# DON'T BUY A ULV CPU THEY SAID, It wont be good for gaming they said....



## AbhMkh (Jan 10, 2014)

I bought the Dell Inspiron 15R a month ago

Dell Inspiron 15R Laptop - Mainstream laptops from Dell

I asked around the forum for advice and everybody criticized the above laptop for its ULV haswell I7, but being an IT engineer myself I was convinced about the gaming capabilities of this laptop and decided  to go for it.

Specs are As follows

Proccy : Intel Core I7-4500U

Ram : 8 GB DDR3

and the best part

GPU : 128 bit/2 GB AMD RADEON 8850M DDR5

Now to try out the gaming capabilities of this machine, I downloaded the popular RTS game released this year COMPANY OF HEROES 2 and did a performance test

Here are the results

*i.imgur.com/yDt7cOT.png


*i.imgur.com/D4cpUPY.png


And here are the results of some other systems to compare

*i.imgur.com/qLfK6Os.jpg


So to sum up my system with a "ULV CPU" produced better FPS than a 4700MQ/750M system and a 4702HQ/750M system.

and all this along with a stellar battery life of 6+ hrs !!!


I would say ...."IN YOUR FACE ULV CPU CRITICS"  


HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN A ULV CPU EQIPPED SYSTEM PRODUCING BETTER FPS THAN A QUAD CORE EQUIPPED SYSTEM ???

Cheers!
Abhijit


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## seamon (Jan 10, 2014)

Nice!!
I have both laptops.
A Dell Inspiron 15(same as yours) and a Y500.
I'll test crysis 3 on both and I'll tell you. 
Btw post some playable FPS(frames per sec not first person shooter) lol.
Still...8850 is a better card than gt650m


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## snap (Jan 10, 2014)

but 8850M is ranked higher than the 750m right?


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## seamon (Jan 10, 2014)

Testing Results:-
First Test:- Win Rar test and the winner is Dell Inspiron 15(maybe Y500 slowed down because Kaspersky was scanning =/ )
Time Difference-10 sec.

Edit:- Response time in Inspiron is 1 sec late, ie, when clicked Install on both machines together, the Inspiron lagged for a sec but that is probably due to the SSD in Y500.
Also, I am testing both machines in equally, ie, installing Crysis 3 in HDD only.


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## AbhMkh (Jan 10, 2014)

snap said:


> but 8850M is ranked higher than the 750m right?



Earlier(about a month ago) notebookcheck ranked it lower than the 750M, but now its ranked higher.

Anyways, 750m GDDR5 has a higher core speed/memory speed/memory bandwidth/texture and pixel rate

Whereas 8850M GDDR5 has higher no of Shader Processing/Texture Mapping/Render Output Units


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## seamon (Jan 10, 2014)

Testing Results:-
CPU usage during installation:-

Inspiron:-37%(max)
Y500:-24% (max, also running firefox and League of Legends from SSD)


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## hybridic (Jan 10, 2014)

seamon said:


> Testing Results:-
> First Test:- Win Rar test and the winner is Dell Inspiron 15(maybe Y500 slowed down because Kaspersky was scanning =/ )
> Time Difference-10 sec.
> 
> ...



More tests are welcomed . I am seriously under heavy doubt of that ULV cpu .

Moreover i am confused between the two laptops, both of  which you already have , so its better to ask you . 
1) DELL inspiron 15r ( i7 4500u + 8850m ) 
and
2) Y500 or 510 . 

Should i spend that extra 12000 bucks for a Y500 or the dell can handle everything except some video editing ?


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## AbhMkh (Jan 10, 2014)

seamon said:


> Testing Results:-
> CPU usage during installation:-
> 
> Inspiron:-37%(max)
> Y500:-24% (max, also running firefox and League of Legends from SSD)




Is your Y500 a dual GT650M one ?


If that is the case one can expect it to perform better than the 8850M, if that's not the case then we will have to wait for the crysis 3 results !

And dude, check your thinkdigit inbox


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## seamon (Jan 10, 2014)

AbhMkh said:


> Is your Y500 a dual GT650M one ?
> 
> 
> If that is the case one can expect it to perform better than the 8850M, if that's not the case then we will have to wait for the crysis 3 results !
> ...



Er... single GPU

Y500 wins installation round , ahead by a good 50 sec and 6.3%
You check your inbox. xD

Edit :- Gonna download Direct X for Inspiron 15 -.-
Sorry for the delay


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## AbhMkh (Jan 10, 2014)

Done, Also while running Crysis 3 make sure you run the game on HD resolution on both laptops, since the 15R cannot go beyond that.


Try doing

1366*768, medium preset, 16X AF,AA


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## SaiyanGoku (Jan 10, 2014)

AbhMkh said:


> I bought the Dell Inspiron 15R a month ago
> 
> Dell Inspiron 15R Laptop - Mainstream laptops from Dell
> 
> ...



those other systems have 1920*1080 resolution while yours has a 1366*768.

if your had FHD resolution too, it would've got worse results than them.


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## snap (Jan 10, 2014)

actually the high settings is HD the ultra is full hd if you hover the mouse above high it shows the settings


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## AbhMkh (Jan 10, 2014)

Luffy said:


> those other systems have 1920*1080 resolution while yours has a 1366*768.
> 
> if your had FHD resolution too, it would've got worse results than them.




SO WHAT ?

The tests in high setting have been run by manually setting the resolution to 1366*768




Cheers!
Abhijit


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## seamon (Jan 10, 2014)

Tested on these settings:-
Mode:-Windowed.
Everything Medium.
AF=16x
Lens flares=yes
Textures med
vsync =off(obviously -.-)
AA=off( was creating problems - restart etc)

Note:GT 650M was overclocked to +132Mhz(core) and +687(memory). I was trying to match GT750m speeds. =/
Testing conditions:-
First Test:- In this test I tested by looking at a place where there was lots to render, ie, maximum things.
Second Test:- Amount of things to render was lowered by looking away at a more easy on the GPU place.
Third Test:- Sky test, looked at the sky.Lots or rain to render, nothing else.

Y500:-
First test= 26-33.
Second Test=30
Third Test=50-63, stabilizes at 50.

Inspiron 15
First test=19-24.
Second Test=30
Third Test=30-40, stabilizes at 37.

Note:- None of the drivers were latest, installing latest drivers on both will probably lead to better results but that's a pain in the @$$

Comments please. xD

Edit: CPU test(task manager FTW)
Y500 CPU usage=33%
Inspiron 15 CPU usage=62%

Torture Test:-
Everything max and by everything I mean EVERYTHING(except vsync)
vsync off(-.-)

Same test conditions as before:-
Y500
1-10 FPS
2- 16 FPS
3-26 FPS

Inspiron 15
1- 6 FPS
2- 11 FPS
3- 16 FPS


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## priyankgupta (Jan 10, 2014)

So, please tell me, is this Dell Inspiron 15R 5537 better, or Lenovo Y510?


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## AbhMkh (Jan 10, 2014)

So average of the highest results on mid settings would be

Y500(Overclocked GT650M) : 37 FPS

15 R : 31 FPS

750M : Acc to notebookcheck 30.6 FPS(4700MQ/750M)

Dont you think you are overclocking too much ?



priyankgupta said:


> So, please tell me, is this Dell Inspiron 15R 5537 better, or Lenovo Y510?




Lenovo Y510p costs 75K+ whereas 15R costs 66K, both are in a completel different league.

If u can afford that much Y510P would better option but in sub 70K range u cannot beat Inspiron 5537


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## seamon (Jan 10, 2014)

Notebookcheck.net uses ancient drivers, those are extremely outdated and they don't bother to update.
Gt650m is running at 922MHz core and and 4687Mhz memory.(default 790Mhz and 4000Mhz)(lower than 750m)
I can't overclock above core +135Mhz because it's locked by the bios and even +135Mhz is unstable in my case.

Edit:- Sorry memory clock was only 1344Mhz and even still it was under only 50% load.
Clock speed was 922.7Mhz and GPU load=99%

want me to OC the 8850? 

