Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

It is always prudent to be cautious when purchasing from eBay. I haven't had any trouble with hardware but if I am buying something more common like a power adapter or battery I make sure to check that it is local, advertised as "genuine," and has an acceptable refund/return policy.

Once I ordered a Nintendo DS game and received a bootleg copy. Went back and forth with the seller for a few weeks — they would not acknowledge the problem but never went so far as to claim the game was genuine — before finally getting eBay themselves to issue me a refund.

Tray-load drives shipped with the M6700 have a bezel that is the same grey/brown color as the rest of the system with absolutely no adornments other than the LED, eject button, and tiny paperclip eject hole. The bezel in the photo on the eBay listing shows little logos for the formats supported by the drive — "Compact disc", the two DVD logos, and a Blu-ray logo. That's all I was referring to.

 

So, now I have the optical drive sorted and I think I will forget about the 3D display. It's rather expensive and probably more gimmicky than practical. Also, it seem unlikely that it can be used with Optimus (although no one really knows ). Now I just have to decide on whether to go with the i7-3920XM or the i7-3820QM ($500 difference). My primary use will be software development (multiple VMs) and some modeling apps (Revit, Inventor) . I also hope that it will be a capable gaming machine (especially with Bokeh's recommended clock settings). So, will I see any significant gains in going with i7-3920XM? My gut (and google) seem to indicate no...

Thanks

 

The 3920xm shines in CPU heavy tasks because you can easily overclock it. For example, in the m17x R3, you could push the i7-2920xm all the way past a desktop i7-2600. If you don't need that much CPU performance, skip it.

The reason i got a 920xm for my G73 is because i sometimes get to use software where every bump in clock speed counts.

 

Agree with above. I generally say if you have to ask, then you likely don't need it. If you go out and buy the extreme version of something then you typically already have a need/use for it.

For example, if all I need is the bed of a pickup then I buy an F-150. However, if I know I also have a horse trailer that I need to pull then I already know I need a matching horsepower/weight rated truck to do that. Its the same with CPU/GPU.

For maximum efficiency, get only what you need. Otherwise, the $500 could buy an awful lot of accessories.

 

Does M6700 allow the manual upgrade from i7-3820QM to i7-3920XM later on?

 

True, and truthfully I felt a little silly even asking.

My head says no, but my heart says yes.... Of course, that $500 covers the price of the Samsung 830 512GB SSD nicely...

 

Yes, though it's not yet clear if the heatsink is the same or not so you might have to replace that too.

 

WEI in latest updated version of Windows 7 x64

 

I have two theories on that which i will be able to confirm when i finally receive my M6700 (ordered monday) so it's gonna be a while.

Theory #1, the heatsink is the same across all core i7s, but different for core i5s. (2 heatpipes vs 1) -> Thought of that one only yesterday.
Theory #2, the i7-3920xm is the only CPU that comes with the 2 heatpipe heatsink thus requiring a heatsink change.

In the event that #2 turns out to be true, i'll inquire into the possibility of getting the 2 heatpipe heatsink. Note that tech support told me that across all core i7s the heatsink was the same, i never asked about the core i5s.

 

Maybe Dell-Mano_G will answer. At least you can ask him.

Best Regards,
Alex.