Dell Precision M4700 and M6700 - Preliminary Info

The lower FirePro model is M4000 and the higher is M6000 IIRC (there was a mention on some Dutch page regarding HP 8760W or Dell M6700, not really sure). The exact specs were not mentioned, but looking at the last gen, it can be expected that the M6000 will be based on the 7970M..

 

Does anybody know if the new Firepro cards will have graphics switching?

 

Most likely, but not with the IPS screen.

 

Just a note. There's been absolutely no word on whether switching will be available with AMD GPUs (from Dell, or from the articles with leaked specs). Best to wait for more information before getting your hopes up.

Based on the current situation with other models I am not expecting graphics switching to be available with the AMD GPUs on the M4700/M6700, but I very well might be wrong.

 

Enduro works on the new AW machines as far as I know, so it's quite possible Dell might offer the option for the new Precisions. However, if they follow the last year trend and stick with Nvidia..., AMD fans might be left behind again...

 

Yes they can. They are actually the exact same shaders!! They are not "less efficient." It is very simple, more shaders at a lower clockspeed on a smaller process. That's it, they are the SAME shaders. The front end, especially the scheduler, is vastly simplified in Kepler however, which is one of the reasons it isnt so great at compute.

Lots of detail in this article: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5699/nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-review/2

 

I sure hope so, as I'm planning to get an M6700 to finally bump up my notebook performance, but don't want to pay an arm and the leg for the top Quadro model. And I really need some switching unless they optimize the power consumption so I can get at least 2.5-3 hrs of light to medium work (including wifi) - in which case I'd opt for the IPS

 

When you say switching are you referring solely to manual switching from internal to discrete graphics? They most certainly will have automatic switching included.

I'm also curious why you'd be interested in the Precision then? Isn't the availability of advanced graphics/CPU the whole purpose of such a machine? Are there not far better choices in notebooks for your money? I can understand it may just be a personal choice.

 

Most people are just interested in the longer battery life that automatic switching brings. Until now, Dell has only included switching with the (more expensive) NVIDIA cards in the Precision series. No telling yet if it will be extended to AMD cards with the M4700/M6700.

 

Have any official M4700/M6700 pics hit the net yet? Any news on the M4700/M6700 keyboard?