Dell Precision M3800 Owner's Review

After all the other reports of delays, I'm getting worried. Dell is still reporting a 12/13 delivery date for mine.

New orders on Premier are showing a 12/18 ship date. Interestingly spare AC adapters are showing a 12/30 ship date (although they are nicely inexpensive compared to the big ones for other models!)

Also noticed something odd in the order list in my confirmation email -- it's showing BOTH:

Wonder if that means I'm actually getting 2 USB dongles?

 

haha! i know my gf said the same. Actually I have been hearing nothing but rave reviews on the ASUS N66U - but consistently looking for deals online ...best I have found so far is $149 at Staples, Toronto and thats regular price whereas most places on sales its not less than $159. Figure I will wait until Christmas/Boxing Day and pull the trigger...oughtta be on sale. besides wont get the computer before then anyways.

 

Could someone please confirm that the M3800 will support full Ultra HD resolution (3840 x 2160 @60Hz) via the mini DP?
I am trying to decide on a monitor. Thinking of going with an Ultra HD model, like the upcoming P2815Q.

 

Just got an email yesterday that my M3800 will be delayed for another month! I placed the order the day it came out, and the rep said they are short the LCD, palm rest, and something else I don't remember due to aggravation. I placed the order Nov 14th, it was supposed to ship Dec 5th, and on Dec 3rd they inform me that it will be delayed until Jan 3rd. It's bull because the website for a new laptop says it will ship Dec 18th!!!

 

Solidworks will only run in Windows, so the rMBP will have to run bootcamp. My guess is bootcamp is what you are doing now. It also looks like the GeForce 750M is not certified to work with Solidworks. The Quadro K1100M and K2100M are both certified.

Looking at the Solidworks testing numbers in SPECviewperf, the K2100M is about 10% faster than the K1100M. In games and other applications, the K2100M will be 20-30% faster.

CAD / CAM will lean heavily towards a Windows system - especially if you are running Autodesk software. If you are doing a lot of advanced 3D modeling, the K2100M will be faster.

Most FEM software seems to run in Windows, Linux, and Mac OS.

LinuxCNC should work on hardware that supports Ubuntu.

The M4800 should have the best overall CPU performance if you get one of the higher end quad cores. The M4800 will also allow you to run 32Gb of RAM.

The M3800 will be more portable and do a great job at running professional Windows apps that benefit from the Quadro GPU. Weight and size between the rMBP and M3800 are essentially the same.

The rMBP might also work depending on your software. Much of what you listed works best on a Windows machine. If you want to run software that can only be run in the Mac OS, the rMBP will make more sense.

 

Wow, definitely keep us posted on that! Also, if you have a PXE environment, I'd be curious to know whether the USB 3 adapter supports it as well even though it's not mentioned. Note that you might have to actually use it in the lone USB 2 port to make that happen.

I don't have one to test (and you're unlikely to find someone who does), but I would be absolutely shocked if it didn't. 4K @ 60Hz requires DisplayPort 1.2, which has been ratified for years now; in fact that's when MiniDP became an official spec and started getting implemented in non-Apple machines. The only reason Macs don't support it is because they've used Thunderbolt ports, and the original Thunderbolt spec only integrated with DisplayPort 1.1, though Thunderbolt 2 supports DisplayPort 1.2.

In fact, the HDMI port supports 2560x1600 @ 60Hz, which means it would also support 4K @ 30 Hz (obviously not ideal for working, but nice for TVs). The only unknown is whether the Intel GPU would be up to the task of driving two 4K displays simultaneously.

 

just talked to a rep from dell saying that the reason my order was delayed from a ship date of 12/09 to 1/8 was because the palm rest was delayed however on closer inspection she saw the palm rest was no longer in production and since the order couldnt be changed once it was in production she had me make a new order
((( so heads up for those of you also having your m3800 order delayed, it may actually be cancelled but they havent notified you yet, (they didn't contact me at all I've been checking the order status since I ordered it which is why I noticed the delay in shipping and decided to call) I placed my order on 11/16 fyi

 

yeah see my comment above I'm in the same boat!

 

they threw in an extra printer for the inconvenience for my order and overnight shipping also somehow the order is now 30$ cheaper

 

Thanks boken. Immediately rule out the configuration with k2100 because it is too much for me. Also exclude 32Gb ram.Non would leave OSX for Windows OS. Until now I was able to use solidworks on bootcamp partition (geforce 9400m) with high temperatures and fans at full speed. Solidworks and CAD / CAM are the sw I use most, but not as a profession. I use them at the university level and not every day. Do not use these sw simultaneously.
If you use these programs on bootcamp I have problems with overheating or throttling? I read that the problem of rmbp is the power of 85 W. I'm not an expert help me to understand what is the best choice!