Dell XPS 15z Vs. MacBook Pro 15: Gaming Performance

A comparison is inevitable; there’s no doubt that what Dell is offering with the slim XPS 15z is a replacement of Windows users looking for a PC equivalent of the 15-inch MacBook Pro. On the other hand you can run Windows 7 natively on any Mac these days via Bootcamp. The main question therefore is whether the MBP is worth the price premium for gamers, who usually run Windows and want a comparatively slim and light 15-inch laptop?

Which of the laptops is better-looking is as always in the eye of the beholder, but both are clearly slimmer and lighter than the average 15-inch laptop: the XPS 15z 5.54 pounds (2.51 kg) and the MacBook Pro 5.6 pounds (2.54 kg). Both of them actually weigh less than the 14-inch Alienware M14x that we just reviewed, although we can establish right away that none of the 15-inch laptops are as powerful in the graphics department.

Specifications

First of all, there is no doubt that the latest MBP 15 from 2011 is a more powerful laptop on the whole. Where the XPS 15z makes do with dual-core Intel CPUs, the Apple notebook uses Intel’s quad-core counterparts exclusively. While this has a major effect on overall system performance, the difference in games is very small in most cases. The dual core, 4 thread Core i5 and Core i7 processors in the 15z are not a bottleneck for the graphics card, which effectively runs your games. Speaking of which, Dell has opted for an Nvidia solution in the XPS 15z (GeForce GT 525M) while Apple went with one from AMD. Another important detail is that there are two GPU alternatives for the MacBook Pro: either a Mobility Radeon HD 6750M or a HD 6490M in the “cheaper” model.

Dell XPS 15zMacBook Pro 15″ 2011
CPUUp to dual-core Core i7-2620M (2.7GHz, Turbo Boost 3.4GHz)Up to quad-core Core i7 (2.3GHz, Turbo Boost 3,4GHz)
GPUNvidia GeForce GT 525MMobility Radeon HD 6750M/6490M
RAMUp to 8GB of DDR3 1333MHzUp to 8GB of DDR3 1333MHz
Display15.6-inch 1920×1080 or 1366×76815 inches 1440×900 or 1680×1050
Starting Price$999$1,799

The pricing on both these laptops is actually quite good considering the components and the benefit of a slimline design. There’s an added cost if you want to add Windows 7 to your Mac (in addition to the pros and cons of being branded a heretic in the Church of Jobs). However you look at it, both are attractive laptops.

Gaming Performance

As usual, to measure gaming performance it’s the graphics card that counts and not much else. Although the other components will have a marginal effect as well, it is usually small enough to be negligible. Even if a certain game can take full advantage of the extra core count, the GPU is where the magic happens. The Nvidia GeForce GT 525M is not a high-end card, but certainly fast enough to play games. For the MBP 15, there’s a significant difference between the HD 6750 and HD 6490 GPUs, similar to the options available in HP’s Pavilion dv6t Quad and dv7t Quad; the 6750M has 480 stream processors while the 6490M only has 160.

We have compiled some reviews to try and make sense as to how this translates to real-world gaming frame rates. Engadget compared the XPS15z with the high-end MacBook Pro 15 in 3DMark 06 and the difference was 7,317 vs. 10,262–a 40% improvement in favor of the Mac. Both number are still enough to play any recent game, but you will definitely be able to turn up the details and resolution higher in the MacBook Pro.

LaptopMag actually took the time to try out some games: Far Cry 2 and WoW. The XPS 15z produced a playable 26 frames per second at its native (in this case 1920×1080, Full HD) resolution and with graphics set to “Very High” (no mention of the MBP here). A surprisingly good result for this GPU. In World of Warcraft, the XPS 15z came in at 35 frames per second at the “Ultra” setting, compared to 43 FPS for the 15-inch Mac–a 23% improvement.

The results can differ quite a lot between different drivers, not to mention different screen resolutions. What the individual GPUs are capable of hardware-wise is not necessarily a good indicator of how they actually perform in real-world gaming. Nevertheless, it’s easy to reach two conclusions, namely that the XPS 15z is more than capable of running the latest gamest, and also that the 15-inch 2011 MacBook Pro in combination with the Radeon HD 6750M is considerably faster.

It was considerably more difficult to find some hard data on the “low-end” MPB with the HD 6490M graphics card. Although it’s the fastest part in the 6400 lineup it is still a relatively low-end GPU. Moreover it ony has 256MB of video RAM, albeit the fastest GDDR5 type. Some anecdotal numbers from various forums say that it is capable of games like Starcraft 2 on lower resolutions and details, and games like World of Warcraft shouldn’t be a problem either. It is no doubt slower than the GT 525M in the XPS 15z though, so gamers faced with a choice between the HD 6750M and the 6490M shouldn’t hesitate choosing the version with the 6750M if they can afford it.

Jesper Berg
Jesper Berg

Gaming hardware enthusiast since the 80286 era.

2 Comments
  1. I should run my posts through a grammar checker.

  2. Hey look, a blog post that doesn’t reak of Apple fanoyism. at any rate, you should run your next posts through a spell checker — I noticed a few when going through the article (not a bad article, however!)

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