Dell G7 15 (7588) Notice: A Hexadecimal Game Laptop

The Dell G7 15 is a mid-size gaming laptop with GTX 1060 Max-Q middle-class graphics, poor battery life and, you guessed it, an average price of $ 1,200. But this system has a remarkable feature that sets it apart from the crowd: a Core i7 core-based processor that crushes benchmarks and will delight content creators. Indeed, the overall performance of the G7 15 is only one or two steps away from our current 15-inch gaming laptop, the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin 8RE is thinner and lighter, while costing around $ 600 worth. less. Among our chips: a dark screen and a chassis sometimes too hot.

This review is part of our best resume on gaming notebooks. Go ahead for more details on competing products and how we tested them.

Prices and specifications

We tested the $ 1,199 model of the Dell G7 15 (model 7588), equipped with the Intel Core i7-8750H processor, 16GB DDR4, a 128GB SSD hard drive and a hard drive traditional 1TB. With a total of 12 processing threads (thanks to Intel's Hyper Threading Technology), the G7 15 delivers impressive multitasking processing power, as we'll see once we reach our benchmarks.

On the visual side, the G7 15 boasts an IPS display with 15.6 inches Full HD resolution (1920×1080) and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 processor with 6GB GDDR5 RAM and Max-Q performance design to reduce energy consumption and heat production). At the heart of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 10 Series video cards, the GTX 1060 with Max-Q delivers 60 frames per second and up for most top-of-the-line games today.

You can get about $ 120 off the price of our G7 15 overhaul unit by grabbing a model with 8GB of RAM instead of 16GB, while the most expensive version changes into a more hexagonal i9-8950HK processor robust and overclockable. There is also a G7 15 laptop with a 4K display (plus the standard i7-8750H processor) for $ 1,499. Incidentally, each Dell G7 15 series notebook comes with the same GTX 1060 graphics card with a Max-Q design.

Design

Measuring 15.32 x 10.82 x 0.98 inches and weighing 6 pounds, 4 ounces (or 7 pounds, 2 ounces with the big 180 watt AC adapter) but not too prohibitive, the Dell G7 15 seems paradoxically thinner than you expect. That said, the G7 has created a tight pressure in my 15-inch laptop bag.

Adam Patrick Murray / IDG

Available in "Licorice Black" and "Alpine White" flavors (we tested the Alpine White variety), the Dell G7 15 has a sporty but understated look. The slightly understated and unobtrusive lid is offset by a sloped front edge with a clever black grille, while the twin vents at the back are stylish and powerful.

The lid opening reveals a relatively thick bezel (approximately three-quarters of an inch along the top and sides, plus an inch at the bottom) around the 15.6-inch screen, as well as a soft keyboard wrist rest .

Display

The Dell G7 15's 1920×1080 touch screen offers solid viewing angles. The display splits slightly a bit from 45 degrees of the sides, top and bottom, with no sign of reverse colors, as you might see on a cheap laptop screen. This is exactly the case for an IPS screen like the G7.

Adam Patrick Murray / IDG

Although the viewing angles of the Dell G7 15 are good, the same can not be said for the brightness. Measuring only 234 nits (or candelas), the brightness of the G7's screen is slightly lower than the minimum of 250 nits we prefer. In an office or den, the G7 15's dark screen is not a big problem, but I struggled to distinguish one of the darkest levels of Diablo 3 while I was playing near a bright window.

Keyboard, touchpad, speakers, webcam

The chiclet style keyboard of the Dell G7 15 is a mid-range notebook, with flat and flowing touches, a decent path and a quick touch bump in the middle of every keystroke. The WASD keys described have done their respective work during the game, do not impress me and do not bother me. A 10-key numeric keypad is on the right, while standard-key keyboard shortcuts such as screen lock, search, brightness, media playback, and airplane mode are also enabled. The G7 avoids sophisticated LED backlight systems for a basic two-step blue glow.

Adam Patrick Murray / IDG

Stationed a little to the left of the center to keep it directly below the spacebar, the Dell G7 15's medium-sized trackpad responded to my scans with minimal jitter, while avoiding typing errors from my hands. Clicking is a little stiff, but it should not be very important for players, who will probably use mice most of the time.

