Debating purchase of e6400

It probably won't, seeing how the 160M has a mere 4 parallel cores; in fact, even though the card theoretically supports CUDA, I think that Dell Windows drivers don't enable CUDA processing (not 100% sure, maybe a E6400 owner could confirm that).

For interesting speed boosts, you need to step up to the Quadro FX cards. Plus, you get all the niceties that come with CUDA, such as PhysX.

The FX 770M card (found in the 15.4" Precision M4400) has 32 parallel cores and will already provide a decent speed improvement.

The best candidate is of course the FX 3700M; it has 128 parallel cores and you can find it in the 17" Precision M6400.

The point to take home here is that graphics cards are not just for gaming (or rendering) anymore. For video encoding, a FX 3700M will be incredibly faster than an FX 2700M simply because it has more parallel cores (128 vs 48). The amount of parallel cores a GPU has will become increasingly important in the future.

 

From what I remembered, Dell driver doesn't disable physiX or CUDA. Either way, Dell driver are preatty behind, it's best to download the latest drivers from Nvidia for Mobile GPU's for Quadro or Geforce.

+1 for the rest. Sorry, can't give you anymore :/

 

If conserving funds is important, look at Dell Outlet for good deals. Right now there is a 10% coupon available, and once in a while, like every 2-3 months, they offer 20% off coupons. You can get some pretty amazing deals.

Does that come with the WXGA+ LCD? That is a good feature to have. Bluetooth can always be added later for $10 or $20. The 3 year Next-Business-Day on-site service is usually a $99 upgrade from Dell.

 

Complete Care is also nice to have in college...since well, assuming you're going to be taking this laptop everywhere you go like I am. Never know when some moron can bump into you making your laptop make the leap of faith onto concrete.

 

I agree with others that you should save the few bucks and get the Intel GPU because it actually does have HD encoding and basic 3D processing for Direct X10 and OpenGL. I'd be quite surprised if the 160M gives you much better Windows 7 GUI performance than the Intel. For Vista, the 4500 is more than sufficient.

 

I forgot to mention... If I go with this configuration they have it in stock and they said with everything that it includes it is about 40% off.
2.4GHz Processor
Integrated Graphics
A/G/N Wireless Card
3 year accidental protection warranty (all warrenty work done right on campus)
160GB HDD (5400RPM)
4GB Ram
6-Cell Battery
Vista Business
DVD Burner
If I wanted to change anything, they can special order at a discount of 7%-12%. Would you recommend staying with this configuration for the ease of it being right there and ready/cheep.. Or spend the extra bucks to get a bigger battery and backlit keyboard with having to special order? Either way, I am going to order/purchase though my school because of the discounts and warranty work able to be done on campus, so its right there whenever I would need it.

 

If that is the WXGA screen, then I would pass regardless of price. Get the higher-res LED screen.

 

If you call Dell and order and negotiate a price, you can get more than 12% off.
I got something close to 24% off (from 2024$ Canadian down to ~1600$ with free shipping)

 

How do you manage to 'negotiate' a 24% discount?

 

You say that you know where the sales guy lives, and he will be in danger.... nha! j/k.

This is how I did it.

I prepared my computer on paper, and lowered it a bit.. instead of the DVD burner I put the CD Burner, instead of 160GB 5400RPM, I put the 80GB, 6-cell battery instead of the 9-cell, and so on...

I of course noted on my notes everything I really want, to ensure that I don't forget anything.

I then heads up to the Chat session, and started asking warranty questions, I tried to avoid giving my detail information so that they don't have a record, and if they don't say "I can give you free shipping" or something like that, I end wait 2-3min, and try again with someone else. And start over.
In my case I got it for the first time, I asked question about the warranty, how Next Buisness Day on site works, info on the laptop, battery life and so on... stuff I knew already, but I did not care. Then it will come to a point where you will switch over the phone. He will call you.

In continuing the discussion, I say that I interested, but the price is problematic and that you cannot decide between this and the Lenovo [insert model], he will start giving you that free shipping, free RAM upgrade to 4GB (up form 2Gb in my case), and so on... then you start pushing.. hesitate a bit, or stay silence will make the sale guy feel that he is losing the sale, he will give you more. At that point you should come close or at what you want. If he won't budge at much, then ask for the supervisor, and see ask what he (the supervisor, I mean) can do.
In my case this was not necessary, I think the only thing that was missing was the screen resolution, so I told him to take the higher one up (1440x900 one, instead of the 1280x800). And, I said I'll call back later (don't forget to ask until what time he will be here, this means to him that the sale is secure)... I called back later ask for the sales rep to gave me 50$ off and I'll take it, he gave me 30$ with the supervisor permission and said that after that he must let me go. I took it, and placed the order on Dell website.

Just some notes:
- The more services you take (like accidental damage (I did not, but I think I should have), can give the sale rep more flexibility for better offer)
- If nothing can be done, then wait until next month.. maybe you are ordering your laptop pat some bad time for Dell.
- Screen resolution, CPU speed, HDD speed, GPU, external card (PC card or Express card) are thing that the sale rep won't change as it's seen as "personal choice" type of thing, so he wont' even propose that.
- If the sales rep makes a mistakes, like he says something that you know the laptop does not have, go with it, you'll complain later and get a store credit. In my case I asked of the Latitude E6400 has Latitude ON, he said "yes' and that I had to take the Wireless-N 5100 or 5300 to have it, and gave me the 5100 for free. I, obviously did not have Latitude ON on my laptop when I got. I complained, and got 100$ Canadian with free shipping store credit for the mistake. In my case I got a Linksys wireless N router (which I needed as I did not have wireless home), and my VX Nano laptop mouse.
Some notes: