I have a fairly top spec Vostro 1700 here 2Ghz cpu, 160Gb hdrive, 2gig ram, 256meg graphics. Its prooved to be just too big and heavy for anything other than a desktop replacement so although it is a nice machine and games well in Crysis I will have to sell it on soon and have chosen a Vostro 1500 to replace it.
While dell were giving plenty of discount on the main site I bought a Vostro 1500 with Intel Celeron Processor M 540 (1.86 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB) with the intention of swopping the cpu for a 2Ghz T7200 or maybe a Penryn chip.I have a spare 100Gb 7200rpm hard drive so was happy to only get a cheap slower 80Gb one with it.This is what I ordered for £350 after discounts
Celeron 540 (1.86GHz, 533, 1M)
15.4 WXGA+ True Life (1440x900)
Black cover Camera 2Mp
2048 MB 667 MHz Dual-Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x 1024 MB)
Hard Drive 80GB Serial ATA (5400RPM)
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
Primary 6-cell 56WHr Li-Ion Battery
256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
European - Dell TrueMobile 355 internal Bluetooth Module
Wireless 1390 802.11b/g Mini-PCI CardEUR
Dell Black 5-Button Bluetooth Travel Mouse
Genuine Windows XP Home SP2 including Media
I have had it a few days now and thought I would see how well it performed with its celery cpu.
Out of the box it produced 3027 with 3Dmark 06
Farcry ran at max everything with ease.
Crysis GPU bench produced a playable 36fps @ 1440x900 low detail
dropping to 15fps @ 1440x900 medium detail.
I changed the dell supplied video drivers to forceware 169.04 and tried again.
3Dmark 06 was up now at 3161 but it only added one fps to the 2 crysis gpu tests.
Having overclocked the graphics on the V1700 with ease and no overheating I thought I would try the same on this one, I used Atitool 0.27 and set the GPU at 600 and memory at 500.
3Dmark 06 went to 3738 and the Crysis GPU tests showed 1440x900 Med 20fps and low gave 41fps
Compare this against my XPS M1530 that had T7500 2.2Ghz cpu and 8600GT with DDR3 memory running much faster.
The XPS M1530 gave 4329 marks in 3Dmark 06 and 2 more points on the Crysis fps.
So the Celeron isnt doing too badly in the tests above.
I admit it may not do so well in cpu intensive benching but for my needs I was impressed how well it did perform.
I managed to get hold of a well priced Penryn cpu so I have now swopped the Celeron M540 cpu in my Vostro 1500 for a Penryn T9300 2.5Ghz (6meg cache)
3746 3Dmark06 marks
43fps ave in Crysis gpu bench @1440x900 low detail
57fps ave in Crysis gpu bench @ 1024x768 low detail
Overclocked the gpu a tad (gpu 600 memory 500) and
4642 3Dmark06 marks
53fps ave in Crysis gpu bench @1440x900 low detail
72fps ave in crysis gpu bench @ 1024x768 low detail
Running cool under load, well as much load as I can give it. Had to scrape off the nasty sticky heatsink pad dell fit and use Artic silver. Took around an hour to fit, I was being very careful as its a major strip down to get the the cpu in the Vostro.
As I was unable to find a picture of the cpu and gpu heatsink assembly online this may help anyone considering doing the changeover.The gpu sink assembly should be removed before the cpu one as its added last and just traps the cpu sink on the outgoing side of the fan but I was a bit loath to remove it and found I could just about jiggle the cpu sink out from under it, though putting it back was a bit more of a struggle.With hindsight I might take the gpu sink off next time.
There is also to the right of the cpu sink another chip (northbridge?) which has the tail of the cpu sink on it, I didnt replace the pad between the sink and chip but relied on the original going back in exactly the same place. If doing it again I would get some pads so I could replace this one as it did look like it wasnt making very good contact when I removed the sink so chances are its got less of a good contact now with the reused pad.
While dell were giving plenty of discount on the main site I bought a Vostro 1500 with Intel Celeron Processor M 540 (1.86 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB) with the intention of swopping the cpu for a 2Ghz T7200 or maybe a Penryn chip.I have a spare 100Gb 7200rpm hard drive so was happy to only get a cheap slower 80Gb one with it.This is what I ordered for £350 after discounts
Celeron 540 (1.86GHz, 533, 1M)
15.4 WXGA+ True Life (1440x900)
Black cover Camera 2Mp
2048 MB 667 MHz Dual-Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x 1024 MB)
Hard Drive 80GB Serial ATA (5400RPM)
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
Primary 6-cell 56WHr Li-Ion Battery
256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
European - Dell TrueMobile 355 internal Bluetooth Module
Wireless 1390 802.11b/g Mini-PCI CardEUR
Dell Black 5-Button Bluetooth Travel Mouse
Genuine Windows XP Home SP2 including Media
I have had it a few days now and thought I would see how well it performed with its celery cpu.
Out of the box it produced 3027 with 3Dmark 06
Farcry ran at max everything with ease.
Crysis GPU bench produced a playable 36fps @ 1440x900 low detail
dropping to 15fps @ 1440x900 medium detail.
I changed the dell supplied video drivers to forceware 169.04 and tried again.
3Dmark 06 was up now at 3161 but it only added one fps to the 2 crysis gpu tests.
Having overclocked the graphics on the V1700 with ease and no overheating I thought I would try the same on this one, I used Atitool 0.27 and set the GPU at 600 and memory at 500.
3Dmark 06 went to 3738 and the Crysis GPU tests showed 1440x900 Med 20fps and low gave 41fps
Compare this against my XPS M1530 that had T7500 2.2Ghz cpu and 8600GT with DDR3 memory running much faster.
The XPS M1530 gave 4329 marks in 3Dmark 06 and 2 more points on the Crysis fps.
So the Celeron isnt doing too badly in the tests above.
I admit it may not do so well in cpu intensive benching but for my needs I was impressed how well it did perform.
I managed to get hold of a well priced Penryn cpu so I have now swopped the Celeron M540 cpu in my Vostro 1500 for a Penryn T9300 2.5Ghz (6meg cache)
3746 3Dmark06 marks
43fps ave in Crysis gpu bench @1440x900 low detail
57fps ave in Crysis gpu bench @ 1024x768 low detail
Overclocked the gpu a tad (gpu 600 memory 500) and
4642 3Dmark06 marks
53fps ave in Crysis gpu bench @1440x900 low detail
72fps ave in crysis gpu bench @ 1024x768 low detail
Running cool under load, well as much load as I can give it. Had to scrape off the nasty sticky heatsink pad dell fit and use Artic silver. Took around an hour to fit, I was being very careful as its a major strip down to get the the cpu in the Vostro.
As I was unable to find a picture of the cpu and gpu heatsink assembly online this may help anyone considering doing the changeover.The gpu sink assembly should be removed before the cpu one as its added last and just traps the cpu sink on the outgoing side of the fan but I was a bit loath to remove it and found I could just about jiggle the cpu sink out from under it, though putting it back was a bit more of a struggle.With hindsight I might take the gpu sink off next time.
There is also to the right of the cpu sink another chip (northbridge?) which has the tail of the cpu sink on it, I didnt replace the pad between the sink and chip but relied on the original going back in exactly the same place. If doing it again I would get some pads so I could replace this one as it did look like it wasnt making very good contact when I removed the sink so chances are its got less of a good contact now with the reused pad.
