Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

In a twisted way, this makes me feel better at having ordered the XPS max configuration with 4 years support (not too cheap) because I didn't want to wait for another 3 weeks to order the M3800 and I don't need the Quadro GPU. I was assuming the M3800 with the same support length could be cheaper but maybe not after all. Still hoping they share the same hardware otherwise.

 

That will weigh in heavily while making my decision as well. I'll end up with the cheaper of the two. My most intensive use case is Adobe Lightroom/Sigma Photo Pro, Oracle Virtualbox and various software running on the Java Runtime, I don't think Quadro vs GeForce should make a huge difference here. I will do some basic video editing from time to time.

 

Ok let's keep it simple. What is the performance hit you will have with the m3800 compared to the m4700, m6700 or the mbp. I know this can't be answered since each system has a variety of multiple configurations, but just compare it to any system you currently have or planning to purchase.

 

I'm not sure whether you're referring to me, but if I did purchase an rMBP (I won't), it would be the base dgpu config one.

As you said, without side by side comparisons, answering your question is impossible, but I know that m3800 falls into the serious power category, as opposed to the ultrabook category, so even if we assume the numbers aren't favorable compared to m4700, 6700 or mbp, it's going to be in the ballpark. And that's good enough for my use case. I do not need the fastest and most powerful, I need something powerful enough, with a great screen, great form factor and easy to maintain/upgrade without killing my wallet.

Sorry, I didn't know what point you were trying to make but I chose to blabber on anyway.

 

Why even bother including the highest-end components if the MBP would be unable to feed them the necessary power? It's not as if this is a small discrepancy between the 85W adapter and max TDP of the components. It's absolutely huge! Just the graphics card and CPU could get to 92W alone. Add the screen at max brightness, speakers blasting, motherboard, USB devices, Wi-Fi, ThunderBolt devices, etc. and it would probably add another 40W if it could. It doesn't make sense for a high-end business laptop that should be capable of reliably outputting max performance. I'd expect it to be stress tested to fit intense use scenarios too. You're telling me that in the above case the CPU and GPU would probably be running at 70% or something? It seems absurd and I'm canceling my order if my new MBP would really be throttling down significantly whenever I needed the most performance.

Maybe we're not understanding the TDP ratings well. Perhaps no laptop components really can get there or some other technical detail we're missing. I also don't see where it says that the power supply of the m3800 is 130w.

Thanks!

EDIT: I actually canceled my order for a maxed out MBP while I figure this out. I don't want to pay for components I can't use to their full performance.

 

Here it is:

Maybe there is something that can explain it. However you can't deny that the numbers look funny. From my perspective, 85 watts seems a bit low for a high-end "workstation." I'd love to see the machine go through some actual stress tests while monitoring the clock rates and see if it can keep the CPU and GPU at full speed.

[Edit]
I don't work with Mac hardware much but I just did some Googling to see what I could find about how the current retina MacBook Pro handles with regards to throttling. Found more reports about it throttling due to heat than anything else. Here's a post from this forum discussing it (and also the power issue). One thing Precision clearly has over MBP is the thermal setup.

 

I am seeing 100-110 watts being pulled at the wall with the M3800 under a heavy load with the battery fully charged. If the rMBP display uses 35% more power than the 8 watt one in the M3800, you would add 3 watts to the total. Then add another 10 watts for the cpu. I would expect the rMBP to pull 113-123 watts at the max, but could be wrong.

 

I made a thread about this on the Mac forums too.

One important point someone made is that the 47W applies WITH Iris Pro HD 5200 graphics and those would be idle if the computer was using the 750M. Another thing is that I see the 750M rated at 33W in some places and no official numbers from Nvidia.

I really don't get this at all. I too would love to see some stress benchmarks!

BTW: It's even worse if TDP is calculated based on average use instead of MAX use.

 

With the CPU graphics cores at idle, it just allows the processing cores to stay in turbo mode all the time. The chip will want to pull 55 watts in the short term PL1 turbo mode. The chip will then fall out of PL1 mode and stay at 47 watts of draw unless there is a heat or electrical supply issue. Loading the IRIS side will just take away from the clocks on the CPU side.

 

Wait so Precision will have i7 base but cost the same as XPS?