Stupid Dell locked the cores for 8850 at 600Mhz(core).
This thingy is gonna need a custom bios flash(ain't gonna do that).

Edit 2:-
GT 750m in notebook check net @30.6FPS uses slow DDR3 memory
GDDR5 is 48FPS, dammit I am still not getting so high scores.
Notebookcheck.net gives even lower scores to 8850 crysis 3 test @28.8FPS

BTW my Dell is a bit different from yours.
Mine is Dell Inspiron 15 and not 15R.
The difference is only the cover, mine is scratch proof but dull looking, yours is shiny.
Specs are same, i7 4500U , 8GB Ram, AMD Radeon 8850 2GB.
Mine cost 60k+10k(3 years extended warranty, total= 4 years)


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## AbhMkh (Jan 11, 2014)

Anyways here is a review of the laptop, I especially like the conclusion

Google Translate


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## seamon (Jan 11, 2014)

I think crysis 3 is performing better in the y500 due to cpu bottleneck in the Inspiron 15.
According to this thread
 TR Forums &bull; View topic - Crysis 3 CPU scaling, hyperthreading vs AMD cores

Crysis 3 is better at utilizing physical cores than threads. When I saw 63%usage in the Inspiron 15 yesterday,maybe both the physical cores were being utilized but not the threads to their full capacities and hence the low fps. In less CPU intensive games and more Gpu intensive ones,  the. 8850 will probably perform better.


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## AbhMkh (Jan 11, 2014)

seamon said:


> I think crysis 3 is performing better in the y500 due to cpu bottleneck in the Inspiron 15.
> According to this thread
> TR Forums &bull; View topic - Crysis 3 CPU scaling, hyperthreading vs AMD cores
> 
> Crysis 3 is better at utilizing physical cores than threads. When I saw 63%usage in the Inspiron 15 yesterday,maybe both the physical cores were being utilized but not the threads to their full capacities and hence the low fps. In less CPU intensive games and more Gpu intensive ones,  the. 8850 will probably perform better.




But this doesn't make any sense, RTS(COH2) and RPG(AC3) games are supposed to be more CPU intensive whereas FPS(COD,BF,Crysis)games are supposed to be more GPU intensive.

But the results here show to the contrary.


Yes, I did some research and found out that the Crysis 3 is a very CPU intensive game, even for desktop CPU's, do you have any other game that we can use to test ?

Farcry 3, BF3, COD 3, COD BO 2, BF 4, COD ghosts(the std FPS's) etc ?


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## seamon (Jan 11, 2014)

It's Crysis 3 we are talking about,it's everything intensive. xD 
Just gonna test Absolution now and tell ya.



AbhMkh said:


> But this doesn't make any sense, RTS(COH2) and RPG(AC3) games are supposed to be more CPU intensive whereas FPS(COD,BF,Crysis)games are supposed to be more GPU intensive.
> 
> But the results here show to the contrary.
> 
> ...



I have all of those except BF 3


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## omega44-xt (Jan 11, 2014)

priyankgupta said:


> So, please tell me, is this Dell Inspiron 15R 5537 better, or Lenovo Y510?



Y510p is obviously better.... Don't know why notebookcheck has underrated scores of i7 4702+ GT750M, but Y510p surely has better CPU & GPU

ULV is not bad for gaming, its just that its overpriced..... i5 4200M is better than i7 4500U but in normal usage you won't feel any difference. Few people have showed how i7 3632QM is even better than i7 4500U


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## hybridic (Jan 11, 2014)

Also check if your CPU uses 15 watts of power .
In one case of Notebook check , that i7 was just set to 10watts by dell  and thus its turbo clock was limited to 1.9 GHz .But  I dont know if its safe to increase. 

Take a look in this text.


