Dell Precision M4600 Battlefield 3 Performance

I'm trying to decide between the Alienware M14x and the Dell Precision M4600. I will be using Softimage, Maya, and Photoshop primarily but I would also like to play games, mainly Battlefield 3.

These are the specs for the Alienware M14x. I would get the Intel Core i7 2670QM 2.2GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M 3.0GB, and the 14” High Def+ 1600x900 screen.

These are the specs for the Dell Precision M4600. I would get the Intel Core i7 2760QM 2.4GHz, Nvidia Quadro 1000M 2GB, and the 15.6” UltraSharp FHD 1920x1080 Anti-Glare LED-backlit screen.

I have never used a quadro card before so I'm unfamiliar about their gaming performance. I'd love to hear what performance you are getting on the quadro, what your in game settings are at, what resolution you are playing it at, what are specs of your M4600.

Thank you.

 

Take m4600 with m5950, good at maya and gaming
BF3 with default setting and 1080p resolution works well as far as I can tell.

 

I have just bought 2 m4600 from the outlet. 1 with quadro 2000m and 1 with ati 5950

Both play BF3 at 1080p low settings at 35-50fps (pretty similar to the m14x I used to own).

Having tested both extensively I am sending back the 5950m model and keeping the quadro for the following reasons:

1. battery life. with optimus I get about 7 hrs surfing with the 9 cell.

2. idle fan noise. because the ati does not clock down properly on idle it not only wastes battery but keeps reving the fan up. This does not happen on the nvidia.

3. CUDA, which may not be a plus for everyone but I make use of it.

Final note, the quadro 2000m is a great clocker, I bumped it up from 550/900 to 715/1170 (max in msi afterburner) and it still doesnt break 65c on load and added about 8watts to max load power.

With the overclock I have managed to play BF3 on 1080p medium settings at over 30fps

 

Thanks for this review.. really helpful.
+rep.

 

No offense, but both 2000m and m5950 are at 555m level, at least 25% faster than 540m.
And the default setting should be medium, which is handled well by m5950.

1. According to my experience, by surfing and watching youtube sometimes, the battery can last around 4 hours for 9 cell battery, for 2000m model. And around 3 hours for m5950 model (Thinkpad W520 is the best power-optimized workstation, and it could barely reach 7 hours for my usage).
If you can share us the settings enabling 7 hours surfing, I'd really appreciate it.

check the post: [User Review] Dell Precision M4600 15.6" Mobile Workstation
and Precision M4600 Owners Lounge #1224 and 1389 (#1224 provides some statistics but does not finish a real cycle)

2. m5950 could be clocked down if you check the post in the forum though it's a hassle, and even so, both m5950 and 2000m model have such a fan issue (makes noise every couple of minutes). I did not test the exact frequency, but am pretty sure that both models are suffering from this issue (A08 bios).

check the post: Firepro M5950 GPU does not idle = poor battery life

3. CUDA is huge YMMV, and 2000m model is noticeably more expensive than m5950 model. And according to OP's usage, m5950 is way much better at MAYA and gaming, compared to 1000m. While compared to 2000m, m5950 is as good as 2000m for gaming, but still way much better at MAYA, which is a ATI-favored software.

According to my own experience, there is not much gain from 2000m to extend the battery life and reduce the fan noise.

 

icesample, no offence taken, but if you can play @ 1080p on medium above 30 fps with the 5950m then you are a better man than me! even with over clock I would get dips to 20-25fps which to me is not acceptable. I hate to game non native so won't lower res and would rather lower settings.

I totally agree that the 5950m is the better value option but as I got both the laptops cheap I am just judging on a performance level. And in my testing the 2000m wins hence why I am returning the 5950

 

I definitely agree with you that for the same cost, I'll choose 2000m model for sure, CUDA and Optimus are awesome bonus.
If 2000m costs more, I'd not recommend it to OP (1000m mentioned by OP is a no go), since MAYA favors ATI for sure, and gaming ability is not quite different between m5950 and 2000m.

With regard to BF3, I guess that it's probably the specific setting such as HDR/Bloom or driver issue in your case. Because according to my experience, both 2000m and m5950 handle the default setting well (I'm a FPS fan but not a hard core gamer, never noticed any FPS dropping influence in single player mode).
And both cards are over-clockable, by OC m5950 to 875/925, and OC 2000m to 775/1000, 3dmark vantage also shows that they are at the same level (performance test, GPU score is 6484 for 2000m and 6980 for m5950).

 

Maybe I wasn't specific enough with regards to BF3, I am only talking multiplayer, I didn't try the single player. In multi player with lots of explosions you get fps drops in medium at 1080p. I am really sensitive to fps below 30 hence my requirement.
Also, I have bloom/SSAO/MSAA off
Its definitely not a driver issue, I tried 11.10, 11.11 & 12.1 as well as different nvidia drivers to be impartial.

Finally Did you over volt to get your 5950m stable at 875? I would get crashes at 850/1000 with stock voltage.

 

I see, multi player mode is more resource-demanding for sure, and I did not give it a try, so I can't say if M5950 is good enough to deal with it.

While M5950 is at the same level as 2000m (I tested crysis 1&2, COD7, BF3, 3dmark06, vantage, and 11), if m5950 is not enough, I can hardly imagine that 2000m is able to run the same thing smoothly.

875/925 is stable in my case, I did pressure test with Furmark for hours and never encountered any problem.