Getting a Dell XPS Studio w i7 CPU

[Wes Macaulay]

I'll let you know how this goes. The i7 720QM is a fairly base model CPU, with CPU speed ramping to 2.8Ghz from a low of 1.6. This thing will have Win7 Pro 64-bit, 6Gb of 1333 RAM and a Radeon 4670, so it ought to be a good box for Revit. $1900 plus tax. Having the quad core will be great for rendering -- I'm looking forward to that!

[twiceroadsfool]

I havent tried a rendering in Revit or Max 2010 yet, but weve got some i7's here at the office.

Asus P6T motherboards.
i7 950's @ 3.07
12 gigs of RAM.

And nvidia quadroFX570's that i still cant get hard data on vid card drivers for, LOL.

[Wes Macaulay]

Yeah -- you guys probably have the triple core setup with three RAM slots? The laptop i7 doesn't require this -- I imagine it has only two RAM slots.

[AP23]

The XPS is also on my short list for laptops I'm considering to buy, together with the Dell Precision M6400 and the Macbook Pro. So, I'm curious to hear how the XPS works out.

[Wes Macaulay]

The XPS arrived some 16 days after order. It's well-built, and I only have Revit 2010 installed on it, but it's certainly the fastest render machine I've had to date. I don't like that it has only 2 USB ports, and that the power port is on one side and ethernet on the other. Also, the cover over the LCD display is acrylic and attracts all kinds of lint -- does the Macbook Pro have the same issue? I've also read that the screens should be protected from the keyboard during transit -- pressure on the screen from outside can push it against the keyboard.

For the price ($1900 CDN plus tax) having 4 CPUs and 6Gb of RAM for this price seems like quite good value. I'd recommend it for sure.

Windows 7 is great. I was able to use Easy Transfer to pull over all my old email settings and Outlook data from the old machine in about 10 minutes.