Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

Windows 10 LTSC or enterprise cannot be activated using "cheap key", however it's like having Windows 7 on windows 10, there is nearly no garbage compared to Windows 10 Home or Pro..

 

Just heard back from the seller that the unit unfortunately did not pass the QC test prior to shipping. So I am back to square one. I wanted to stick to the combination of i7-3840QM and K4000M but can't locate any at the moment. My current options are the following units:

• i7- 3940XM with K3000M, 1600x900 screen
• i7- 3920XM with K3000M, 1920x1080 screen
• i7- 3740QM with K3000M, 1920x1080 screen

I can't seem find one with K4000M or higher so these are my choices. The price differences between all 3 are about USD 70. Since the price difference is not much, I was thinking of just going with the XM processor. Any thoughts?

 

If you're thinking about replacing the GPU anyway then dropping down to the K3000M doesn't seem like a big deal. I'd pick the 3920XM over the 3740QM (if the price difference is minimal — you're looking at 0.2 GHz difference on the base speed and 0.1 GHz on the turbo speed, but it does have a larger L3 cache as well).

 

you can overclock the 3920XM at 4.1~4.3GHz depending on your luck and thermal, but go for the 1920x1080 unless you want to upgrade it to 4k display (needs some modification).

 

Will check out the 3920XM as that seems to be the better choice. Out of curiosity, will there be a huge difference in heat output between the the 3920XM over the 3740QM?

I have read that the stock Full HD 1920 screen is actually good enough so I wasn't planning to go anything beyond. That was my consideration on not getting the 3940XM model as I read the 1600x900 is awful and I couldn't find any postings on whether it's a simple drop replacement or more modifications are needed to go to the full HD 1920.

 

Well the 3920XM is the same cpu as the 3940XM, the 3940XM could overclock like 100 to 200MHz more but that's it.
It depend, it's silicon lottery where each cpu run at different voltage, I got once a 3610QM which consume 45W in cinebench at 3.1GHz while my 3920XM is consuming 45w in the same benchmark at 3.6GHz.

 

Either a lot more people have found regarding the potentials of the M6700 or I am just out of luck! All the units that I have mentioned previously are not available. There are other M6700s but mostly come i5 and lower GPU. I was thinking of upgrading the GPU down the road but not so much the CPU as it would be too much too invest in both.

I did find a mint M6800 i7-4930MX with K4100M for about USD150 more and I am tempted as the specs is pretty good for my needs. I looked up the capability of the K4100M and for light gaming and video editing it would definitely perform much better than my UHD 620. I have though reminded myself that some members have voiced their votes on 6700 as it is a better built on several fronts and hence that is why I originally ordered the 6700. Should I go with this 6800 or stick it out in search for the right 6700? The end goal is that I would like to have a laptop that is serviceable and provides me with the options to upgrade the GPU.

 

M6800 is fine, really, the differences between it and the M6700 are minor. 4th-gen CPU will be slightly better, and it has a better set of stock Quadro Kepler GPUs too. It has the same GPU upgrade potential as the M6700. The cooling makes a bit less sense (smaller fan for the CPU, larger fan for the GPU is backwards from the M6700). I don't think that it is worth spending a lot of extra money on though (over the M6700).

[Edit]
Forgot about the GPU heatsink issue; you have to mod your GPU heatsink or source a specific hard-to-find one if you want to install a Maxwell GPU.

 

The M6700 is better than the M6800 in my opinion, you can't upgrade easily the GPU and the M6800 unless you modify your heatsink or you buy the really expensive "maxwell cooling", also you are stuck with the stock screen, you cannot upgrade it like the M6700, then they are similar, but parts for the M6800 are more expensive (and haswell motherboard/chipset are fragile), the price is pretty good on the M6800, you could downgrade the 4930MX by a 4800MQ and you will gain like 100~120$ for pretty much the same performance.
Difference between ivy bridge and haswell aren't so significant these days, the big thing for you (I think) is that haswell cpu are a lot faster in video encoding/decoding, about 50~60% faster in this benchmark :
https://hwbot.org/submission/4420479_lunatica98_hwbot_x265_benchmark___1080p_core_i7_3770_19.618_fps
https://hwbot.org/submission/425785...265_benchmark___1080p_core_i7_4770_30.191_fps
Other than that it's like 10% faster at the same clock which isn't a really big deal these days.

 

Thank you @TheQuentincc and @Aaron44126. Both of your assessments of reversed CPU cooling and expensive GPU cooling and all make sense. I will continue to scour the used market for another 6700 unit. There are more x800 choices than x700 where I live, and it seems most are coming ex-corporation/government from Singapore, US and Australia.