Although they do not replace a good pair of headphones, the Dell G7 15's high-end speakers outperform the small, bass-free speakers found in most notebooks. The music sounded relatively detailed without collapsing into mush. Although you should not expect big beats, you will hear at least a hint of bass. You can also turn the G7's speakers to an impressive volume, which is a good thing, because cooling fans tend to scold during very intense games. (More information about G7 heat problems 15 in a moment.)

The video captured by the Dell G7 15 webcam (its lens is at the top of the screen) is generally grainy and stained, although it has decent contrast and color. Although the G7 webcam is suitable for Skype, players seeking to make waves on Twitch would do better with a dedicated goal.

The ports

The Dell G7 15 comes with a solid selection of ports, starting from the left with an Ethernet port, USB 3.1 Gen. 2 Type-A and an SD memory card reader. Also on the left side: a Noble Lock security port and a barrel-shaped entrance port.

Adam Patrick Murray / IDG

On the right side of the G7 15 you'll find HDMI 2.0, a Thunderbolt 3 port, two more USB 3.1 Type-A ports (with PowerShare) and a combined audio jack.

Adam Patrick Murray / IDG

Overall performance

While the Dell G7 15 GTX 1060 Max-Q graphics card delivers outstanding mid-range graphics performance, its hex-core processor is one of the first we've seen in a relatively thin gaming notebook. expect a lot of others in the near future – pulling really awesome numbers, perfect for players who want to take a break to turn other things.

Hand brake

In our first test, we use the free HandBrake utility to encode a 40GB video file in a format compatible with an Android tablet. It is a resource-intensive job that can take an hour or more, and it tends to run cooling fans in the process. While a good HandBrake score does not necessarily equate to stellar graphics (we'll reach gaming performance in an instant), it bodes well for YouTube content creators, Twitch broadcasters, or anyone else who plans the game. multitasking while playing.

Melissa Riofrio / IDG

Processors with the largest number of cores are generally more efficient with HandBrake, and yes, the Dell G7 15 and Core processor i7-8750H hexagonal crushed. Indeed, with its score Handbrake of 2035 seconds, just over half an hour, the G7 15 exceeds only the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin 8RE, a very thin gaming laptop that costs 600 dollars more.

The fastest competitor of our comparison, the Dell G3 15 with a quad-core processor i5-8300H, took 10 minutes longer to perform the handbrake test, followed by a series of computers Core i7-7700HQ laptops, demonstrating the difference. these extra cores are designed for processor-intensive tasks.

Cinebench

Then our Cinebench test involves another stressful computer task: to render a 3D image in real time. As Cinebench only takes a few minutes, it gives us a good idea of ​​how a laptop can handle short periods of intense activity. We run Cinebench in multi-threaded, single-threaded mode, which is useful for illustrating the performance benefits of additional cores and threads.

Melissa Riofrio / IDG

Unsurprisingly, the 12-wire Dell G7 15 shines when it comes to Cinebench's multithreaded test, again with a slightly lower rating than the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin 8RE, while brushing up on its four-core competition. We are also pleased with the result obtained by Dell in a single thread.

(Note: the results for the Gigabyte Aero 15X, a system seen in other graphics of this story, were not available for this test.)

The game performance

We will begin our game testing with FireStrike Extreme, a synthetic benchmark that does not translate directly into the game's performance, but still provides us with a reliable baseline for comparisons.

Melissa Riofrio / IDG

The FireStrike Extreme score of the Dell G7 15 is in the middle of the pack, which makes perfect sense given its GTX 1060 with Max-Q. The first two of our table, the MicroCenter PowerSpec 15 and the Gigabyte Aero 15X P65Q, have more powerful GTX 1070 cards, while most of the most powerful laptops are equipped with GPU GTX 1050. The MSI GS65 Stealth Thin 8RE with a similar GTX 1060 board (although using a full configuration, compared to the Max-Q design optimized for G7 power) manages a slightly better FireStrike Extreme score than the G7 15, but seeing in a moment, that does not does not make much difference when it comes to real games.

(Note: The results for HP Omen 15-ce0xx, a system seen in other tables in this story, were not available for this test.)

Speaking of real gambling, let's start with 2013 tomb Raider reboot, a game that relies a little more on the power of the processor than on newer titles.

