Informal Insprion Comparo

I just ran a PassMark Performance Test comparison betwixt two fresh Inspirons,

1 My brand-new Inspiron 8600, 1.7GHz P-M, 1GB RAM, 128MB Radeon 9600 Pro Turbo, 60GB
7200RPM 8MB hard disk - appears on the attached chart in Red.

2 A friend's brand-new Inspiron 5150, 3.06GHz P-4M, 512MB RAM, 32MB GeForce Go 5200, 40GB
5400RPM 2MB hard disk - appears on the attached chart in Blue.

Both systems were freshly loaded with WinXP Pro SP1a, and all the appropriate updates and
drivers were applied. All unnecessary services were temporarily disabled on both systems.
SpeedSwitchXP was used to lock both systems at their top CPU speed.

The I5150, with its speedy processor and 533FSB, walked all over the I8600 during the CPU
Mark and Memory Mark tests suites.

The I8600's video card pulled far, far ahead on the Graphics Mark suites - approaching
400% during the 3D tests. Given the relatively small textures used in the 3D Graphics
Mark tests, I submit that the 32MB vs. 128MB video memory means little, and which GPU is
used means a lot.

Oddly enough, the I8600's fast hard drive equated to less than a 1.5% performance
advantage over the slower, but much less expensive, hard drive in the I5150. I know that
the faster drive with the larger cache makes good sense, but you wouldn't know it from
these tests.

Summary - need 3D performance in a Dell notebook? Buy the I8600. Need acceptable GUI
performance, with blistering processing speed for programming or number crunching? I5150.

(Asides - the I5150 SXGA display is WAAY brighter than the I8600 UXGA display. And that
frickin' I5150 130w power brick is a monstrosity!)

Now, as soon as I click the "Send Now" button, Dell will announce a Radeon 9800 Pro Turbo
option in the I5150. That option will almost certainly go live the day after my 30-day
guarantee expires ;-

Best regards,

Tim ==
(substitute 'tcsys.com' for 'nospam.co.uk')
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