Dell XPS 410: Core 2 Duo for the Masses
by Jarred Walton on September 18, 2006 12:20 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Noise and Power
Another aspect of system performance that we like to test is the noise and power requirements. Dell is marketing the XPS 410 as a multimedia computer, and in that case lowered noise levels are even more important. We tested noise and power at three settings: idle, 100% CPU, and maximum CPU + GPU. 100% CPU load is achieved by running two instances of Folding@Home (FAH). For the maximum stress test, we leave FAH running and launch the Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory benchmark at 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF. Performing video encoding or other CPU intensive tasks while playing a game will achieve a similar CPU load.
Some of our readers have questioned in the past why we even perform such heavy stress test scenarios. After all, there are a lot of people that will never run two CPU intensive tasks along with a game to fully stress their computer, right? The problem is, we don't know what the future holds. Right now, most games and applications will not achieve the same load levels that we are using. In another year, however, newer products and games may actually reach the point where "typical use" scenarios put a similar stress on a system. We consider the maximum load test a worst-case scenario, but provided the systems can run fully stable throughout our testing then we can say with some confidence that they will be okay with future applications and games.
For the ABS system, noise results basically showed no difference between any of the clock speeds, as all of the fans run at a constant RPM. However, the water cooling fan does come with the ability to control fan speed, so we set that to minimum for idle testing and then a middle and maximum speed to show the difference in noise levels.
Starting with power requirements, it should come as little surprise that faster CPUs and GPUs require more power. In comparison to the ABS Ultimate X9, the power requirements of the Dell and PC Club computers are extremely low, with the Dell using slightly more power. Using two faster graphics cards, a faster CPU, not to mention the water cooling configuration and hard drives clearly requires a lot more power than a typical midrange computer.
Looking at noise levels, all the tested computers have a relatively consistent noise output. The ABS Ultimate X9 is louder than the others at maximum fan speed and very quiet at minimum fan speed, but again we note that the X9 was not entirely stable during testing in the original configuration, and for high stress situations you will definitely want to increase the fan RPMs.
The Dell XPS 410 does very well in the noise and power benchmarks. If you had any concerns about the 375W power supply, the highest power draw we were able to achieve was 240W, which should leave you plenty of leeway. The noise levels are clearly better than the competition, and only under maximum load were we able to generate slightly more noise than at idle. Of course, if one of the optical drives spins up to maximum speed, the noise readings jump up to about 46 dB, but we're talking about constant system noise and not optical drive noise. Dell's use of a BTX form factor chassis and motherboard certainly appears to have helped them keep noise levels low; now users just need to remember to clean the dust off the fan intakes every now and then.
Another aspect of system performance that we like to test is the noise and power requirements. Dell is marketing the XPS 410 as a multimedia computer, and in that case lowered noise levels are even more important. We tested noise and power at three settings: idle, 100% CPU, and maximum CPU + GPU. 100% CPU load is achieved by running two instances of Folding@Home (FAH). For the maximum stress test, we leave FAH running and launch the Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory benchmark at 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF. Performing video encoding or other CPU intensive tasks while playing a game will achieve a similar CPU load.
Some of our readers have questioned in the past why we even perform such heavy stress test scenarios. After all, there are a lot of people that will never run two CPU intensive tasks along with a game to fully stress their computer, right? The problem is, we don't know what the future holds. Right now, most games and applications will not achieve the same load levels that we are using. In another year, however, newer products and games may actually reach the point where "typical use" scenarios put a similar stress on a system. We consider the maximum load test a worst-case scenario, but provided the systems can run fully stable throughout our testing then we can say with some confidence that they will be okay with future applications and games.
For the ABS system, noise results basically showed no difference between any of the clock speeds, as all of the fans run at a constant RPM. However, the water cooling fan does come with the ability to control fan speed, so we set that to minimum for idle testing and then a middle and maximum speed to show the difference in noise levels.
Starting with power requirements, it should come as little surprise that faster CPUs and GPUs require more power. In comparison to the ABS Ultimate X9, the power requirements of the Dell and PC Club computers are extremely low, with the Dell using slightly more power. Using two faster graphics cards, a faster CPU, not to mention the water cooling configuration and hard drives clearly requires a lot more power than a typical midrange computer.
Looking at noise levels, all the tested computers have a relatively consistent noise output. The ABS Ultimate X9 is louder than the others at maximum fan speed and very quiet at minimum fan speed, but again we note that the X9 was not entirely stable during testing in the original configuration, and for high stress situations you will definitely want to increase the fan RPMs.
The Dell XPS 410 does very well in the noise and power benchmarks. If you had any concerns about the 375W power supply, the highest power draw we were able to achieve was 240W, which should leave you plenty of leeway. The noise levels are clearly better than the competition, and only under maximum load were we able to generate slightly more noise than at idle. Of course, if one of the optical drives spins up to maximum speed, the noise readings jump up to about 46 dB, but we're talking about constant system noise and not optical drive noise. Dell's use of a BTX form factor chassis and motherboard certainly appears to have helped them keep noise levels low; now users just need to remember to clean the dust off the fan intakes every now and then.
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JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
The real problem is that most of the time the speech recognition is so accurate that I don't properly read the words and make sure DNS put what I intended. For example, in that above post, "for a look" should have been "where I look".Part of the solution is to learn to dictate very clearly and make sure you enunciate all of the words properly. Even with precise dictation, however, speech recognition is still going to make some mistakes. 95% accuracy is actually quite good, and I have learned to live within the limitations of the software.
yyrkoon - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
sounds like you ned to incorporate a spell checker into your list of editing utilities :Pyyrkoon - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
actually, I meant grammar utility, dahmed fingers . . .JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
Grammar checking utilities are notoriously bad. Half of the "errors" that they highlight are correct, but then they still miss a bunch of things that are incorrect. The best solution is just to proofread really thoroughly, but stuff still slips through at times.mino - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
I am sure amy would reallly appreciate to make bigger tests such as printed magizines do.The most writing should be on the ergonomics, case design, cooling, support, warranty and so on.
While providing only some reference numbers of the performance of the systems averyone to each other with 2 your systems(benchmarked more thoroughly) as a reference for comparison (i.e. Intel,AMD one).
Also some DIY system comparison won't hurt, It was a long time real system-to-system tests were done.
This way IMHO even some synergies would show up which remain normally undetectable if only-component specific tests are done.
Such test should also hugely go for real-life situations with tons of active background stuff like Google Desktop Search, radio, SETi.. running
mino - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
amy == many ;)mino - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
And one special thing:PLEASE do som HDD tests with HUGELY fragmented - this is the real situation, yet pretty much not tested at all...
i.e.: 500k scattered files on an 250G drive, half ogf it fragmented, then try moving copying some big file within such a drive.
That's the real wold stress test many drive have to endure daily... 1MBps is no exception then!
JarredWalton - Monday, September 18, 2006 - link
Windows Media Center by default is set to the fragment your hard drive during the night in order to keep performance optimized. If we were trying to do stress testing of hard drives to make them fail, I suppose such tests might be useful, but ideally we don't want to test performance in artificially handicapped situations.As far as printed magazines, this review was over a thousand words in length. I can pretty much guarantee that no print magazine is going to publish a review that long about any computer system... at least not unless they get some massive advertising money from the manufacturer first.
mino - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
I reffered to print guys just because the TYPE of the review I mentioned reminded me their ways.Not trying to compare.. they would get trashed most likely:)
That MCE thingie sounds nice. However most PC are OFF at night and it is not particularly welcome to have a system run defragment during my work on it.
Even so, I have observed that even with a huge amount of no-fragmented files scattered around the drive behaves the way as the fragmented one.
The reason I requested such tests was not to make the drives fail(hell they shouldn't) but to a hve a comparison how different ones compare in such a situation.
This is a common situation an an heavily run WS or light file-server after a year or so of running.
mino - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
Almost forget. I am sure many guys appreciate you comming here to reply to our comments.Thanks for that.