Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

Although you are unlikely to find a perfect display, how much of these anomalies you accept is a matter of choice.

I too have some small area of blue tent and a one dead pixel. However since they are both along the edges and not easy to spot (you have to carefully scan, and under certain conditions), I live with it.

I've only read about the Eizo but with auto calibration, the reviews are very promising. I'd love to have one but it is out of my price range. I will likely settle for duel Dell Premiere color by years end. Keep us posted with any findings/decision you make.

As for the banding issues, could you be more specific and tell us under what conditions you're experience these issues? Is your original image of high quality?

It is possible to experience banding in an inferior image or if it has been severely edited. That is not a defect in the display rather the image. Are you using an editing software like Photoshop? In that case, banding can also be apparent with a low bit debt setting.

 

thanks, i noticed i can get rid of banding by going to the nvidia panel and checking on the "use nvidia settings".
but tomorrow i will receive an iDisplay pro and will try calibrating the display.
Using the Premier Color software the Adobe RGB profile has magenta greys, and the sRGB has cyan tinted greys, only DCI-P3 is neutral in that regard. Anybody experienced the same issue? Also, if both the video card and the panel are 10bit why is the Premier Color working at 8bit? I mean, doesn't it defy the whole purpose of having 10 bit hardware?

 

yes, i can live with the corner tinges and my dead pixel, just trying to understand at least how good this display is supposed to work and how to get there. If i could avoid spending 2k euros on an external monitor and gain the portability of the laptop i would be happier
I am using Maya and Nuke. In Nuke i just create a ramp. I get banding no matter what, but it's acceptable when checking the "use nvidia settings" because on a black to white ramp it gets rid of magenta/green artifacts created by using the Premier Color. I mean, when i see hues in a black to white ramp i really can't work well, i shouldn't see color at all, just a plain greyscale ramp, smooth or not that's another story.

 

Try to leave premier color profile at default.

Also check nivida setting, should be a setting saying 30bit or deep color support.

 

leaving Premier color at Default obviously gets rid of the banding, because it's effectively bypassing the software.
But i need to work in sRGB, AdobeRGB and DCI-P3, so i need a way to be in those spaces without colored banding affecting my gradients.
And i do have deep color support allowed for 3D apps like Maya in the nvidia settings.
All i really want to undestand is how is this supposed to work.
Dell advertises the precision m6700 with k4000m and RGB Led IPS screen as 10 bits (which they are) but then kills the 10 bit workflow by using LUT convertions in 8 bit math, introducing banding?
Is this really what they designed it to work like?
Also i contacted the guys who made Premier Color software and they said it's not their fault because the video card is 8 bit.... what?? no it's not! still waiting for an answer on that.

 

Use your meter and profiling software to get the colorspace you want. Premier color software is a joke ~~

 

haha, that's what i thought
i should receive the iDisplay Pro today, will keep you updated
i might actually need help later, to do a proper calibration

 

Have anybody here tried to overclock their K3000M card? I have seen articles that kepler is highly overclockable and quadro series is underclocked. I did a small test with nvidiainspector adding +135MHz to core and i got 20-25% performance gain. Temperature under full load was only +4-5c extra while OC-ed, seemed pretty fine (65-70c), i got same 3dmark results like i had with my alienware 580M GTX with K3000M only with +135Mhz more on core!

I am pretty newbie when it comes to GPU overclocking, maby someone else has more experience here than me.

OCing with nvidiainspector +135MHz is limited in software i started doing research about getting even higher core clocks and found an article NVIDIA Kepler VBIOS mods - Overclocking Editions, modified clocks, voltage tweaks

There is vbios mod for K3000M, and as i understand it unlocks the overclocking (so you can push more than 135MHz in nvidiainspector, supposedly +500MHz on the core) and reading that thread there i saw a post where one user asked mod for another vbios which allows him more than +500MHz overclocking, he said that card is working stable at +500MHz what means to me that he is getting around +60-80% of extra performance out of his card?!

Now i think, is there anybody who has tried going further than with OCing K3000M or i will be first one to try it ?

 

Do you know how the air flow are made on the M6700 ?
It seems that the 2 fans take fresh air from the bottom of the computer, and expulse the hot air at the rear.
Is it true ?

Because if yes, i think it is a poor design, as i put this computer on a table with a huge tablecloth, so the bottom is in touch with the tablecloth, and it seems that it is the reason why it because very quickly noisy :-(
I put 2 bottle caps under the computer and it seems to be better. As i haven't this problem with some other computers (Lenovo, Asus), i don't know if my M6700 have a problem, or if it try to get the fresh air from the bottom. In this case, no need for me to call Dell, it is like this and i must put something else under my computer.
(impossible to remove the tablecloth, WAF inside... )

 

Im not sure how is this made, but i can tell you, precision m6700 has the best cooling system i ever seen on any laptop. Even when my processor is 100%, i have never encountered full fans! I keep my precision on the bed all the time and it hardly gets warm. I had alienware m17x R3 with 580M gtx, and it got hot, when i mean hot i mean you could not touch it underneath and the fans were so noisy and most of the time on maximum!

So to keep this updated, i have tried the VBIOS mod for K3000M card and the results are here:



Default: 3dmark 2011 graphics score 2515 points
Overclocked (+434MHz core): 3918 points

Temperatures under 100% load with 1087MHz core were: 52-63c, fans were not even fully engaged, very impressive.

Score comparison in 3dmark11:
Nvidia 580M GTX 3390 POINTS beaten by K3000M, easy
Quadro K4000M 3610 POINTS beaten by K3000M
NVIDIA Quadro K5000M 5500 POINTS beaten by K5000M with 1500 points.

Good luck to all K3000M owners, this thing is a hidden beast