Dell Precision M4700 and M6700 - Preliminary Info

Thanks Darkstone.

No surprises there - exactly the same as the Mx600 series, just with some upgraded components. Make me wonder what Dell was thinking with it's MBPR post, unless they have something yet-unrevealed up their sleeve.

 

What a letdown. I thought is going to be breathtaking in terms of specs & appearance but no.......all the same. I better get myself a nice used m6600 :thumbdown::banghead:

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

 

Thanks for the documents. Pretty much... no surprises.

Everything is the same as the M4600/M6600, except the new chipset, along with CPU and GPU choices. Memory is DDR 1600 or 1866 (instead of 1333 or 1600).

Confirming for real:
No thunderbolt, no surprise high-DPI screen, no additional USB 3.0 ports, and no additional SATA-3 ports. (mSATA is still SATA-2 on both machines, M4700 still has only one SATA-3 port.)

Probably confirmed:
No AMD GPU switching. (NVIDIA Optimus is mentioned specifically; nothing about AMD switching.)

Still unknown:
Have possible external screen configurations changed? (Ivy Bridge GPUs can drive three displays, whereas Sandy Bridge GPUs could only drive two. This might make a small difference for those who use NVIDIA+Optimus.)
Is Intel SRT supported?? Dell doesn't have to do anything but load the proper option ROM for the chipset/RAID controller, I think. Still hoping for it.

All-in-all, not a disappointment, but I would have loved to see any of the omissions mentioned above.
Hoping to order one next week.

 

Well this looks like a refresh to me. Like with hp 8770w. So I see no reason to upgrade. In fact the firepro looks like a downgrade to me.

 

Hmm, not sure what you really expected here.. It was stated that it will just be an Ivy Bridge refresh of the M6600 if you discount the rumors (regarding Thunderbolt interface, I doubt such motherboards are available yet?). I'm definitely getting one over the M6600 when some good deal appears, but only for the GPU upgrade (e.g. the K5000M which is sometimes almost 50% more powerful than the M6600 top GPUs). Shame about the AMD options, but if AMD made a FirePro 7970M variant, I'm pretty sure that Dell would offer it (hopefully, with Enduro supported).

BTW, getting a refurbished M6600 has an additional hassle of the early ChiMei screens lottery, so one more reason to wait a bit more for an outlet M6700 perhaps?

 

so what are the advantages of this new series?

slightly more cpu-Power (10%?)
more GPU Power - up zu 50%? BUT poor DP-Perfomance for GPU-computing (no 5010 successor available)

are they using new version of HDMI and displayport, to support higher resolutions and 3d on external displays?


still sata 2 for mSSD
still PCIe 2.0 for GPU connection

 

Unfortunately, I didn't see any information about support 3d in 6700

 

Looks like Dell is trying to bring back the covet edition - major fail. So, if I want to grab a red version, I have to stick with the glossy screen?

 

Hmm, just ordered the m6700, not sure what I can post on here yet. Non disclosure, agreement.

Dell also told me there are parts on back order, so ship date is sometime late next week.

 

I was waiting for the ivy bridge, to me it looks like the m6600 and m6700 are very similar. I opted for the ati/amd because of cost savings. It was several hundred cheaper.