Howdy guys! Got myself a new machine finally! After months and months and even a few years of deliberation and repeated attempts to scrounge up the necessary funds, I finally managed to absolutely SCORE a deal on a brand new machine, not refurbished mind you, warranty intact and one that meets all of my criteria for games and the like.
So without further ado, this will be my second laptop review too, here is the newest addition to my laptop family!
Dell Inspiron i7559-763BLK
Intel i5-6300HQ 2.3 GHz Quad-Core (6M Cache, Turbo up to 3.2 GHz)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4GB GDDR5
8 GB DDR3L / 256 GB Solid-State Drive
15.6-Inch FHD IPS, Wide-Angle, Anti Glare Screen
The changes I've made to the machine thus far are the Memory and the Storage of the device.
- Memory upgraded to 12GB
- Storage upgraded with a 1TB HGST 7200RPM HDD
...and off we go!
Asthetics
The design of the machine is one of a typical slim form factor. When closed it's *barely* under an inch thick, which is a crazy feat considering the firepower and cooling capability it brings to the table. It's got a few red touches, a couple highlights, but overall it's built with plastic and this matte black finish. It's a bit of an oily fingerprint magnet so make sure you've got clean hands otherwise it'll show REAL fast with this thing. I like it. Meets my expectations for the price.
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The keyboard is pretty spongy. I can't lie about this, it's a bit of a negative in my book. Compared to the considerably more firm-feeling keys on my old Qosmio, I'm having a little trouble adapting, but it's all in good time. They managed to fit a full-sized keyboard onto a 15.6" chassis. Yes there IS a numpad included, which is not standard for smaller machines. Not to mention there is a little separation from the main keys too, so it looks less compacted and has a nice 'full' look to it. Not a bad keyboard, but it's not great either. You've been warned.
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The touchpad is kinda cheap. It's not the worst thing I've ever used, but it's not something I'd recommend to use even on the go if you can help it. Super SUPER sensitive to the touch, at least it shuts off when you're not using it, and due to the placement it's mostly out of the way when playing shooters and the like. Overall, it's workable, but you have to be VERY VERY easy with it. It kinda feels like it's gonna fall off if I turned the machine upside down. For $800, though, I am not complaining too much. I rarely use it more of a neutral here.
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The display is good. It's considered by most to be "Above Average" for people looking to game. It's an IPS, matte, 1920x1080 15.6" panel. The brand is BOE, HWINFO can't seem to get an ID for the model though, however the color accuracy is great and everything is crisp and clear. I'll admit that it's nowhere NEAR what the old Alienware RGB screen was capable of outputting. That panel was by far the best, and this is much better than the crap TN screen I'm coming from, but it's by no means terribly bright. I have no measuring programs, but if I had to just go off judgement and use what I'm told... I'd say, since the Qosmio before was claimed to have a 180 nits screen brightness, this one probably has around 220-230? It's definitely brighter, and the matte coating keeps reflections to a minimum. Just be sure if you DO use this outside, the brightness will not handle full sunlight conditions. The viewing angles are great. There's almost ZERO color shift when viewing from any angle. I muchly enjoy this screen.
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The overall build of the machine is sturdy. The screen is firm but there is a noticeable shift in colors even if you twist the screen a little, it's not bad, especially not for $800, but it's there. The machine is oddly heavy for a 15" notebook. Coming from a laptop that weighed in at a solid 8-9 pounds, this thing is probably half that, maybe a tad more, but from what I'm told, it's heavy for a notebook of its size. To me, it's the perfect weight. The case is sturdy, the entire body is rigid and solidly built. The palm rests have this rubberized finish that never heats up when gaming, but are rather big oil magnets, as mentioned for the keyboard too.
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For connectivity purposes:
- 3x USB 3.0 ports (Two on the left side and One on the right)
- Headphone jack is on the left
- Gigabit LAN port is on the right
- Card Reader is on the right
- HDMI port is on the right
- Kingston Lock is on the right
- Power jack is on the left.
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The sound is very good. The bass is a little lower than what I'm used to, but Harmon/Kardon is tough to beat for audio. The highs and lows are well pronounced and the volume does not appear to distort at highest levels either, not to mention it's also VERY loud for a laptop, like, at half volume it's as loud as the Qosmio I'm coming from. Just be aware it may cause you to jump a little when you first hear it. It's kinda 'boomy' at first since it's at max volume. It's a pleasent surprise to me, since most machines nowadays have less and less cares when it comes to the sound system, though Dell seems to have found a good middle ground for this machine. I am very pleased.
