Dell Precision M6700 Owners Thread

Interesting conversation of a great review. I am considering the purchase of a M6700 primarily for photo and video editing with Adobe Photoshop and Premiere. My final configuration will need to be within a $2500-$2700 budget which leads me to a couple questions that I haven't seen specifically addressed here:

I would get the 1920x1080 non-IPS display and connect my existing Dell U2410 as the primary monitor for critical color work, and get the K3000M video card. Can I assume that I will be able to calibrate my U2410 and the laptop screen separately? Does the card allow separate LUT tables for multiple monitors?

I would probably get the 750GB HD. I have (2) existing Crucial Real SSD C300 2.5" 128GB SATA 6GB/s drives that I could use for Win temp files and Adobe Premiere temp files. Will I be able to install these drives on the M6700?

I used one of these for my system drive on a previous tower pc, but found the 128GB rather small after Win7, Microsoft Office, and the Adobe CS5 Production Premium suite.

Thanks in advance...

 

Well I can answer this one--it is too small. Especially when you add the 20~% necessary for maximum efficient operation. You will run out of space and be wanting for more rather quickly. Perhaps you could us them as externals and/or for a scratch disc?

 

Krane,
Using them for scratch discs (1 for Win, 1 for Premiere) is the plan IF they can be installed in the laptop. I understand that I would be better off using a bigger SSD for the system drive, but my budget isn't going to allow for that right now. Just trying to make good use of some hardware I already have. So my question regarding these drives is if they can both be installed (physically) in the laptop along with the 750GB HD.

 

The IPS display connects to a different port on the motherboard than the regular displays. I doubt they even have it wired to the Intel GPU. Don't think you're going to get this working with a BIOS hack.

You can install three 2.5" drives if you are willing to do without the optical drive. They make a caddy that you can put a 2.5" drive in and install in the optical drive bay. Otherwise, there is only room for two 2.5" drives.

 

Is there a performance difference between using an SSD vs HDD for PS scratchdisk location?
It is my understanding that Windows TRIM support reduces writes to an SSD. I've tried both locations for scratchdisk and couldn't notice a difference so mine is now on the HDD.

 

I am having a problem when I boot up the computer. Sometimes it goes into the diagnostic mode and once I reboot it doesn’t. I do not keep the battery in it either. The tech support tells me to keep the battery in but I don’t. I do not want to over charge it or shorten the life of it. It has never has happen when the battery is in the computer. Which version of video driver I need for my laptop too. It is a M6700 i7 3920, K5000m, IPS monitor and 16GB of ram.

 

Oh I understand completely especially since I'm in the same boat. I'm just making a suggestion.

Some folks buy bear minimum and upgrade as they go. While others (me) prefer to wait until they can configure the whole shebang all at once. It's your decision of course.

I haven't done any scientific test, but I'm willing to bet the difference between leaving it in and taking it out is negligible, and not worth the trouble. Maybe you'd get a couple more months of battery life after 2/3 years before it fails completely. Maybe not?

The diagnostic question is out of my league.

 

Scratchdisk performance for SSDs will be rather dependent on the size of the SSD too and unfortunately, writes to the smaller capacity SSDs are slower than on larger capacity drives. It also depends on whether your workload involves sequential or random writes/reads.

What size was the SSD you were using as a scratchdisk?

Then there is also the matter of overall free space on the drive and how hard you're using it. Every SSD has wear leveling algorithms and performance will decrease dramatically if garbage collection (that's where TRIM comes in) can't keep up with the amount of writes you're doing.

 

I'm using 256Gb SSD, the size derived by calculating two times (2x) the amount of storage space expected to be used for OS and Programs. For example, if that was expected to be <64Gb then 128Gb would have been sufficient, in my case it was >64 and <128. The primary reason for purchasing an SSD was the fast reading, i.e., Windows Startup, Launching Programs, Loading Forms, Calling sub-procedures etc. Writes to an MLC SSD cause cell degradation over time and because of this the need to off load as many as possible to the less expensive durable HDD.

Windows 7 supports the TRIM command to reduce writes. When windows is installed it queries disk spin rate, if it is 0 then it is an SSD and TRIM then is enabled. Windows 7 also disables Defragmentation (Scheduling) - another write intensive operation that is unnecessary and wearing for an SSD.

None of this is anything new to those that have researched and worked with an SSD.

So, about that Photoshop Scratchdisk location. If RVStock puts an SSD in the secondary slot for "supposedly" fast writes of PS temp files then the inverse is slow reads from an HDD in the primary slot for OS and Programs. This may not be what was meant in the postings, however, I've seen this declared as the ideal config in a lot of places and disagree with it.

It's easy enough to try the Scratchdisk in both locations and experience if there's a difference. Personally there's no diference because the amount of RAM and GPU and CPU are what is essential to have for creative software. Fast Reads are also beneficial.

 

Definitely OS and programs on the SSD, what i meant about TRIM is that it only goes so far, if you "abuse" a consumer SSD (as in server type workload), eventually GC and TRIM won't keep up and things will slow to a crawl. If you use the SSD to swap data or write an awful lot to it every day, you might run into the scenario. I can see times when writes speeds matter, recording in HD with FRAPS definitely slows things to a crawl under certain circumstances. By the way, TRIM isn't there so much to reduce writes, but to insure efficient garbage collection, it does have some advantages in regards to write amplification vs other GC algorithms, but the main reason it's there is to insure that garbage collection doesn't run into a wall (not enough empty NAND) under a normal usage scenario.

If you needed a lot of space for swapping data, then dual SSDs would be the way to go.

Really depends on your workload, like i said before i don't use PS. That said, as long as you don't run out of RAM for data that needs fast access you'll be fine, but i could definitely artificially create a scenario where there would be a difference using a SSD vs a HDD for the swap file.