M4800 configuration question

Am looking at the M4800 primarily due to the following factors:
(1) 4th gen i7-4810MQ
(2) smart card reader
(3) 32GB allowable RAM
(4) Fingerprint reader is a plus

This will be a mostly work related unit. Software development. Will have 2-3 VMs running most of the time. Will need webcam for a few video conferences but not that many.

Am conflicted on which of the following to get:
Graphics card - AMD OR Nvidia 1100 OR Nvidia 2100
Screen - I'm ok with 1920X1080 unless it is really bad

Also, was wondering if one should wait for units with new 6th gen cpu. Was looking at some comparisons and did not see much of an improvement from the 4th gen (Of course it all depends upon what price those units come in at). Any thoughts?

Thanks for your help.

 

For 6th gen vs. 4th gen, it's looking like there will be a new product announcement in September, so maybe hold out for that before making the decision. The 6th gen machines will support up to 64 GB RAM (no idea what that will cost).

 

Those specs are already here.
http://ark.intel.com/compare/78930,78937,78934,88970

The question is with M4800 getting priced at around $1400-$1500 for i7-4810MQ (maybe they might get reduced further) and assuming that units with 6th gen will come at a premium, is it worth the premium?

True - 64GB max RAM is attractive but might not be enough.

Thoughts?

 

We have a similar-ish use case, I used my M4800 for either hungry VMs or large ramdisks, it's been a decent machine for the past year but after 3 motherboard, 2 dGPU, 2 CPU & a whole lot of component failures I'm a bit sour. Keep in mind that this is my individual experience and I run my machines hards, so ymmv.

I'm looking into jumping to a 7710/7510 for a few reasons, mainly the new 64GB ceiling would be a huge plus. The counterpoint to that is the cost for the sticks, especially for specialist ECC memory.

As far as performance for the processors, still a bit early to tell without real world usage, but here's the comparison between the higher end xeon found in the equivalent P50/P70 family, the higher end Skylake mobile i7 and my current i7-4910MQ:
http://ark.intel.com/compare/89610,88972,78939

My gut tells me the new chips will be a bit better, but nothing super noticeable unless there's a new feature you specifically need from the Skylake family.

Depending on your usage having Thunderbolt on board could be a plus, and having what seems to PCIe NGFF SSDs slots instead of SATA based mSATA drives.

Re: graphics card, even the M4800s we have with 3k screen perform nicely with the base k1100m card. Unless you intend on gaming or using software dependant on the Quadro feature set you will be plenty happy with the base card. The k2100m is around 100$ on eBay right now anyway, so you can push that upgrade forward at a lower cost than Dell's MSRP.

I personally use the 1920*1080 screen and it's about the only component that hasn't gone to hell, so just for that I like it. It's also a great display in the more general sense. Avoid the 1366*768 displays though, there's no reason to cut that corner. If you end up going for the M4800 keep your wits about and verify you're not getting short changed with the 768p panel, I saw it on a bunch of refurbs.

Speaking of, unless you need to commit to a purchase literally now, I'd wait out a couple weeks. The new models will officially come out and you'll have a better picture of what's available, and the current gen models will most likely drop significantly in price.

I really can't emphasize how you want to wait, the machine I'm typing on cost around 2600$ CAD last year, and using the configurable M4800 option on Dell's site that same machine is pushing almost 5000$ CAD today. I don't know what the hell is up with that, but even the preconfigured machines are either on par or slightly more expensive today than last year from what I remember.

 

Thanks for your input. This was indeed quite helpful.

First it does raise a concern that you've experienced that many component failures on this high end machine. Makes me inclined to get the Dell extended warranty.

No, I'm in no rush to get a unit and can wait for a couple of months even. What I'm trying to do is do the homework so as soon as the new units are announced and specs are out, I can evaluate quickly and see if it makes sense to buy the newer models or get the older ones for a bit reduced price.

CPU - I see you're using i7-4910MQ which is typically a $100-$150 more than i7-4810MQ that I was looking at.

RAM - The cost of new sticks are indeed something to take into account while getting the new units. Older style rams would be cheaper in comparison (I hope ).

Graphics - Great idea about upgrading graphics card for future and getting just the k1100m card for now. I'll take a look at how to install the card and see if this is something that I can do on my own.

Display - Since this would be a purely s/w development machine and with your positive comments about 1920x1080 display, I think go with 1920x1080. You're right that the 1366x768 displays are horrible and they weren't in my options list as well

The M4800 unit that I configured (after a couple of coupons)were coming out to be $1500 US. So I don't know if CAD prices are too high.

 

In some markets, the fully configurable options tend to be priced really ridiculously.

