Help choose between Precision M4700 or Latitude E6540 or wait for Precision M4800

The comparison is between very similarly configured systems.

i7 3740mq vs i7 4800mq

16gb DDR3 vs 16gb DDR3L

Firepro m4000 vs Radeon 8790m

1080p displays on both

256 SSD + 750 HDD on both

Both with 9 cell battery.

Both priced almost equal with these configurations. M4700 might be a little less.

My uses would be all graphic intensive and modeling-rendering (Adobe CS, Maya, ZBrush). No gaming here. I know both of them do not have good enough displays for graphic work, but I'll probably be replacing the screens anyways or use them mostly with external displays.

I have mostly been a Desktop guy and don't have much experience with both Precision and Latitude line. Weight is not much of an issue to me but will definitely take battery run time under consideration. I always appreciate good workmanship.

Performance wise even though E6540 seems to be equipped with a better processor, it throttles under peak load, as other users have experienced. So that is that.

Or should i wait to see what M4800 comes out with ? But when new i don't think it would be much configurable and the price I'm sure will not be comparable either.

What should i do ?

 

The M4700 comes with a 3 years NBD warranty atock, is it the same for the Latitude or is it an extra?

Maya definitely favors the Firepro over the Radeon. However, it will be the other way around in anything OpenCL where raw compute unit count and clocks prevail.

The M4800 would be the better choice in my opinion as it will either pack a faster firepro, the K1100m or the K2100m which ill all outperform what the E6450 packs in terms of GPU in Maya. nVidia has weak OpenCL performance (which some Adobe programs use, but not all and not under every circumstances and I think that there is still one program on the CS Suite using CUDA which is nVidia only).

I have no idea on ZBrush performance as I don't use it and I have no benchmark data on it either.

I have no idea how long the battery lasts on the M4700 with the firepro, but on the M6700, it's between 4-5 hours depending on usage for the light stuff. Start using the CPU and GPU intensively and you'll suck the battery dry quickly, but that is true of any laptop.

As for the CPU, Haswell is slightly faster that Ivy Bridge, but not by much so unless every second counts..., it uses less power however, so it means better battery life.

 

Both M4700 and E6540 have 3 Year Basic Hardware Service with 3 Year NBD warranty.

I want to wait for M4800, but I'm afraid price would be an issue (at least) when it comes out.

Battery run time under load >2hrs and regular WiFi surfing 5-6 hrs is good enough for me.

To me the contest is between older, (marginally) slower but proven and with better build vs newer, faster but with both performance (throttling) & quality issues.

May be what I'm looking for is someone pushing me in one direction and say "get this, you won't be disappointed".

Thanks.

 

one thing about 4700 is superior cooling and importance of that cant be stressed enough. longevity of a notebook realy depends on how cool can you run it in the long run. in my exp as an ex service tech every model that was running cooler managed to live longer. not to mention extra performance you get from cpu constantly using and working in turbo mode.

as you can see i have a basic quad core in my m6600 which dosent matter at all since 90% of the time in ful load its running on either 2.9 or 3.0 ghz under turbo. no need to say how big jump from default 2.2 that is.

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