M6600 Owner's Review - Warning - Large pics - Personal Opinions

Hey Bokeh, just want some opinion from you.

Actually first question isn't an opinion, you said you o/c'd your quadro 4000 and you got over 80fps in the maya benchmark in specviewperf. Just wondering what your o/c settings were. Also I have a quadro 4000 too except I'm sporting the crappy dual core i5 but I only got 50 fps for the maya part. Surely the cpu can't account for 30 fps difference right? Otherwise that would mean consumer cards can do decently (o/c geforce 460 pulls 9fps in maya section with i7 2720). Anyways mainly just wanted to know your clocks when o/c.

So as mentioned by some people on the 6600 owners thread, my lip seemed slightly warped as in the corners are kinda bent away from body when closed, and also it's almost impossible to close unless sitting on a surface. I wonder if I should return the whole laptop or just ask for a new casing for the screen.

And secondly, when I tried running furmark I immediately get a mess of insane artifacting (no o/c) however when running all the other benchmarks (3dmark11, 06, and specviewperf) I don't see any artifacting even with o/c. Should I RMA the quadro or just ignore it since it's a very isolated event for a program that doesn't realistically stress the gpu?

P.S. if I should move this to the general owner's lounge instead, just tell me. Don't want to cross post.

*whew*

 

Hi Bokeh.. I was hoping you could help me.

Are you running the drivers off of Dell's support site for the Quadro 4000m?

Or are these compatible with the Verde drivers directly off Nvidia's website?

I just installed Nvidia's Verde beta drivers, whenever the Quadro tries to kick in it blue screens, saying that the Nvidia driver has crashed.....

 

This is an i7 processor 2760qm.

 

Can I connect LG 3D display ( D2342P ) which is polarized 3D monitor to Dell M6600 with AMD m8900 card ? Is there a 1.4a HDMI on this notebook ?

 

Can you tell me the exact version number of the Nvidia drivers as well as the Intel Video Drivers? I want to see if I can recreate what you are seeing.

 

First off, make sure the Bios is updated and then disable Optimus. Then make sure you are running the latest video drivers from the Dell site or NON Beta drivers from the Nvidia site. I would go so far as to do the advanced clean install that the Nivida installer lets you do.

Now run Furmark with the machine undocked and plugged into a 210 or 240 watt power supply with NO overclocking. Remember, a lot of the software that does soft overclocking will try to autoload the higher numbers when Windows starts.

See if you still have artifacts.

I overclocked the Quadro 4000M for a couple of days just to do testing for this review. I currently just run it stock. I have not seen the kind of artifacts that you are describing.

As far as the frame rates you are seeing in Maya, you could be processor or memory speed bound. Remember, I tested with the 2920XM processor that was likely overclocking itself over 3ghz during the test. I am also running 4 sticks of 1600mhz ram and the mSata SSD. I have said it before and will say it again, the dual core processor in this machine limits it. As soon as you can buy the 2760QM for $300-$350, I would buy it. Expect to pay a repair shop for an hour of their time to install it.

 

The 2760QM can use 1600mhz ram. (Intel® Core? i7-2760QM Processor (6M Cache, 2.40 GHz))

Here is what I would personally buy - Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 HyperX Plug n Play Laptop Memory Model KHX1600C9S3P1K2/8G

You can see that it has a lot of very good reviews across a variety of machines. You might be able to find it cheaper, I don't know.

You can get the G-Skill cheaper, but the cas latency is higher.

 

Thanks Bokeh,

After a lengthy call with the workstation team,

They have decided to build me a new one with the exact same specs

Tried to get the IPS upgrade for extra $$$, but they said no upgrades were available for exchanges...

Thanks.

Oh and also, the drivers were straight from Dell's site. I tried running the latest Verde drivers but they also were non-functional so I tried reverting to Dell's with a clean install of Windows, but it didn't work either.

 

Hope I'm not hijacking this thread but I could use an explanation in layman's terms.

What would be the noticable difference between the nvidia 3000 and 4000 video cards? I don't really know any other way to ask this question.

I have a four year old m6300 that has served me well I have been looking at a m6600 for the past couple of months but can't decide on some options.
I am not a power user but I do like a nice laptop as I spend quite a bit of time on it. I do use a specialized CAD program that I draw kitchen cabinets with and generate cutsheets and cnc code and some 3d drawings. Just wondering if I would notice a difference between the two video cards. There just seems to be a lot of opinions leaning towards the 4000 over the 3000 and I would like to know why and for what purpose.

My m6300 is a little slow sometimes but it still performs well with the CAD Program although it will crash periodically which could also be the softwares fault.

Hope I am not over asking,

Thanks,

 

I would say, if you're not doing very intensely detailed designs on cad, you can get by with the quadro 3000. The main difference is in performance but for strictly professional use it will be fine and cheaper. You may want a faster quadro if you want to do some gaming on the side or just want peace of mind that you are getting the fastest performance for use with cad.

@bokeh
Funny thing, I disabled optimus from the bios but when going into windows the battery life is still really good. I am using the latest beta driver though. It ran the msi kombustor or whatever just fine for 30 mins. Probably a fluke with fur mark.

As for the slightly warped top lid, I don't have to send in the whole machine do I? Can they send out a tech to replace it or maybe just mail me a new lid?