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## kkn13 (Jan 11, 2014)

AbhMkh said:


> I bought the Dell Inspiron 15R a month ago
> 
> Dell Inspiron 15R Laptop - Mainstream laptops from Dell
> 
> ...



umm u have misunderstood the ulv thing as a whole, people only say 3rd gen intel ulvs arent powerful ,the 4th gen ulv i5s and i7s are amazing no one can deny that plus these cpus are even used in mid range gaming laptops 50k+
btw imprressive benchmarks which u have posted
i have a 3210m myself in my inspiron 15R turbo and ur benchmarks come very close to mine and have much much better battery life and igpu


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## seamon (Jan 11, 2014)

anupam_pb said:


> Y510p is obviously better.... Don't know why notebookcheck has underrated scores of i7 4702+ GT750M, but Y510p surely has better CPU & GPU
> 
> ULV is not bad for gaming, its just that its overpriced..... i5 4200M is better than i7 4500U but in normal usage you won't feel any difference. Few people have showed how i7 3632QM is even better than i7 4500U



look at the driver..........that's ancient, probably 5 driver updates since that one.
The GT750m and Radeon 8850 are on almost equal terms in terms of performance and COH 2 is more of a GPU intensive game(more than Crysis 3).
Besides Nvidia Cards are extremely driver dependent. I'll give you an example.
I was on 311 driver and Dragon Age II gave 30 FPS on med, now on 331, I can easily play it on high with HBAO off, on med settings it now gives 45FPS, a difference of a whopping 15 FPS.


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## AbhMkh (Jan 11, 2014)

seamon said:


> It's Crysis 3 we are talking about,it's everything intensive. xD
> Just gonna test Absolution now and tell ya.
> 
> 
> ...


AFAIK, Hitman Absolution is another very CPU intensive game, just try a standard Fps ...COD ghosts, Farcry 3, Bf 4

Anyways do absolution lets see


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## seamon (Jan 11, 2014)

Ghosts gonna take 4 hrs to install :O
Let's try BF 4


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## priyankgupta (Jan 11, 2014)

anupam_pb said:


> Y510p is obviously better.... Don't know why notebookcheck has underrated scores of i7 4702+ GT750M, but Y510p surely has better CPU & GPU
> 
> ULV is not bad for gaming, its just that its overpriced..... i5 4200M is better than i7 4500U but in normal usage you won't feel any difference. Few people have showed how i7 3632QM is even better than i7 4500U



Well, my primary tasks would be developing (NetBeans+Eclipse+Visual Studio) and gaming(mostly, NFS). Moreover Dell has an additional advantage of touch display, while Y510p lacks this. But Y510p has 1080 screen + backlit keyboard + better CPU GPU config.


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## seamon (Jan 11, 2014)

priyankgupta said:


> Well, my primary tasks would be developing (NetBeans+Eclipse+Visual Studio) and gaming(mostly, NFS). Moreover Dell has an additional advantage of touch display, while Y510p lacks this. But Y510p has 1080 screen + backlit keyboard + better CPU GPU config.



Touch!!??? :O
I see that's where Abhijeet's extra 6k went, mine is without touch but same configs.

Alright, time for BF 4 results.
Everything:- Ultra
AA:-4xMSAA(max)
Resolution scale:-100%(half of max)(if this is maxed then Inspiron 15 gives 7 FPS)
Res:- 1366x768(60 Hz)

Inspiron 15:- 17-25 FPS.
Y500(overclocked GT 650m upto 922 Mhz core and memory stays at 2688MHz)(still slower than GT750m):- 20-30 FPS


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## AbhMkh (Jan 11, 2014)

seamon said:


> Touch!!??? :O
> I see that's where Abhijeet's extra 6k went, mine is without touch but same configs.
> 
> Alright, time for BF 4 results.
> ...



Yep, thats where my money went 

Just curious, which tool are you using to measure FPS.

Also, I have COD BO 2 and BF 3 , so I will try and post some benchmarks


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## seamon (Jan 11, 2014)

Fraps.
I tried CoD:MW 3 too, 40 FPS on both.
CoD:MW 3 runs better on Y500 using an older driver as I clearly remember completing the game on 60 FPS using an earlier forceware.


