, and there doesn't appear to be a way to edit posts. If you right-click the link, choose Copy Link Location, paste it into an address bar, and remove that parenthesis at the end, you'll be able to see the thread.