Dell G5 15 5590 Review: A Portable and Affordable Gaming Laptop

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Dell G5 15 5590: At First Glance

Dell G5 15 5590 is another promising laptop from the Dell G-series. The G-series comprises a diverse range of budget-friendly gaming laptops that promises to deliver cost-effective laptops.

Truthfully, we don’t always get a high-performance laptop that comes ridiculously cheap, except enough compromises have been made. Hence, these compromises might be enough to warrant a reduced cost at the expense of some other features.

Although, starting at a price of $1,059 we are left to wonder if Dell G5 15 5590 is truly a low-priced gaming laptop as claimed. 

Nevertheless, this claim may be true because comparable laptops that offer a similar CPU- GPU combination as the Dell G5 15 5590 mostly cost more.

Dell G3 15 5590: Design, Dimension & Weight

The Dell G5 15 5590 is an improvement of its predecessor’s – Dell G5 5587 design. Dell dropped the design of Dell G5 5587 and remodeled the Dell G5 15 5590.

Therefore, Dell G5 15 5590 has a completely different design. In this regard, Dell G5 15 5590 can be described as a portable and solidly-built laptop.

The chassis of Dell G5 15 5590 is mostly made of plastic. Only the upper side of the base unit is made of metal.

More so, Dell G5 15 5599 is only available in black color or a special edition in white color. 

Furthermore, in the centre of the laptop’s lid, Dell’s logo can be seen in blue accent.

When you open the laptop’s lid, you are graced by a 15-inch display with slimmer bezels, compared to its predecessor. These slimmer bezels give it a more classy look.

Moving your eyes away from the screen while still focusing on the laptop, you will see a change in the position of the power button. Specifically, Dell moved the power button from the right side compared to the middle positioning of the power button on its predecessor.

Moreover, the power button is now placed over a premium glossy base. This gives the Dell G5 a sophisticated look.

Moving your eyes further down, you would see the full chiclet-styled keyboard. The flat keys have a short travel and a clear pressure point making them good for typing and gaming.

Speaking of the keyboard, it has a blue backlight with two levels of brightness. The brightness can be controlled with a function key.

Below the keyboard is the blue-outlined touchpad. The touchpad occupies an area of about 105 * 80 mm -giving it enough room for gesture support.

Moreover, the touchpad is characterized by a smooth surface. This makes it easy for fingers to glide on while supporting a high level of precision.

Dell G5 15 5990 offers a decent selection of ports. On the rear of this laptop, you have the power jack, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and a USB A port.

Moving on to the left side of Dell G5 15 5590, there is a USB-C DisplayPort with another USB A port and a headphone jack. Furthermore, the right has the third USB A port and an SD card reader.

Dell G5 15 5590 does not only differ from it’s predecessor by looks, it also does by its size. It has a dimension of 364.3 x 273.4 x 23.7 mm and a weight of 2680g.

Specifically, Dell G5 15 5590 is lighter than its predecessor which has a dimension of 274 x 38 x 25 mm and a weight of 2700g.

More so, in comparison with Lenovo Legion Y530-15ICH which has a dimension of 365.76 x 259.08 x 25.4 mm and a weight of 2300g – Dell G5 15 5590 is heavier.

Overall, I will rate the G5 15 5590 an eight for its design.

Dell G5 15 5590: Processor (CPU) Performance

Dell designed the Dell G5 15 5590 with two processor configurations.

You can buy this laptop with the 4 cores Intel Core i5-8300HQ processor which has 8 MB cache memory. This processor has a base frequency of 2.30 GHz and a maximum frequency of 4.00 GHz.

Alternatively, you can buy Dell G5 15 5590 with the 6 cores Intel Core i7-8750HQ configuration which has a 9 MB cache memory. Compared to the Intel Core i5-8300HQ processor, this processor has a slightly lower base frequency of 2.20 GHz – but a slightly higher maximum frequency of 4.10 GHz.

Our Dell G5 test unit came with the Intel Core i7 processor. To provide a real-life performance of the processor, we performed a Cinebench R15 test.

Based on the result of the Cinebench test, Dell G5 15 5590 scored 165 points. This is below the performance of Lenovo Legion Y530-15ICH with Core i7-8750HQ processor – which scored 175 points.

Moreover, Dell G5 15 5590, with an Intel Core i7 processor performed excellently at multi-tasking. We proved this by opening 30 chrome tabs at the same time. Evidently, this was not a challenging task for Dell G5 15 5590 as kept running smoothly.

Therefore, I will be rating the processor performance of Dell G5 15 5590 a seven.

Dell G5 15 5590: Memory (RAM) Performance

Dell equipped Dell G5 15 5590 with 2 RAM slots. The laptop supports RAM capacities of 8 GB, 12 GB, 16 GB, and a maximum of 32 GB.

Therefore, if both RAM slots are in use, each slot can take a maximum RAM capacity of 16 GB.

Our test unit shipped with an 8GB DDR4 2666 MHz RAM on a single slot. To test the performance of the laptop’s RAM, we performed a PCMark 10 benchmark test.

As a result, Dell G5 15 5590 scored 5069 points performing below Lenovo Legion Y530-15ICH which scored 5118 points. In contrast, Dell G5 15 5590 performed better than Acer Nitro 5  which scored 4973 points.

Overall, I will rate the RAM performance of Dell G5 15 5990 an eight.

Dell G5 15 5590: Storage Options & Performance

Dell G5 15 5590 has a wide variety of storage options. It supports both HDD and a M.2 NVMe SSD.Therefore, customers can use any of these storage options or a combination of both.

The model we reviewed came with a 128 GB SSD with an additional 1 TB 5400 RPM hard drive.

Speaking of the SSD, it’s transfer speed is not as fast as we expected. Evidently, this is one of the compromises Dell had to make to deliver Dell G5 15 5590 at a reasonable price.

The HDD and SSD can be upgraded to a maximum capacity of 1TB. The upgrade is not a complicated procedure, it involves removing the base cover and swapping out the drives.

In a CrystalDiskMark test, Dell G5 15 5590 recorded a sequential read speed of 775.8 Mbps and a sequential write speed of 131.1 Mbps. This exceeds the category average speed of 129 Mbps.

However, Dell G5 15 5590 performed below Lenovo Legion Y530-15ICH which recorded a read speed of 1390 Mbps.

Furthermore, Dell G5 15 5590 recorded a sequential write speed of 775.8 Mbps. Unfortunately, this speed is below the 817 Mbps category average.

Also, the 775.8 Mbps sequential write speed recorded by Dell G5 15 5590 is lower than the 964.2 Mbps write speed delivered by Lenovo Legion Y530-15ICH.

Finally, considering the storage performance of Dell G5 15 5590, I will rate it a six.

Dell G5 15 5590: Graphics Card (GPU) Performance

Like its processor, RAM, and storage, this device comes in a wide variety of GPU configurations. The GPU configurations of Dell G5 15 5590 ranges from the budget GTX 1050 Ti to the high-end RTX 2080 Max-Q.

Specifically, you can get the laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti which has 4 GB GDDR5 memory. Additionally, this GPU has a base frequency of 1290 MHz and a boost frequency of 1392 MHz.

You can also get Dell G5 15 5590 with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 which has a 6 GB GDDR6 memory. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 has a base frequency of 1365 MHz, and a boost frequency of 1680 MHz.

In addition, you can get the laptop with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 which has an 8 GB GDDR6 memory. Compare to the first two GPUs, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 has higher specs.

Firstly, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 has more dedicated VRAM – 8 GB. It also has slightly higher base frequency of 1410 MHz and a boost frequency of 1620 MHz.

Lastly, you can get a model of Dell G5 15 5590 with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080. This GPU offers the best spec with 8 GB GDDR6 memory, a base frequency of 1515 MHz, and a boost frequency of 1710 MHz.

These graphics processing units by NVIDIA takes care of basic graphics processing tasks as well as demanding tasks such as computer games. For the best gaming experience, we recommend Dell G5 15 5590 with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 GPU.

The model I reviewed shipped with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060. 

In our gaming test, The Witcher 3 set at ultra settings and 1080p resolution, played at 60 fps. This result is better than the Lenovo Legion Y530-15ICH which played the same game at 41.4 fps.

Furthermore, Far Cry 5 (2018) set at ultra settings and 1080p resolution, played at 79 fps. At high settings, Far Cry 5 (2018) played at 83fps. Additionally, at medium settings, it played at 85 fps, and at low settings, it played at 103 fps.

In conclusion, I will rate the graphics performance of Dell G5 15 5590 a seven.

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Dell G5 15 5590: Battery life & Performance

Dell built Dell G5 15 5990 with a 60Whr, 4-cell polymer battery. The laptop promises up to 8hrs of battery life.

With a 60 Wh, once again Dell G5 15 5590 performed better than its predecessor, Dell G5 5587 which has a 56 Wh battery.

Moving on to the real-life battery test, in our web browsing test that surfed over 70 websites concurrently, Dell G5 15 lasted 494 minutes (about 8 hours). This battery performance is far better than that of Dell G5 15 5587 – which delivered only 258 minutes (about 4 hours).

Furthermore, in a video playback test, Dell G5 15 5590 lasted 464 minutes (close to 8 hours). This result is impressively higher than the Lenovo Legion Y740 15 which lasted for only 198 minutes (slightly above 3 hours).

Therefore, as a result of its excellent battery performance, I will rate Dell G5 15 5590 a 9 in this category.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Dell delivered the Dell G5 15 5590 as a budget-friendly15-inch gaming laptop with compromises that do not impact the laptop’s performance. Therefore, performance-wise, we had no complaint.

Moreover, the storage was sufficient, we didn’t run out of storage space. Additionally, the laptop’s storage performance is still acceptable, despite the slower than normal storage transfer speed.

What we are most impressed by, though is the battery performance of Dell G5 15 5590. It totally out-performed its competitors in this regard.

Also, we were not disappointed by the Gaming capability of the laptop either as it ran all the games we threw at it smoothly – which is quite impressive. 

In conclusion, we are confident that the NVIDIA GPU’s available for Dell G5 15 5590 would keep delivering efficient gaming performance even in the future. However, if this changes, you can connect a better external GPU using the Thunderbolt 3 port.

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