Latitude vs Alienware r3 13

[jake.george]

Hello,

 

So I am thinking of buying a laptop and at the moment I have it narrowed down to the following two

Alienware 13 - R3 (£1320)

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-7700HQ (Quad Core,up to 3.8GHz, 6MB Cache, 45W)

32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 SDRAM 2400MHz Non-ECC

512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive

256GB PCIe Solid State Drive

NVIDIA GTX 1050 4GB

Killer 1535 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1

Primary 4-cell 76W/HR Battery

LCD FHD cover Non Touch with Cam

13.3 inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS Anti-Glare 300-nits Display

 

Latitude 14 - 5480 (£977)

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-7820HQ (4C, up to 3.90 GHz, 8 MB, 45W)

16GB (1x16GB) 2400MHz SDRAM DDR4 Non-ECC

256 GB Solid State Hard Drive

2GB NVIDIA GeForce 930MX

Intel vPro Technology Enabled

Dell Wireless Qualcomm Snapdragon X7 LTE-A (DW5811E)

14.0 inch FHD (1920x1080) Touch OTP LITE Display

Intel Dual Band Wireless AC 8265 (802.11ac) 2x2 + Bluetooth 4.2

 

I will be using it for 

- Music production (I will be using a lot of sample libraries and VSTs)

- Programming using Visual Studio and Android Studio , maybe even run SQL Server Local DB on it 

I am also planning to connect the laptop to my two monitors when I am at home

 

If I get the Latitude, I am planning to upgrade the RAM to 32 GB and add another PCI E SSD so either way I will end up spending around £1300 pounds.

 

My questions are the following 

- The Alienware has the better graphics card , but I never play games, will the graphics card on the Latitude be sufficient for my purposes (connecting to two additional 

monitors) and get seamless performance?

- Is there anything else the graphics card on the Alienware will prove useful for other than gaming ?

- The Latitude has the better processor from what I can see https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2906&cmp[]=2952

but how much more better is it ?. Its only a 0.10 difference in terms of clock speed but will it deliver any noticeable difference ?

- Which one would you choose ?

 

 

 

 

[MercuryRain]

I have the Latitude 7470 at work.  Mine doesn't have discrete graphics at all - just the iGPU.  If you get the ePort dock, you will be easily able to run dual monitors plus the laptop screen concurrently.  Even without the dock, mine has minidisplayport and HDMI out and can run two monitors without the dock.  (The dock blocks those two ports but gives you a DVI and a full-size DisplayPort.)

[The Sloth]

9 minutes ago, jake.george said:

Latitude 14 - 5480 (£977)

 

better for work and long term durability 

[TheDankKoosh]

The Latitude is much better for your type of work, and has better build quality to boot.

[jake.george]

Just now, CerberusLabrat said:

I have the Latitude 7470 at work.  Mine doesn't have discrete graphics at all - just the iGPU.  If you get the ePort dock, you will be easily able to run dual monitors plus the laptop screen concurrently.  Even without the dock, mine has minidisplayport and HDMI out and can run two monitors without the dock.  (The dock blocks those two ports but gives you a DVI and a full-size DisplayPort.)

 

Hi there,

Not sure what you mean, The Latitude 14 - 5480  comes with in build dual monitor capability  

http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/latitude-14-5480-laptop/pd

it has 1 HDMI and 1 VGA port , I assume you can use them to connect two monitors concurrently ?.

[MercuryRain]

1 minute ago, jake.george said:

 

Hi there,

Not sure what you mean, The Latitude 14 - 5480  comes with in build dual monitor capability  

http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/latitude-14-5480-laptop/pd

it has 1 HDMI and 1 VGA port , I assume you can use them to connect two monitors concurrently ?.

You can.  But you can also get an ePort docking station to make it a little easier to disconnect from the monitors.  Also ugh VGA. ew.

[jake.george]

1 minute ago, CerberusLabrat said:

You can.  But you can also get an ePort docking station to make it a little easier to disconnect from the monitors.  Also ugh VGA. ew.

Haha , I see what you mean there 

[MercuryRain]

the 5480 will probably be able to push dual monitors natively through HDMI and VGA, but I wouldn't expect much out of the VGA port in terms of resolution.  Apparently it'll push 1920x1080 and even higher, but I've never gotten one to work above 1280x1024 (then again I also haven't tried to use a VGA cable in over 10 years).

[Himommies]

22 minutes ago, TheDankKoosh said:

The Latitude is much better for your type of work, and has better build quality to boot.

 

Samplers(Looking at you East West) Take a massive amount of ram.some are OK like the stock ones that come with your DAW but like the really heavy samplers use like 5gb of ram per track.For VSTs I hope you mean Synths.they can be pretty ram intensive too.Especially the analog modeled ones.32gb of ram is much better then 16 especially if you use 10 plus tracks

 

If you can upgrade Ram in a latitude then buy that and a shit load of RAM 

[Pendragon]

1 hour ago, jake.george said:

- The Alienware has the better graphics card , but I never play games, will the graphics card on the Latitude be sufficient for my purposes (connecting to two additional 

1

idk how music productin works. does music production need a gpu? i don't think so. 

 

1 hour ago, jake.george said:

- The Latitude has the better processor from what I can see https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2906&cmp[]=2952

but how much more better is it ?. Its only a 0.10 difference in terms of clock speed but will it deliver any noticeable difference ?

 

 

it has an unlocked turbo bin so it can be OCed higher. on the difference part, yes. depending on how CPU dependent your workload is. 

 

1 hour ago, jake.george said:

- Which one would you choose ?

 

 

 

 

Looking at your specs, the E5480 is the top specced one no? With the tb3 port yes? in the future you can simply plug in a eGPU (when prices come down) and you'll be fine. I prefer the E5480 for pure working because while the Alienware is built nicely, business laptops are built to last. 

[jake.george]

7 hours ago, Pendragon said:

idk how music productin works. does music production need a gpu? i don't think so. 

 

it has an unlocked turbo bin so it can be OCed higher. on the difference part, yes. depending on how CPU dependent your workload is. 

 

Looking at your specs, the E5480 is the top specced one no? With the tb3 port yes? in the future you can simply plug in a eGPU (when prices come down) and you'll be fine. I prefer the E5480 for pure working because while the Alienware is built nicely, business laptops are built to last. 

 

It does not unfortunately   that is one of the advantages of the alienware 

the latitude only comes with USB 3.0 ports 

http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/latitude-14-5480-laptop/pd . 

 

3 USB 3.0 (one with PowerShare)
1 RJ-45
1 HDMI
1 VGA
1 External uSIM card tray option
1 SD 4.0 Memory card reader
1 Headset/mic combo jack
1 Optional Contacted SmartCard Reader and touch Fingerprint Reader
1 Display Port over USB Type-C™ 
1 Noble Wedge Lock slot

 

The thunderbolt port along with the GPU is what draws me to the Alienware