Dell Precision M6700 Owner's Review

Its a mixed bag on temps. Idle temps seem to be lower. But the CPU runs hotter than the 2920XM did under a full load. I am still testing.

Fan are improved. Those fans are also much easier to remove and clean.


Get the battery slice. It is the stand you are wanting. It attacjes to the dock port and will raise up the back of the machine. I amtrying to get my hands on one.

I can't properly respond to this on a smart phone. Will properly talk Apple with you. I want to keep the comments on my review from being hijacked, but this is a great oppertunity to really compare the hardware companies release and how they listen to their customers.

I do have 1 question. Have you ever seen a Precision in real life?

 

I have some questions if I may:
1) is the ATI solution full 10-bit, like the nVidia cards?
2) with ATI/nVidia, is the multi-monitor support "full" or are they any limitations there (except resolutions). I need 3x 1920x1200 digital output, each panel independent with its own ICC profile (with dock))
3) is it possible to control fan speeds manually? I have Lenovo W520 now and I am controlling the fan via TPFanControl and it is great, because I can bypass that stupid constant on-off cycle the fan does on this system (I red that DELL does this too)

 

Yes, but the IPS display isn't available with the ATI card yet. That should be coming "soon".

 

Bokeh. I didn't get an answer I clearly understood on the other 6700 thread, so I was hoping you could help clarify for me. I ordered the mSATA SSD disk as the only, and boot disk. The order list says it is SATA3. I thought I read somewhere this is incorrect. What is the true story?

Thanks for ll your work here!

 

Here is what you have said:
"512GB 2.5" (SATA3) Mobility Solid State Drive

This is a 2.5 Inch HDD, ok, here it's an SSD, it's the same, still at 2.5 Inch.

The bigger mSATA SSD I know, in this world, is 128GB (maximum, maybe 256GB).

In "mSATA", m isn't for "mobility" too, it's, if I'm correct, for "mini" or maybe "micro", but micro is mostly used for the 1.8".

I will edit my post after a quick review of Dell website, to search the "name" they give for the mSATA drive.


Edit: After a quick look on Dell, here are the both mSATA SSD that they offer:
- 128GB Solid State Drive Full Mini Card
- 256GB Solid State Drive Full Mini Card

The only one, wich give you 512GB is a "normal" SSD, 2.5 Inch.
At this time, create an mSATA SSD wich allow us the capacity of 512GB is "impossible", not enought space for every "chips" (Memory modules).

Edit 2: Also, if you choose the mSATA drive ONLY, here is the error message you will get:
"The Hard Drive configuration you have selected requires SSD Mini Card and Additional Hard Drive. Please amend your selection"
So, you need both mSATA SSD and HDD/SSD.

 

My guess is that the "mobility" drives are the mSATA drives. They might be SATA III drives, but according to Dell, the mSATA port on the M6700 is SATA II. So in this case, they would be limited to SATA II speeds. The tradeoff ends up being more storage vs faster storage.

 

The mSata disk is Sata 3, but it is connected by a Sata 2 mSata slot.

If you had a 2.5" to mSata adapter, you could run it at Sata 3 speeds by putting it in one of the two 2.5" drive bays.

I am going to post performance comparisons between the 256gb Sata 3 mSata drive and the 128gb Sata 2 mSata drive. Will also be comparing both of them to an Intel 520 180gb 2.5" SSD and a Crucial 512gb 2.5" SSD.

My working theory is that the Sata 3 mSata operating over the Sata 2 bus will be as fast at smaller file reads and writes as it would be when operating over Sata 3. It would only be sequential or large file reads and writes that would be slowed by the cache emptying.

You can run the system with JUST the mSata drive installed. You do not need a second drive.

 

I never said the opposite

I just quote the message when configuring with only one mSATA SSD from the Dell website.

Also, notice that it talk about a 512GB mSATA SSD, if you known a such mSATA SSD, a link will be great (the maximum that dell offer is a 256GB, and I didn't find any reseller of 256GB mSATA SSD, only 128GB at maximum, so I don't think that 512GB mSATA exist).

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Sorry, you're wrong... Mobility isn't the mSATA drives, it's just a another term.

Take a look at this

 

Ask and it shall be given. Although I would guess that the price is likely to rival the notebook itself.

Micron Announces RealSSD C400 Drive Coming in mSATA Form Factor

 

The actual SSD 2.5" that Dell purpose to theirs clients cost 1070$, so the same thing on the mSATA... with Dell, should be almost the same, maybe 50/100$ plus.

But if I correctly read, this mSATA drive doesn't exist officialy yet^^ (only said "this summer", it's large), and from all the configuration list, I didn't see any 512GB mSATA drive for the M6700, only one in 2.5"

BTW, thanks for that link, still good to know that they evolved this technology (mSATA).