 

Yup, but since my current machine is a CTO, the only way to compare it to current pricing is to opt for CTO again. I agree however that 5k CAD (just shy of 4k USD) is batshit insane, a nicely configured prebuilt is half that, at most.

You're welcome, I was in your position last year and people running me through the pros and cons of the available machines helped me out a lot. Pay it forward!

I really want to emphasise that I'm basically driving this machine like I stole it. I'm meticulous about keeping it out of harm's way physically, but in terms of use I do weird, resource intensive things day in, day out. For example, I slapped a pair of aftermarket Samsung 845dc pro SSDs in there because otherwise I'd be burning through stock Dell white label drive 5-6 times a year. That 10 full drive writes per day endurance is a saviour.

If I was somewhat more conventional in my use cases I could reasonably expect that this laptop would make it through a 4/5 year life cycle with maybe a couple service calls or a component replacement somewhere along the way.

If you're a self-employed person or business owner you might want to consider your local rules for capital asset depreciation, over here as a class 10 asset meaning I can take 30% of it's value each year, meaning I needed to carry it over for 4 years to deduct it's full value. Therefore I took 4 year of pro support including accidental. Something to consider when you get to that part of your purchase.

Speaking of additional coverage, don't cut this corner. I'm proficient at maintaining and repairing computers so the next day on-site technician coverage is overkill for my needs, but what you're actually purchasing is access to near unlimited replacement hardware, within reason. My coverage cost me somewhere between 3-400$, but after a single mobo incident it was already paid for. You also have the option to have the parts shipped to you directly and I think they cover return shipping, though if you **** up, the replacement replacement part is on you. The M4800 is really one of the most pleasant and well documented laptops I've worked on, and all you need to work on it are plain old Phillips 0, 00 and 000 screwdriver bits. If you don't already have a precision screwdriver set, 30$ buys you this amazing set with an absurdly complete bit set.

That said, you also need to manage your expectations somewhat. My machine fried Tuesday morning and I had a tech with the replacement parts in the office this afternoon. "Next day support" really means "next day after the local tech gets the parts support". Also, I requested a motherboard along with a hard drive with windows 7.

Bless his little heart, he showed up with the board, the drive and literally a licence vlk on a sticker, but with no installation media. I mostly had positive experiences with Dell staff at an individual level, but the larger organisation is, uh, somewhat dumb. They'll work with you to make you whole, but expect to roll your eyes once in a while.

/rant

The main difference between the 4810MQ and the 4910MQ is an extra 2mb of L2 cache; I use it, but again, weird use case. Since you said you intend on running a fair amount of VMs, this may be relevant for you. Depends on how CPU intensive the whole lot is, but unless you expect to run into a bottleneck at that level I'd opt for the 4810MQ, especially since it seems to be the default processor on a lot of the end of lifecycle machines. This should open up your options, deal wise, but if you have the chance to bundle in a 4910MQ for a small premium (ie not +100$) I'd consider it.

If you expect to stick with the stock RAM, which is fairly decent to be honest, the difference between the same quantities in DDR3 and DDR4 is going to be trivial, especially if you stick to the 8-16GB range. Past that I found that opting for aftermarket sticks was not only cost effective but it allowed me to opt for a slightly lower CAS (9 versus 10 or 11 iirc) couple sets of Corsair Vengeance. HyperX was also an option, but it was out of stock at the time of my purchase.

Even if you stick to 16GB or less initially, VMs are memory hungry little bastards when you run a bunch at the same time, so having the option to extend to 64GB might be a thing to keep in mind for later on, so point to the next generation, the current one being capped at 32GB.

32GB is an ocean of memory though, if I weren't running a ramdisk in parallel to my VMs I could see myself being comfortable at 16-24GB.

Swapping out the dGPU is fairly easy, with the caveat that you need to tear down the machine significantly. If you have any experience working on computers you'll be fine, it's just you'll have to remove 30 screws or something to that effect to get to it.

The pre-requisite disassembly steps are listed on page 37 of the owner's manual, just set aside around 45 minutes for the first time you open it up to take your time, have a large, clean surface to lay out the parts you pull and have something like an empty ice cube tray to separate the screws by step. IIRC there are only 3 different kinds of screws across every component, so even if your cat knocks over the tray it's easy to figure out, especially since most points have the screw size moulded right next to them. Not joking, despite my reliability issues I adore this laptop from a maintenance point of view, I just wish I'd have less of it to do.

The dGPU is based on a MXM3-A form factor; if you don't need the Quadro feature set you could easily put in a gaming GPU in there instead. Just keep in mind that the "A" form factor is the small one of this generation, so the monster cards you'll see in the M6800 and the likes aren't possible to fit. For the Quadros you can go k1*00m or k2*00m but not k3-4-5*00m for example.

