Thanks for that. I'm a little shocked to hear that. I wonder, could you be more specific as to how they might turn down the performance? If they turned down the clock speed but still advertised it as 3.2 Ghz then they would probably be breaking the Trades Description Act (in the UK). I'm sure the US has similar laws.
That wouldn't explain what I'm seeing. Also, I did some performance checks and found that in Microsoft Flight Simulator and Far Cry the frame rate performance was quite good, in FS it exceeded the clock speed ratios compared to the old computer, possibly due to a better graphics card.
If Dell have reduced the performance then it's probably a Windows setting. I found several fixes on this forum (adjustments in Windows Task Manager and a batch file with the line
start /high editor.exe -DEVMODE
None of these fixes made the slightest difference. Is this suspicious? Have those fixes been confirmed to work? Could there be a Windows setting elsewhere that has higher priority?
By the way, I had already decided I won't be buying another Dell for other reasons. I'm not entirely surprised that their shares have plunged over the last year!
Best regards,
Chris