Dell Precision M6700 Owner's Review

It's way cheaper to get mSATA from crucial vs directly from Dell, so no biggie, just get the base hdd config. As for GPU, my guess is we will be able to upgrade to something like 7970M/680M down the road and save a lot of money (the 7970m is 350$ and performs similar to the K5000M in non-pro apps).

 

Agreed, but they wont sell me a barebone!


and from my grapevine I heard the 7990M is due out Q1

 

Well that's an odd mix. This is what a pro laptop is all about.

 

Disagree. I'm looking for CPU power and memory. I'm a developer, so I usually have a few virtual machines in the background when I'm working. I play games occasionally so a nice GPU would be a good, but professional-level graphics aren't everyone's requirements.

 

GPU importance keeps changing for me. Some software/hardware mixes make it less important, some more important. GPU has stayed up there for a couple of years as a priority now that all our video and editing has shifted to 1080p. I thought the Quadro 5010M was all I would need for a long time, then Premier Pro CS6 and all of its GPU accellerated features showed up. The Quadros can still do the work, but the Kepler does it faster. I can apply more effects and corrections and see how they will look in real time with no jitters. No waiting for a render to complete just to see what my work will look like.

And the K5000M can game. Really game. Batman Arkam City benchmark with all settings maxed and 1920x1080 ran at 45 fps. World of Warcraft with Direct X 11 and all settings maxed runs at 95-145fps in new heavily populated areas and 300-400 fps in older content. Yep, 3-4 hundred. Not a typo.

You can pretty much expect GTX 680M type performance. Key word there is type. The clocks on the K5000M are very conservative. Weirdly, the clocks on the K5000M are the same across manufacturers. They all use 601core/1500memory. The 680M (which is $750 btw) runs at 720/1700. You can use Nvidia Inspector to run the K5000M at 735/1700 all day long and it will never hit 80C. Until I pull the heat sink and look at the ram chips, I won't know how fast it can run.

Since HP, Fujitsu, and Dell are running the same clocks, they are likely being set and enforced by Nvidia. At least with the dual cooling system in the Dell you can run the K5000M at proper clocks without having to worry about heat issues. Yes, I used "proper clock" instead of "overclock". Nvidia is hold this card back. I don't know if they are trying to even the playing field across vendors or if they are tryig to protect GeForce sales. Maybe they are waiting to one-up AMD later on by putting out the same card with proper clocks. The bottom line is that the K5000M can give a lot more performance than Nvidia is allowing.

I will probably start running Nvidia Inspector at startup to set the clocks at a proper rate. I have never overclocked all the time before, but this is different. This is not pushing the. ard past its limits. This is getting the "normal" performance out of a card that Nvidia crippled.

 

True, you can't get a barebone but that's ok, keep the FirePro for now, it should do all the work and run most games on max/high. When the 7990M is out we can try and make a run for i

If you don't need CUDA or Physx, there's a very little reason to go for the K5000M. It's fast and can run every game, but paying 2x for a laptop just for that? I'm staying with AMD for sure.

 

if i was doing it:

* add a few thunderbolt ports
* 4 x USB ports *on each side*
* 2 x Sata3 msata bays for SSD raid 0 boot drive, plus another msata for 4G wireless card
* 2 x 2.5" bays for redundant storage
* no optical drive, no expresscard, no smartcard, no fingerprint reader
* dual batteries, each 90 watt hour, with ability to swap either battery without AC and without shutting down, and with ability to remove batteries without making the laptop unstable on the desk
* cold air intake in the back, between the hot air exhausts to enable operation on a soft surface like a bed
* 1080p webcam
* dual subwoofers one next to each speaker ( like in a retina macbook pro )
* no number pad, keyboard centered ( like in macbooks )
* 200 milliwatt headphone output into any impedance from 24 to 300 ohms with 110db SNR
* woven carbon fiber lid that you could sit on without damaging the screen
* magnetic power cord ( like on macbook )
* 16x10 aspect ratio screen
* IPS screen that works with Optimus ( like on Retina macbook )
* rounded corners and thinner chassis ( like macbook pro )
* in fact i would match the size and shape EXACTLY to the 17" MBP because every case is designed to fit it, but no cases are designed to fit Precision
* ability to choose from 20 graphics cards ( 5 x radeon, 5 x geforce, 5 x firepro, 5 x quadro )
* 1500 nits brightness screen for use in direct sunlight
* screen backlighting that automatically adjusts color temperature to match the environment

and how about this Bokeh: both CPU and GPU cooled by both fans each ( like on Retina Macbook Pro ), enabling either fan to be removed for cleaning without stopping your work and then simply snapping it back in, and moving on to the other fan. in other words ability to run on a single fan just like commercial planes are designed to be able to fly on one engine.

etc

you give them too much credit. their design isn't half as clever as Retina Macbook pro and even Retina MBP could be improved upon.

they beat their only competitor - HP - wow big deal LOL. now if they instead went against Apple and won that would be something to write home about

Dell did the absolute minimum that they had to do to beat HP. and Apple did the absolute minimum they had to do to beat EVERYBODY.

that's still better than what Samsung does though. Samsung's slogan should be " why innovate when apple will do it for us ? "

 

a ha... MacBook seems to be THE hardware for pros... I think this time is over since a while... but I don't want to hijack this thread with such a discussion

 

I'll make one Mac comment and one comment only. The Macbook is a locked system: It's manufactures have decided what you need and you either take it or leave it. They are simple, uncomplicated, easy to use computers designed that way to accommodate the people that buy them. You can't upgrade, you can't add storage, you can't even change the battery unless you do it through Apple. If a locked configuration is your example of a superior laptop then you should buy a Mac. The Precision is the totally opposite of that with a boatload of flexibility. That's what I prefer; and why I'm here and not on the Macbook thread.

 

The MacBook IPS works with Optimus because it is 8 bits. OSX does not support 10 bit video.