Dell Precision M4700 and M6700 - Preliminary Info

The Lenovo S30 would not be the right one to compare. It is limited to 16gb of RAM and does not offer a lot of the other options that the T3600 does. The Lenovo D30 would be more fair to compare, but it is also limited to 16GB of RAM which makes it unsuitable for what we use desktop workstations for.

The T3600 and T5600 have a lot of configuration options on them. It will be tougher to get a solid comparison.

Just doing a quick config of a Lenovo D30 with the T5600, I am showing prices literally within $100 US for the same specs.

It is a little funny though. Lenovo workstations have NO video cards in the default configs. Strange.

At any rate, we have to have 32 - 64GB of RAM in the workstations we use. Some of our software will load thousands of 8MB images to create composite files from our telescopes. We estimate that 48GB of data is used for each. We have to have the RAM.

 

Any info on the Dell Google+ hangout today?

 

AFAIK it's still on for 4pm U.S. Central time (2 hours from now). At the Dell Google+ page.

 

Thanks, but I was able to configure an S30 with 8x16GB RDIMM RAM modules so I don't think it is as limited as you think. We are starting with the S30 as the default choice so that is fixed, the question is which Dell model is the best match.

Our current config will be an S30 with E1620 CPU, 12GB of ECC RAM, Quadro 4000, 160GB SSD + 1TB 7200RPM Data drive unless we can get a better Dell config for the same cost.

The selection for new Dell models appears to be Precision T1650 (limit of 32GB), T3600 (limit of 64GB), T5600 (limit of 128GB), T7600 (limit of 512GB). They also have "n" models, e.g. T1650n (not sure of the difference).

The T1650 is too lightweight, the T5600 is probably beyond the price of the S30 plus it offers the dual processor E5-26xx series so it would compare to the D30.

So to me the only comparison to the S30 is the T3600. Maybe we can get a Dell rep to comment on what they can offer with this machine.

http://shop.lenovo.com/products/us/workstation/cleandesign/pdfs/resources/Datasheets/S30_Datasheet.pdf

 

It seems you're right, but it's more like 800$ after some dealing, and Dell will probably come up with a nice discount/coupon in a month or two.

I feel the M4700 is the better built laptop, and you can add 4 storage devices on it. And you have a number pad + superior IPS display, plus the option for 1866ram... IMHO, definitely worth the extra 300-500$ once there's a price drop. Let's not forget the standard top notch 3 years warranty.

 

The deal you are talking about is a 4 day special deal that you have to sign up for a Barnes and Noble Affinity Account to get.

Half the saving comes from B&N getting your info so that they can attempt to sell you stuff. Yay marketing.

Another good chunk of that savings comes from things you chose to leave out of your posting. These are NOT apples to apples machines. The Lenovo has a 1yr return to Depot warranty. Return to Depot. Think that one through.

Better add $202 for the NBD onsite 3yr warranty since that is the base Dell offers.

The 500GB hard drive is 5400rpm. Dell does not offer a 5400rpm drive below 1TB.

I also was not able to get the price of the M4700 past 2265.

So. Lenovo + Barnes and Nobel fire sale price of 1329 + 202 + $10 HDD allowance = $1541.

This is a savings of $724 over the Dell with the IPS panel.
It is a savings of $350 over the $1,866 M4700 with the non IPS panel.

The Lenovo website price is $1478 after applying the 4DAYSALE coupon using the exact configuration you listed. Notice how close that is to a $150 difference in price? That $150 is what Barnes and Nobel is paying Lenovo to get you as a contact and be able to market to you. And sell your info to 3rd parties so that they can market to you.

In my very long and drawn out logic, to compare apples to apples, you have to pay $575 more for the M4700 with the IPS and $200 for the non IPS if you want to leave B&N out of the transaction.

If you leave the Lenovo 4 day sale out of the loop, the prices for the non IPS M4700 and the W530 go back to pairity. The IPS is of course $399 more.

Sorry that got so drawn out.

If you are ok with the more limited hardware on the W530, go for it. This is a good time to buy. Lenovo is trying to undercut Dell and HP and this is normal pricing strategy.

Personally, I would not want to try and dump 135 watts of heat with 1 fan. I also like the drive options and flexibility of the M4700. I would also rather have a 60% or 110% gamut screen that shows proper colors than a 95% screen that shows false colors until you calibrate it. Then again, that's just me. Of course, part of my job is evaluating workstation from Lenovo, HP, and Dell for my company for our purchasing decisions. But that brings support into the mix, and you don't want to hear about our experience with Lenovo support. There is a reason our CIO banned them for 2 years.

 

It's still on. Here's the latest. They will post a "join hangout" link in a bit.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/117161668189080869053/posts

 

Was a little snarky. Probably best deleted.

 

Some notes from the hangout.

Talking about the displays — specs were given, the same that Bokeh has in the other thread. Touch screen was mentioned later on as coming "down the road a little bit" (possibly connected with Windows 8).

By the way, Windows 8 support is coming and they'll post the full set of drivers when they start shipping Windows 8 on the machine later on.

External display configurations ---
No surprises. Pretty much same as M6600, except DisplayPort and HDMI have been updated to the latest spec, for super high res output and daisy-chaining on the DisplayPort — this is to "future proof" M4700/M6700 so they can take advantage of the new displays as they become available.
[Edit] As Bokeh points out, there is a difference from the M6600 in that the NVIDIA card can drive more displays without Optimus than before.

No AMD Enduro. Architecturally challenging to get it included with everything else they have going on, but they're always looking at it, of course.

In response to a question on corner tint in the M4600 IPS display:
Mano says new panels are being used for this generation.

Thunderbolt.
Thunderbolt is still "coming out" and they don't want to burden everyone with the cost of including a Thunderbolt port if it's not really going to get that much use. On the other hand, USB 3.0 is backwards compatible (you can plug older USB devices in) so there's not much problem including that.

By the way, on the question of why there are only 2 USB 3.0 ports... Mano says the other ports that the chipset provides are used internally for other features.

Retina display that we discussed at length earlier? They're always looking at new technologies but no details were given on if/when something like this might show up in the Precision line. He did point out that Apple's display doesn't even have a 72% color gamut, which makes the color inferior to all but possibly the low-res HD+ display on the M6700.

They're currently in a "safe launch" period, inspecting machines very closely before shipping them. Glad to hear it. Of course I'm always waiting for the e-mail that says my machine is on the way, but I'm glad they're taking their time and getting everything just right.
He says in 2-3 weeks they'll probably be hitting a 7-day turnaround time on shipping new orders.

We had another forum member there asking questions in the chat. I got a couple of phone calls during the hangout so I missed some stuff. I'm sure we'll be seeing more info from him.

 

Actually, the M6600 would only do 2 displays without Optimus. The M6700 will do 4.