Dell Inspiron 1564: Mobile i3/i5 for the Masses
by Dustin Sklavos on March 3, 2010 11:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Dell Inspiron 15 Gaming Performance
In our actual game benches, we found the Inspiron 15's Mobility Radeon HD 4330 to offer barely adequate performance. Since the Intel Core i5's integrated graphics can already handle high definition video acceleration, the real reason to opt for upgrading to the Radeon is going to be for a casual game here and there.
We used the built-in benchmarks for Far Cry 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum, while Empire: Total War, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, Crysis: Warhead, and Mass Effect 2 were all tested by repeating a section in each game and measuring the framerate using FRAPS. You'll notice we've added a few new titles, which means at present we don't have any results for previously tested laptops in those games. We'll be adding more as time passes, but it's pretty clear the HD 4330 is the bottleneck here.
The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 in the Inspiron 15 doesn't offer world-shattering performance—and we didn't really expect it to—but it does at least show playable performance with low/minimum settings at the screen's native resolution in every game we tested, the one exception being Crysis: Warhead. This shows that at least there's some breathing room with the 4330 for playing modern games; the brand new S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat isn't going to run in all its DirectX 11 glory, but there's definitely room to raise the detail settings.
Comparing the Inspiron 1564 with other laptops, we see the 3DMark results reflected in the various gaming titles. Titles that are more CPU limited show the i5-520M with HD 4330 with a slight lead over the UL50Vf with G210M. The UL50Vf struggles in Crysis: Warhead and Mass Effect 2, though the latter appears to be more of a driver issue than a CPU bottleneck, given the performance of the MSI X610.
Given that the Mobility Radeon HD 4330 can at least handle games at the Inspiron 15's native resolution, we're comfortable suggesting this upgrade for light gaming on the go. If you look at Dell's pricing, the Intel HD Graphics model comes with only 2GB RAM and a 250GB HDD for $579, so the extra $90 gets you a larger HDD and twice the memory ($50) in addition to the GPU upgrade ($40)—certainly a reasonable cost, if you're willing to sacrifice a bit of battery life. One thing that does bear mentioning is the system's fan: during games it spins up, and it gets extremely loud. The sounds of the game should mask it for the most part, but it's very audible. If you're going to game on the Inspiron 15, consider investing in a pair of closed-ear headphones.
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fett327 - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
I am assuming that since these are the new H55 based chipsets, hopefully the HDMI port will be about to output a 5.1 track? Or possibly also a DTS-HD or TrueHd track that comes off a bluray?It would be a shame if the HDMI ould output stereo. Can anyone confirm or deny?
warezme - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
I wouldn't buy any of these if I were serious about decent gaming. How sad.PyroHoltz - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
Where are all the Ultra Mobiles built on the arrandale chips?JarredWalton - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
Rumor is that Arrandale ULV has experienced delays and will show up some time in the next ~3 months.cjcoats - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
I recently had that experience buying a 2-socket Nehalem workstation from Dell. We're even having to do hardware installation for ourselves ("We'll sell you a SSD but we won't install it"). It was so bad that if it had been up to me instead of the bean-counters, I'd have said "to H--- with this" and purchased from a different vendor (at least two of which were quite willing to deliver exactly the requested configuration).FWIW
crydee - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
I've been following laptop progression for awhile now. I'm picking out a new one in summer for Grad school. Every article I read I still want whatever Asus UL will be out around then. These Dell's just don't stack up and for the $ when Asus offers free accidental coverage for a year as well.therealnickdanger - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
I know I've said this before and perhaps others have as well, but it would be nice if AT could add a "classic" gaming suite to its benchmarks. If a 'puter can muster over 60fps in games like FC2, obviously it can run older games just fine, but once you enter this mainstream and lower-end market, gaming performance is suspect.We're looking at this laptop that does 20-89fps, depending on the game. IMO, the biggest reason to use a gaming laptop is for LAN parties and mobile multiplayer: WoW, CS:S, UT3, L4D, Halo. If I'm in the minority and my request is unreasonable, so be it, but I believe there is a large gap in AT's gaming benchmarks when it comes to mid-to-low systems. I don't care how well the Core i3 IGP plays Crysis at 1080p, but its performance in the above games at 720p would interest many people.
We can assume a lot, but concrete numbers are nice to have.
LtGoonRush - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
Another laptop that continues the trend of taking a decent platform and pairing it with a dedicated GPU too slow to be useful. Have the major OEMs lost all ability to build a balanced system? For comparison, the Acer Aspire AS5740G-6979 for $799 at Newegg has a slightly lower-clocked CPU, larger HDD, and a Mobility Radeon HD 5650 1GB.strikeback03 - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
I hate everyone trying for a "balanced system", it means pretty much everything with a fast CPU has a GPU that I don't need.JarredWalton - Thursday, March 4, 2010 - link
Or there's the http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/671930-REG/A...">ASUS N61J for ~$1050 with 5730 and an i7-720QM... though battery life is going to suck on that, I'd wager. The Inspiron 15 is decent as a lower cost model, but the i5-520M is overpowered for what you get.