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Maintenance is AMAZING. It's the single easiest machine I've ever had to work with and there's nothing but good to come from me on this point. The bottom panel is held in by a single screw. Just undo that one and pop it out. It's almost as good as what Sager offers for their machines, and coming from someone who's used Alienware and the like, this is easily as good. There's no direct access to the CPU and GPU, just the fans for cleaning, but the two big bad components are soldered, so the only reason would be for repasting, and that's a non-issue for me. The SSD it comes with is occupying the M.2 slot it has, I believe it can handle up to a 512GB SSD, but don't quote me on that. The HDD slot has no screws, but it's got a VERY snug fit when you slot it in. I've never seen it before, myself, however I'm actually more satisfied with this than I was with any other design. It's effortless, easy, and consumes no more time than it takes to look at it. Dell, you've outdone yourself with this task. Bravo!
![biggrin.gif]( "biggrin.gif")
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Components and First Impressions
Alrighty so the first impression I got, just looking at reviews and the like, was that the processor wasn't super powerful and the GPU is only mid-range at best. The truth couldn't be further from this if I wanted to try. I will be the first to note that the 960M is PLENTY powerful for 1080p and the i5-6300HQ is a flawless match for this card. The processor is extremely powerful even without hyperthreading and the lower full load clock speed.
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The CPU is the new mid-range standard Intel Core i5-6300HQ. It clocks in at a base speed of 2.3GHz and has a maximum turbo boost of 3.2GHz. Due to the power saving features on Skylake, the turbo boost clocks are a fair bit lower than they are on Haswell or Broadwell, however it's not a detrimental loss in any regard. The clocks go as follows:
- 3.2GHz - One Core utilized
- 3.0GHz - Two Cores utilized
- 2.8GHz - Four Cores utilized
As I've seen, performance isn't really hindered in games with the loss of Hyperthreading as much as it's more the loss of the raw clock speed. The i7-6700HQ seems to fair better than this i5 by a solid 30% due to the higher clock speeds and the hyperthreading it boasts, so there are a few limitations to using this processor. That and it's soldered, but we've used soldered CPUs for a while; this is nothing new and shouldn't be seen as a negative anymore.
The clock speed reduction is compensated by the improvements to IPC over previous generations. I'm coming from a Sandy Bridge i7, the i7-2760QM to be precise, and the performance in single and multi-threaded applications is unchanged. If there is a change, it might be slightly worse than the i7...? I can't really tell. I'll take that as a good thing.
![biggrin.gif]( "biggrin.gif")
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The GPU is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M with a dedicated 4GB framebuffer. Pretty sure that will come in handy since I was tapping into the full 1.5GB allocation on the 560M in DX11 games. So, with a GPU that's 3x as powerful, 4GB will get eaten up FAST. It's one thing I'm thankful for. People will claim I'll never use half that, but that's completely bogus. In my experience using a faaar weaker GPU with almost half that Vram, low settings in the newest games will swallow 2GB of Vram in an instant. 4GB is the industry recommendation now for GPUs, both mobile and desktop alike. Heck, even the GTX 970M is ALMOST bottlenecked by it's own 3GB framebuffer and that's a higher end card!
But jumping to the performance, I will try to summarize it. It's amazing. Now I'm not one to care much about this kind of thing being a laptop gamer (can you see my point?), but my last big bad GPU was a desktop GTX 470 overclocked out the wazoo (850/1700/4000) and surpassing GTX 480 levels waaay back when. This thing is still faster at completely stock levels. It's exciting to be able to pull stuff like, maxing out Crysis and playing with >40fps again. I love it. This GPU is crazy powerful for what I play. It's absolutely everything I needed in a GPU and every game I play is now within the realm of playable with decent settings at 1080p with fluid framerates.
I scored around 1900 points in 3DMark 11 with the GTX 560M. It's a decent score for a mobile DirectX 11-capable GPU from 2011. I could handle Crysis on a mixture of highest and lowest settings. Shaders on very high, shadows and volumetric effects on low, etc, stuff like that, and manage around 40 FPS dipping to the low 20s in heavy firefights at 900p. No AA used here, simply couldn't handle it.
The 960M scores 5300. That's an increase of x2.8 in raw DX11 performance ALONE. I can play Crysis on highest settings without AA used, and maintain >40 FPS at 1080p. An increase like this, for me, is such an uplifting moment, I'd cry if it wasn't weird to everyone around me.