Melissa Riofrio / IDG

We expected a laptop with a GTX 1060 video card tomb Raider frame rate somewhere in the 90s, and that's pretty much what we got from the Dell G7 15. While the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin 8RE powered by GTX 1060 benefits (as we just saw) a slight advantage FireStrike Extreme compared to the G7, a modest tomb Raider frame rate bump on the Dell (97.2 fps against 92.7 fps). To see a more meaningful boost in tomb Raider frame rates, you need to know more about a notebook with a GTX 1070 or higher graphics processor, such as the MicroCenter PowerSpec 15.

We see more of the same thing with Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. All notebooks equipped with the GTX 1060 Max-Q technology in our chart, including the Dell G7 15, have grouped together between 80 and 90 frames per second, while a pair of laptops equipped with GTX 1060 100 fps graphics.

Melissa Riofrio / IDG

For Shadow of Mordor image rates above 120, you will usually need to upgrade to a system with GTX 1070 or better graphics.

Finally, we pulled Rise of the Tomb Raider, a graphically intense title that requires at least GTX 1060 graphics to get a smooth result of 60 frames per second.

Melissa Riofrio / IDG

The Dell G7 15 and its GTX 1060 Max-Q graphics have a solid result at 68.5 frames per second, while the Acer Predator Helios 300 and the MSI GS65 Stealth 8in are equipped with 72.1 and 70.7 fps respectively . Gaming notebooks with a GTX 1070 or higher graphics processor (such as the MicroCenter PowerSpec 15) can Rise of the Tomb Raider, while notebooks with GTX 1050 engines under $ 1,000, such as the Dell G3 15, typically run at 30 to 45 fps.

Now a word on the heat. While playing Rise of the Tomb RaiderI noticed that the fans of the Dell G7 15 were roaring and that the chassis was getting too hot, especially near the top of the keyboard and a little to the right. Indeed, the keys 7, 8 and 9 were so hot that they felt like burning my fingertips.

After about an hour of Rise of the Tomb Raider, I checked the G7 processor temperature and got a reading of 98 degrees Celsius (208 degrees Fahrenheit), hot enough to boil water and just two degrees lower than the Core i7's maximum operating temperature -8750H. The CPU has also initiated thermal chokes several times to try to cool things down.

So, does the Dell G7 15 have a cooling problem? Not necessarily. Yes, the G7 is hot, but the temperature of its processors remains in compliance with Intel specifications. In addition, Nvidia's Max-Q specification is designed to power the GPU as much as possible in the smallest possible space, which means that temperatures will inevitably rise. I should also point out that the G7 15 worked a little cooler while playing less graphically demanding titles like Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft (a game that combines the 7, 8 and 9 keys with different spells and abilities).

However, the G7's tendency to run hot is a regrettable fact for gaming laptops as thin and light (anyway, anyway) as this one.

Battery life

You can not expect a battery all day long through a gaming laptop, but the Dell G7 15 and its 55 watt-hour battery allow you to stay alive without the help of the 39, bulky power adapter.

We test the battery life on a laptop by running a 4K video using the Windows 10 Movies & TV app, with a screen brightness of. about 250 nits (which, in the case of the G7 15, increased brightness) composed up to 50 percent, headphones plugged.

Melissa Riofrio / IDG

The result of the Dell G7 15 of 332 minutes (about 5.5 hours) is not too shabby for a gaming laptop, landing in the middle of the pack with roughly the same lifetime as the Dell G3 15 , the former Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming, and the slender MSI GS65 Stealth Thin 8RE. Notably, the Acer Predator Helios 300 5.5-pound reduces the life of more than an hour of its 48-watt battery slightly smaller, despite its GTX 1060 video card. our summary with the best battery life, the Gigabyte Aero 15X P65Q (which includes a 4K energy-hungry display), features a massive 94 watt-hour battery.

Conclusion

Featuring an extremely fast hexadecimal processor and powerful graphics card, the $ 1,200 Dell G7 15 delivers impressive processing power and gameplay in a case that's less than an inch thick. Players looking for the highest frame rates will find better value in a quad-core laptop with a more robust GPU, while those looking for a thinner and lighter hex game computer should consult the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin 8RE But if you're on a budget and want enough CPU power to stream or create videos while playing, the G7 15 is (for now at least) a tempting and affordable choice.

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