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## hybridic (Jan 12, 2014)

Check if your Dell's i7 is using correct TDP ( 15 watts ) . Notebookcheck says some dell laptops are set to 10 watt and therefore the processor goes to turbo mode for only 30 secs and then remains around base clocks . I dont know whether its safe to manually increase the TDP but you can take a look in this text in  image :


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## omega44-xt (Jan 12, 2014)

kkn13 said:


> umm u have misunderstood the ulv thing as a whole, people only say 3rd gen intel ulvs arent powerful ,the 4th gen ulv i5s and i7s are amazing no one can deny that plus these cpus are even used in mid range gaming laptops 50k+
> btw imprressive benchmarks which u have posted
> *i have a 3210m myself in my inspiron 15R turbo and ur benchmarks come very close to mine* and have much much better battery life and igpu



That's what we guys are also saying.......... a 4th gen i7 4500U is equivalent to i5 3210M.......... That i5 is much cheaper than the i7 4500U
So its better to get i5 3230M+GT740M than i5 4200U+GT740M


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## kkn13 (Jan 13, 2014)

anupam_pb said:


> That's what we guys are also saying.......... a 4th gen i7 4500U is equivalent to i5 3210M.......... That i5 is much cheaper than the i7 4500U
> So its better to get i5 3230M+GT740M than i5 4200U+GT740M



yeah give the 3230M combo u mentioned a higher capacity battery like a 9 cell or something and u wont feel the need to get a i7 4500U just seeing better battery life
My 3210M is a beast but i have a six cell battery atm hopefully ill get a 9 cell soon
it gives me 6 hours roughly when browsing with everything turned down and 1.5-2hrs while playing cpu demanding games like minecraft
if i play skyrim or crisis 3 it gives me an hour with everything turned to ultra
people tell me i should have spend 70k on a desktop coz its more powerful and vfm but im happier with my current setup which hasnt been bottlenecked etc ever yet 

btw all ulv cpus suffer in games like gta 4,unreal tournament , skyrim when more cpu power is needed so id still go with the 3230M/3210M coupled with a 6 or even 9 cell


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## seamon (Jan 14, 2014)

kkn13 said:


> yeah give the 3230M combo u mentioned a higher capacity battery like a 9 cell or something and u wont feel the need to get a i7 4500U just seeing better battery life
> My 3210M is a beast but i have a six cell battery atm hopefully ill get a 9 cell soon
> it gives me 6 hours roughly when browsing with everything turned down and 1.5-2hrs while playing cpu demanding games like minecraft
> if i play skyrim or crisis 3 it gives me an hour with everything turned to ultra
> ...



You are gonna get a massive hit to performance if you game on battery. Even the i74500u took a hit.... A whopping 10 fps in crysis 3


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## Akash Nandi (Jan 15, 2014)

man... no offence... but a ulv processor will take a dive if it has to play a cpu intensive game. its clocked only 1.8 and on top of tht... cpus rarely turbo while gaming.. so u'll hit bottleneck right there. take 2 identical gpu and play cpu intensive games with a i5 M series and the other with i7 ulv series and you'll find that the i5 one will fare better.



AbhMkh said:


> I bought the Dell Inspiron 15R a month ago
> 
> Dell Inspiron 15R Laptop - Mainstream laptops from Dell
> 
> ...




the snapshot you posted is a classic example of GPU bottleneck. It has nothing to do with the CPU.


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## Utkarsh2008 (Jan 15, 2014)

seamon said:


> Notebookcheck.net uses ancient drivers, those are extremely outdated and they don't bother to update.
> Gt650m is running at 922MHz core and and 4687Mhz memory.(default 790Mhz and 4000Mhz)(lower than 750m)
> I can't overclock above core +135Mhz because it's locked by the bios and even +135Mhz is unstable in my case.
> 
> ...




The Y500 (i7 3630qm+750M) easily handles +135mhz/+300mhz core/mem on stock voltage in my case without BIOS mods.
The notebookcheck ppl use really old drivers.
I will post some 1058mhz core+5000mhz mem crysis 3 some time with latest driver and 8.1 Pro and also with normal OC 1190mhz core and 5500-6000mhz mem.


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## seamon (Jan 15, 2014)

For every laptop the stable OC clock speed is different.... Mine crashes if I do +135 and +1000
Mine is stable at +135 and +687.
Just you wait..... I'll post OC GT650m sli benchmarks.


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