![tongue.gif]( "tongue.gif")
I'll show you this as proof. A mid-range GPU from 2015 can now pull off the same performance, in a game that was considered to be one of the prettiest and most demanding titles up until around 2013-2014, as a GTX 580 while drawing literally one FIFTH the power. Good ****.
Oh right! I forgot to mention, this laptop features Optimus and WOW it's refined into something wickedly awesome!
![biggrin.gif]( "biggrin.gif")
The layout is simple, most newer games know what to look for, but I just force it to use the GTX in the settings and there are zero issues. The Intel chip is the HD 530 and boy... that's one powerful little iGPU! It's easily gaming capable, not for an $800 laptop but it's actually quite something else. The machine uses it specifically for when I'm on battery, and it powers through anything and everything without a hiccup. There's never a stutter on the internet, on Chrome mind you, and Windows 10 handles it nicely. Whether or not Microsoft was telling the truth about better performance, it's certainly a great iGPU. Well done Intel.
![biggrin.gif]( "biggrin.gif")
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Cooling array. Oohhh... I get shivers when I think about this. Most gaming laptops are designed for typical loads in games, unrealistic conditions are rarely considered but the machines are built to throttle in extreme cases. The biggest turn-off for a gaming laptop is one that cannot handle it's CPU and/or GPU at maximum possible loads and maintain a temperature under 85*C. The GPUs are usually fine, it's the CPUs that always hit around the mid to high 90s, and coming from a gamer that had a laptop like that, it's no fun when you're throttled back to the performance of a lesser chip because your PC can't cool the processor in question.
So you can understand my plight when I see all these super high powered laptops with their dual GPU setups and overclockable CPUs... but the processor sits at 95*C under full load! What's the point of that? I want a laptop that has GOOD cooling and doesn't threaten to throttle under highest possible load. What with games using higher thread counts and pulling more system memory, I want my processor as chilled as possible, relatively speaking.
When I saw the first review on Notebookcheck.net of this machine, it had the i7 instead of the i5 model I was looking at. The i7 hit around 87*C on the hottest core with the 960M at full load on the whole system. That caught my eye REAL quick. The price was a little too high for the review sample, but the i5 model ran cooler, according to forum users at NBR, quite a bit so in fact. In my own tests, I'll show you how much. It's a fair bit less, noticeably so.
Dual fans, three heatpipes with two connecting the CPU and GPU and one more leading across both to a third vent on the left side of the notebook give it a more distinct look. It reminds me of what the Aorus X5 has for cooling. Very similar setup.
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Overclocking
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Did a little overclocking on the GPU too. I'll post the results on a few games here and there. It appears that overclocking the Core yields waaaay higher bonuses compared to the memory. I have it sitting with +135/+500 and it's fully stable in games and the like. I get about a 10-15% boost it seems with no change in temps in the slightest.
So without further ado, this will be my second laptop review too, here is the newest addition to my laptop family!
Dell Inspiron i7559-763BLK
Intel i5-6300HQ 2.3 GHz Quad-Core (6M Cache, Turbo up to 3.2 GHz)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4GB GDDR5
8 GB DDR3L / 256 GB Solid-State Drive
15.6-Inch FHD IPS, Wide-Angle, Anti Glare Screen
The changes I've made to the machine thus far are the Memory and the Storage of the device.
- Memory upgraded to 12GB
- Storage upgraded with a 1TB HGST 7200RPM HDD
...and off we go!
Asthetics
The design of the machine is one of a typical slim form factor. When closed it's *barely* under an inch thick, which is a crazy feat considering the firepower and cooling capability it brings to the table. It's got a few red touches, a couple highlights, but overall it's built with plastic and this matte black finish. It's a bit of an oily fingerprint magnet so make sure you've got clean hands otherwise it'll show REAL fast with this thing. I like it. Meets my expectations for the price.
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The keyboard is pretty spongy. I can't lie about this, it's a bit of a negative in my book. Compared to the considerably more firm-feeling keys on my old Qosmio, I'm having a little trouble adapting, but it's all in good time. They managed to fit a full-sized keyboard onto a 15.6" chassis. Yes there IS a numpad included, which is not standard for smaller machines. Not to mention there is a little separation from the main keys too, so it looks less compacted and has a nice 'full' look to it. Not a bad keyboard, but it's not great either. You've been warned.
