Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

I'm pretty happy gaming on a Quadro when I boot up windows on my workstation at home. Then again I paid a lot more for that graphics card than I would have for a gaming equivalent.

I don't mind paying a premium and taking a small hit to gaming performance if I'm able to play some new titles on medium / low for most of the life of the machine. Is that going to be a feasible expectation? It'll open up a lot of things that I wasn't thinking I'd need, but that it'd be nice to have and I can see myself actually using.

 

I haven't ever tried messing with the video chip clocks but that sounds , b

I'm dual-boot Windows/Linux, and in Linux before BumbleBee got mature, Nvidia vs. Intel on the E6420/6430 was an either/or proposition based in the BIOS. BumbleBee seems to work OK, either as an automated Optimus switcher.

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More important question I forgot to check last Friday:
-- does it have a Trusted Platform Module?

Excellent news; someone mentioned up-thread that it might be the same as with the XPS 13. Any chance you can test it with a 90W to see how badly it throttles, or if you did and I missed the reply, let me know?

 

Will there be a version of the M3800 without a dedicated graphics card?

 

Any idea if the slot for the 2.5" drive needs a really small 5mm height SSD or a more usual 7.5mm?

 

Hi Bokeh,
thanks for great thinks You'r doing here. Correct me if I'm wrong in first I thought the same way, but after "study" the spec-sheet it's stands out that they give You an option between 6-cell battery with 61 Wh or 91 Wh, that means You don't sacrifice any storage ability ..

 

You do, because the larger battery takes up the space where a 2.5" drive would fit.

 

The configurations only allow for mSATA with the larger battery. I'm debating whether I want to carry an external battery or an external SSD. I'm thinking that I'd rather deal with an external battery pack, because I plan on using VMs and losing connection with the drive could be pretty bad.

 

On the Tech Spec tab of the US product page it lists Trusted Platform Module 1.2 (TPM 1.2) under Security

Dell Precision M3800

 

mhm .. 6-cell 61Wh or 6-cell 91Wh imho volume is the same only capacity is change..
http://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/...Documents/dell-precision-m3800-spec-sheet.pdf

 

I think the real question there though, is do they do away with the 2.5" drive connection? Or is there just no room for it with the larger battery? If it's just no room, cool, maybe I'll buy a 6 Cell one day and put a 2.5" drive in, but if the port is gone, much harder to do.