Dell Precision M3800 - 2013!

Hey guys, a few questions.

I just contacted my country's Dell and they said that they no longer sell directly to consumers/small business to my country (Singapore). So they told me to get it from their partners. And of course, the sales rep was kind enough to help me link up with one of their partners.

I requested the following spects for M4800:

Processor: i7-4900MQ (up to 3.8 GHZ)
RAM: 32 GB DDR3L
Screen: UltraSharp FHD(1920x1080)
Graphics: nVidia K2100M 2GB GDDR
Storage: 512GB SSD AND 512 GB mSATA (for primary OS bootup)
and others (Dell Wireless 1550, hd webcam, .etc.)

The price is about S$5000 (sales tax is $326.20; so the laptop price is roughly $4,660.00 or USD$3717.30). Reasonable or..?

Also, should I just buy an additional 9-cell battery or just get a portable power source like Energizer XP18000A? I was told that a laptop battery is cheaper and more appropriate as it has the right watts/power; unlike power source that might not last long if you're using a laptop workstation like M4800.

 

According to the manual the mSATA is only SATA2, so the normal SSD would be a better choice for a primary OS drive. The M4800 and M6800 can connect a slice battery to the docking port. This seems like the most convenient way to extend battery life. One of those should double your battery life since they are basically the same as the internal battery. You can also probably save a lot of money by buying and installing the hard drives yourself.

http://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-pro...on-m4800-workstation_Owner's Manual_en-us.pdf

 

Oh crap... I always thought mSata is faster because of some caching abilities.

Sorry if I'm wrong, I've been away from the IT world for years. lol. Any ideas?

Because if M4800's mSata only runs at SATA 2 rate; then having a SATA 3 SSD as a secondary hard-drive would kinda kill the purpose, isn't it? because the OS is running at a lower rate; while the secondary SSD is running at a faster rate?

 

mSATA isn't different than ordinary SATA in terms of capabilities, it's just a different form factor. (Drives are on mini-PCIe like cards, instead of 2.5" hard drive form factor.)

If you have both, just use the SATA 3 SSD as the system drive and your mSata as the secondary drive.

I haven't checked the manual but the tech specs on Dell's site for the M6800 clearly indicate that the mSATA drive runs at the SATA-3 rate (6 Gb/s). I don't know why they'd offer that for the M6800 but not the M4800. Of course, the tech specs page might be wrong. In any case, disappointing if they've left it on SATA 2 (but this is how it was on the M4600/M6600 and M4700/M6700 so it is not a surprise).

 

Damn, if that's the case.. I think I will downsize my mSata size from 512GB to 256GB since it will only be used for storage.
Heck, I have an external 1TB hard drive laying around too. Kinda pointless to be paying so much for just 512GB.

And I've heard that the price difference for 256GB mSATA vs 512GB mSATA is huge.

 

Can we stick to discussions about the M3800 instead of the M4800?

 

Sure.

Let me get back on track..


I *really* hope they launch the m3800 soon.

 

So hard to resist those insane deals at Dell Outlet on the M4700 right now. I just closed the tab immediately.

 

As do I...

 

Well I use my mSATA as a hash cashing/global cashing drive for After Effects. Its important that it be fast, but its probably not too much of a noticeable reduction in performance. The new effect is a performance boost in and of itself.

In any event, not that you can option the drive up to 512 GB, it can just as well serve as a storage drive too. Not to be disheartened, you're still faster than any conventional spinning drive on the block.