Let's say I have some money to burn on a XPS M1710

Since you abviously have cash to burn, why don't you take a look at the iBuyPower notebook reviewed recently on THG... the one with dual 7800 Go GTX in SLI... it has a Turion X2 i think and a bigger screen (19"!!!)... oh yea the hard drive 120GB.

Just be warned... I don't care what everyone else says, but that is NOT a notebook. No way in HELL you can call that 15lb monster a notebook... its more like a.... a.... inflamed-shoulder-lawsuit waiting to happen.

I saw that thing, and it was sweet, but the benchmark on some of the game show the cpu seemed to have trouble to catch up. I play a lot of 3d games but I also play MMORPG and I am afraid during raid the performance may suffer when there are a lot of things going on that are not graphics, like add on and stuffs.

Save some money by getting the E1705 with a 7900GS, 2GB RAM, and all the other goodies you want. Just make sure to order the WinXP reinstallation CD so that you can have a clean copy of Windows w/o all the bloatware.

with $3700 i would spend about $800-$1000 on an HP notebook and spend the rest on a awesome desktop, with that much money youd have plenty to build a awesome system...

As good as it claims to be, the battery life only lasts half an hour. So sad =[

Humm interesting, the E1750 seem to be just as good as some of the mid range XPS but at a fraction of the cost. Although I notice that the E1750 use shared dual channel ram at 533 MHz, whereas the XPS use 2 DIMMs ram at 677 MHz. How do they differ?

Humm interesting, the E1750 seem to be just as good as some of the mid range XPS but at a fraction of the cost. Although I notice that the E1750 use shared dual channel ram at 533 MHz, whereas the XPS use 2 DIMMs ram at 677 MHz. How do they differ?

The E1705 only has shared RAM when it's equipped with integrated graphics. When it has a standalone VGA (like the 7900GS), the RAM isn't shared by the integrated graphics. Don't worry about 533 or 667MHz RAM; the difference in performance isn't worth the difference in price. For the record, you can also configure the E1705 with 667MHz RAM.

You do realize that you can customize the laptops, right? You're not just stuck with the configurations that they give you. What I'd do is start with the cheapest model, and configure it.

EDIT: You'll also want to configure it with the optional 9-cell battery, as that 7900 will use quite a bit of juice. And I just realized that they have the new Core 2 Duo mobile processors available in the E1705.

Thx for the advice. I do know that I can customize it and here what I think work for me. It's not as strong as the xps, but the price tag 3700 vs 2250 is VERY noticable. hehe

Here is the spec.

Inspiron E1705 Qty 1
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T7400 (4MB Cache/2.16GHz/667MHz FSB), Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition with re-installation CD Unit Price $2,815.00
Add Bluetooth to exchange data and photos with PCs, phones and printers!
Limted Time Offer!

SAVE! PC-cillin Internet Security: 36-months
Limited Time Offer!

Dell Home Customers: Save 20% off this Dell Inspiron!
Limited Time Offer!
- $563.00
Catalog Number: 29 E1705RFC1
Module Description Show Details
Inspiron E1705 Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor T7400 (4MB Cache/2.16GHz/667MHz FSB)
Operating System Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition with re-installation CD
LCD Panel 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife™
Memory 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
Video Card 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS
Hard Drive 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
Network Card Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 7.0
Combo/DVD+RW Drives 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Sound Options Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy™ HD Software Edition
Wireless Networking Cards Wireless Bundle: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945a/g and Bluetooth
Office Software (not included in Windows XP) No productivity suite- Includes Microsoft Works 8. DOES NOT INCLUDE MS WORD
Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) PC-cillin Internet Security: AntiVirus, Firewall, Spyware removal 36-months
Primary Battery 80 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Hardware Warranty 3 Year Limited Warranty plus 3 Year At-Home Service plus Nights and Weekend
Dell On Call Dell On Call, 30day, Getting started Assistance, unlimited incidents
Dial-Up Internet Access 6 Months of EarthLink Internet Access
Miscellaneous Award Winning Service and Support
Dell Digital Entertainment No preinstalled software
Processor Branding Intel Centrino Core Duo Processor
TOTAL:$2,252.00

It looks great. However, if you're goig to be reinstalling Windows (it should be the first thing you do when you receive the computer) you might not want to order the anti-virus software from Dell. Otherwise, it looks great; you might want to save some bux by downgrading to the 2GHz C2D CPU.

That would be a fantastic notebook gamer, but a bit pricey.