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The touchpad is kinda cheap. It's not the worst thing I've ever used, but it's not something I'd recommend to use even on the go if you can help it. Super SUPER sensitive to the touch, at least it shuts off when you're not using it, and due to the placement it's mostly out of the way when playing shooters and the like. Overall, it's workable, but you have to be VERY VERY easy with it. It kinda feels like it's gonna fall off if I turned the machine upside down. For $800, though, I am not complaining too much. I rarely use it more of a neutral here.
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The display is good. It's considered by most to be "Above Average" for people looking to game. It's an IPS, matte, 1920x1080 15.6" panel. The brand is BOE, HWINFO can't seem to get an ID for the model though, however the color accuracy is great and everything is crisp and clear. I'll admit that it's nowhere NEAR what the old Alienware RGB screen was capable of outputting. That panel was by far the best, and this is much better than the crap TN screen I'm coming from, but it's by no means terribly bright. I have no measuring programs, but if I had to just go off judgement and use what I'm told... I'd say, since the Qosmio before was claimed to have a 180 nits screen brightness, this one probably has around 220-230? It's definitely brighter, and the matte coating keeps reflections to a minimum. Just be sure if you DO use this outside, the brightness will not handle full sunlight conditions. The viewing angles are great. There's almost ZERO color shift when viewing from any angle. I muchly enjoy this screen.
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The overall build of the machine is sturdy. The screen is firm but there is a noticeable shift in colors even if you twist the screen a little, it's not bad, especially not for $800, but it's there. The machine is oddly heavy for a 15" notebook. Coming from a laptop that weighed in at a solid 8-9 pounds, this thing is probably half that, maybe a tad more, but from what I'm told, it's heavy for a notebook of its size. To me, it's the perfect weight. The case is sturdy, the entire body is rigid and solidly built. The palm rests have this rubberized finish that never heats up when gaming, but are rather big oil magnets, as mentioned for the keyboard too.
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For connectivity purposes:
- 3x USB 3.0 ports (Two on the left side and One on the right)
- Headphone jack is on the left
- Gigabit LAN port is on the right
- Card Reader is on the right
- HDMI port is on the right
- Kingston Lock is on the right
- Power jack is on the left.
__________________________________________
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The sound is very good. The bass is a little lower than what I'm used to, but Harmon/Kardon is tough to beat for audio. The highs and lows are well pronounced and the volume does not appear to distort at highest levels either, not to mention it's also VERY loud for a laptop, like, at half volume it's as loud as the Qosmio I'm coming from. Just be aware it may cause you to jump a little when you first hear it. It's kinda 'boomy' at first since it's at max volume. It's a pleasent surprise to me, since most machines nowadays have less and less cares when it comes to the sound system, though Dell seems to have found a good middle ground for this machine. I am very pleased.
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Maintenance is AMAZING. It's the single easiest machine I've ever had to work with and there's nothing but good to come from me on this point. The bottom panel is held in by a single screw. Just undo that one and pop it out. It's almost as good as what Sager offers for their machines, and coming from someone who's used Alienware and the like, this is easily as good. There's no direct access to the CPU and GPU, just the fans for cleaning, but the two big bad components are soldered, so the only reason would be for repasting, and that's a non-issue for me. The SSD it comes with is occupying the M.2 slot it has, I believe it can handle up to a 512GB SSD, but don't quote me on that. The HDD slot has no screws, but it's got a VERY snug fit when you slot it in. I've never seen it before, myself, however I'm actually more satisfied with this than I was with any other design. It's effortless, easy, and consumes no more time than it takes to look at it. Dell, you've outdone yourself with this task. Bravo!
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Components and First Impressions
Alrighty so the first impression I got, just looking at reviews and the like, was that the processor wasn't super powerful and the GPU is only mid-range at best. The truth couldn't be further from this if I wanted to try. I will be the first to note that the 960M is PLENTY powerful for 1080p and the i5-6300HQ is a flawless match for this card. The processor is extremely powerful even without hyperthreading and the lower full load clock speed.
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
The CPU is the new mid-range standard Intel Core i5-6300HQ. It clocks in at a base speed of 2.3GHz and has a maximum turbo boost of 3.2GHz. Due to the power saving features on Skylake, the turbo boost clocks are a fair bit lower than they are on Haswell or Broadwell, however it's not a detrimental loss in any regard. The clocks go as follows:
- 3.2GHz - One Core utilized
- 3.0GHz - Two Cores utilized
- 2.8GHz - Four Cores utilized
As I've seen, performance isn't really hindered in games with the loss of Hyperthreading as much as it's more the loss of the raw clock speed. The i7-6700HQ seems to fair better than this i5 by a solid 30% due to the higher clock speeds and the hyperthreading it boasts, so there are a few limitations to using this processor. That and it's soldered, but we've used soldered CPUs for a while; this is nothing new and shouldn't be seen as a negative anymore.