Kind of hard to eyeball from the leaks currently available, but I think MXM3-A/B carries over to the 7510 and 7710, so that option should also be there for those. Important to note that while the dGPU is socketed and replaceable in the new 6th generation machines, the processors are now BGA'ed, soldered, so once you choose the processor you're committed, whereas on a M4800 you have the option to swap the processor. This said, from a 4810MQ (or 4910MQ) you don't really have anything to move up to except for the hilariously overpriced and 100Mhz faster 4940MX, and as far as failure replacements go in my experience the motherboard is much more apt to crap out than the processor, so heh, trivial point to have the processor soldered while you're in your support coverage period. Outside of it a board/CPU failure pretty much means you'll trash the machine.

Display wise 1080p is my comfort zone, especially with external monitors. I have no issues running 2 external monitors (via the DP & VGA onboard ports, 2x DP via the dock) with my k1100m. Hell, I can watch a movie and game with mid-range settings at the same time, albeit the machine quickly enters jet fighter noise levels keeping itself cool.

While my personal experience has been somewhat hit and mostly miss, I still consider the M4800 to be a very capable machine. Simply put, I had the choice between that, a Lenovo W540/W550 or a frankenstein'ed workstation from Clevo/Eurocomm/whatever. That last one could technically outperform the M4800, but there's no such thing as extended support or on-site techs/parts with them, so they were a non-starter.

If you only expect to use 2 sticks of ram (16GB current gen, 32GB 6th gen max) you might want to add the M3800 to your list of machines to look into. The M4800 was released 2013Q4 with a refresh around 2014Q3, and the M3800 launched somewhere this year. That means that while you're still stuck with a 4th gen chipset, you do get a couple things lacking in the M4800 like a Thunderbolt port. It's 6th gen counterpart, the 5510, could also be an interesting candidate, especially since it bumps you back up to a 32GB cap.

I'd wager that the 7710/7510 models are going to be released Xeon-only for the initial wave, with the higher end i7s going to the 5510. The top tier Xeon E3-1510m and i7-6920HQ share most specs, with slight edges to the Xeon because of it's ECC ram and other edge case-y features.

Anyway, somewhat long commute back home, sorry for the wall of text, hopefully I didn't complicate your purchase decision too much. The next month is going to be the best time to purchase a workstation in the last 2 years though, your timing is great. You either get to opt for bargain priced, solid performers from the 4th gen that will service you well for many years, or you get the feature set of the 6th gen that have been teasing us for the past year.

After the complete ****show of the 5th gen I'm personally very excited to finally have access to stuff like DDR4 and thunderbolt.

 

that was a nice post, very helpful.

The reason I used 4810MQ is because it is more than enough for my needs and whatever information I saw, the performance improvement by going to 4910MQ wasn't worth the extra $$.

I'd never gotten the extra maintenance support but might think of that if M4800 needs some support in a 4-5 year lifecycle. Of course it adds to the bottomline.

I forgot to mention that I was sticking with the base RAM and HDD in my configuration because I was planning to using my current HDD and RAM I can always get a third party one at cheaper rates. Plus this RAM would not be as expensive as the newest ones.

Since I'd like to have 32GB max ability (and along with SmartCard reader + Fingerprint reader) I opted for M4800 instead of M3800.

Can do minor repair works on my machines. Have had some XPS M1530 and had replaced lcd panels (just the LED), dvd drive, keyboard, palmrest etc. Did take a look at replacing the graphics card and it seemed straight forward though I am a bit concerned about taking off the heat sink and putting it back. Perhaps I'll use a good thermal paste even though the service guide does not mention anything about it.

I know some people had mentioned (in other posts) about getting a higher resolution screen but I've found 1920x1080 to be optimal and if K1100 can work fine then there is no need to get K2100.

Can use the money by going with 4810MQ+K1100 to pay part of pro support.

So I guess another couple of weeks and we should know something about the new configurations

 

You have two options when it comes to warranty extensions, basic and pro. Basic involves you sending the system back by mail, pro has the parts sent to you and you have the option of getting a tech to do the install.

Not necessarily representative of the specific model you're looking at, but taking an M4800 at random off of the US website the costs for a 4 year extension seem to be 40$ and 140$ respectively.

If the machine is mission critical to a point that a 2 week turn around would cost you more than 100$ in incidental/opportunity costs, you know what to do.

Final word of advice, get in touch with a sales rep directly, in my experience they can be quite flexible on pricing. They also price match, so load out a W541 Lenovo and a zBook over at HP.

 

FWIW I haven't had any components fail on my M4800, but I don't push it as hard as fgervais, by the sound of it. It's on most of the day but often idling when I'm not doing CAD (or playing something like Civ BE) at home. The k2100m and i7-4800 both happily play Civ at 3200x1800 with no struggles.


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