The clock speed reduction is compensated by the improvements to IPC over previous generations. I'm coming from a Sandy Bridge i7, the i7-2760QM to be precise, and the performance in single and multi-threaded applications is unchanged. If there is a change, it might be slightly worse than the i7...? I can't really tell. I'll take that as a good thing.
__________________________________________
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The GPU is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M with a dedicated 4GB framebuffer. Pretty sure that will come in handy since I was tapping into the full 1.5GB allocation on the 560M in DX11 games. So, with a GPU that's 3x as powerful, 4GB will get eaten up FAST. It's one thing I'm thankful for. People will claim I'll never use half that, but that's completely bogus. In my experience using a faaar weaker GPU with almost half that Vram, low settings in the newest games will swallow 2GB of Vram in an instant. 4GB is the industry recommendation now for GPUs, both mobile and desktop alike. Heck, even the GTX 970M is ALMOST bottlenecked by it's own 3GB framebuffer and that's a higher end card!
But jumping to the performance, I will try to summarize it. It's amazing. Now I'm not one to care much about this kind of thing being a laptop gamer (can you see my point?), but my last big bad GPU was a desktop GTX 470 overclocked out the wazoo (850/1700/4000) and surpassing GTX 480 levels waaay back when. This thing is still faster at completely stock levels. It's exciting to be able to pull stuff like, maxing out Crysis and playing with >40fps again. I love it. This GPU is crazy powerful for what I play. It's absolutely everything I needed in a GPU and every game I play is now within the realm of playable with decent settings at 1080p with fluid framerates.
I scored around 1900 points in 3DMark 11 with the GTX 560M. It's a decent score for a mobile DirectX 11-capable GPU from 2011. I could handle Crysis on a mixture of highest and lowest settings. Shaders on very high, shadows and volumetric effects on low, etc, stuff like that, and manage around 40 FPS dipping to the low 20s in heavy firefights at 900p. No AA used here, simply couldn't handle it.
The 960M scores 5300. That's an increase of x2.8 in raw DX11 performance ALONE. I can play Crysis on highest settings without AA used, and maintain >40 FPS at 1080p. An increase like this, for me, is such an uplifting moment, I'd cry if it wasn't weird to everyone around me.
Oh right! I forgot to mention, this laptop features Optimus and WOW it's refined into something wickedly awesome!
__________________________________________
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Cooling array. Oohhh... I get shivers when I think about this. Most gaming laptops are designed for typical loads in games, unrealistic conditions are rarely considered but the machines are built to throttle in extreme cases. The biggest turn-off for a gaming laptop is one that cannot handle it's CPU and/or GPU at maximum possible loads and maintain a temperature under 85*C. The GPUs are usually fine, it's the CPUs that always hit around the mid to high 90s, and coming from a gamer that had a laptop like that, it's no fun when you're throttled back to the performance of a lesser chip because your PC can't cool the processor in question.
So you can understand my plight when I see all these super high powered laptops with their dual GPU setups and overclockable CPUs... but the processor sits at 95*C under full load! What's the point of that? I want a laptop that has GOOD cooling and doesn't threaten to throttle under highest possible load. What with games using higher thread counts and pulling more system memory, I want my processor as chilled as possible, relatively speaking.
When I saw the first review on Notebookcheck.net of this machine, it had the i7 instead of the i5 model I was looking at. The i7 hit around 87*C on the hottest core with the 960M at full load on the whole system. That caught my eye REAL quick. The price was a little too high for the review sample, but the i5 model ran cooler, according to forum users at NBR, quite a bit so in fact. In my own tests, I'll show you how much. It's a fair bit less, noticeably so.
Dual fans, three heatpipes with two connecting the CPU and GPU and one more leading across both to a third vent on the left side of the notebook give it a more distinct look. It reminds me of what the Aorus X5 has for cooling. Very similar setup.
______________________________________________________________
Overclocking
______________________________________________________________
Did a little overclocking on the GPU too. I'll post the results on a few games here and there. It appears that overclocking the Core yields waaaay higher bonuses compared to the memory. I have it sitting with +135/+500 and it's fully stable in games and the like. I get about a 10-15% boost it seems with no change in temps in the slightest.
