M6800 Owners' Thread

Yes, they are cross compatible going many generations back. As long as it is 210W or 240W Dell, you should be fine.

 

Not that I'm aware of a EDP Touch Screen. The only part numbers I can find are for LVDS Touch Screens. The only difference between the two is one has antenna for WiGig and the other doesn't.

So I'm unable to tell you is there is any visual quality differences.

 

hey all. just got my hands on one of these laptops for free (along with an M6700 as well) with the following specs:

1. i7-4910MQ
2. 16gb (4x4gb) Ram
3. 512gb SSD
4. Nvidia Quadro K4100M 4GB.

this things reminds me of an older Alienware M17x and M18x that i use to own. can anyone tell me if the K4100m can be gamed on? also how can i tell what screen.LCD that i have on this thing? thanks in advance.

 

Moninfo can tell you about the screen. https://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/moninfo.shtm
K4100M is "OK" for gaming. It should be able to play just about everything but newer, more demanding games will have to be low settings 1080p or medium settings 720p. You can upgrade to GeForce 980M (a bit over twice as fast) without much hassle.

 

i appreciate the reply. in your opinion is this laptop still relevant in 2019? i will be doing lightroom, photoshop edits as well as some adobe premier video editing as well. wondering if the laptop can handle it. i was planning to upgrade the ram to 32gb and max it out. your opinion would be greatly appreciated before i start throwing money at this laptop.

 

I'm still happily using my Precision M6700 in 2019 and I think it has at least another three years or so left in it for me... It is basically the same with 3rd-gen CPUs instead of 4th-gen. I've done Lightroom and Photoshop work without any trouble. (I never have touched Premier.) I also game on it and it works fine for that. I did upgrade the GPU to Quadro M5000M.

I do recommend maxing the RAM. It looks like you already have an SSD and also the high-end CPU (from the choices available in this generation). You're in good shape.

The main things that I can think of that you lose with this laptop compared to a brand new one would be...
- GPU speed (GPUs seem to be getting better faster than anything else these days, except SSDs maybe; anyway, most games have options that allow them to run comfortably on a wide range of GPUs)
- CPU speed (now that 6-core CPUs are available and 8-core are coming soon)
- SSD speed (no option for NVMe drives, only SATA)
- No 4K display option (you can always use external)
- No Thunderbolt

For me these things all currently slot into the "nice to have / wishlist" category and don't actually prevent me from doing what I need with the system, so I'm still waiting a few more years before I upgrade. (Intel 10nm / DDR5 / USB4 will probably all drop in the Precision line at around the same time, 2022ish, and that combined with advancements made over the years will probably tip me over the edge into buying a new one.)

 

thanks for that break down. do you think the m5000m is a worthwhile upgrade from the K4100M?

 

If you are going to be making decent use of the GPU (gaming or otherwise) then I think that it is worth it. It would be a bit over double the performance as I mentioned perviously. However, if you don't need the Quadro features, you should just get a GeForce 980M; it is cheaper and offers the same performance. You can find the GPUs on eBay (make sure to get one with an X-bracket or you'll have to either buy that separately or transfer the one off of your current card, a little tricky since it is glued on good). Dell has a manual posted with directions for swapping parts out of the system. Note that you will have to jump through some hoops to get the NVIDIA driver to load with an "unsupported" GPU... I can point to information on that if you do end up doing the GPU swap.

I'd say use the system with your K4100M for a while and then decide if you think that double GPU performance is worth the going rate of a 980M ($300 or less with patience).

 

I have been using this laptop (no gaming), I love it. No complaints. Handles all I need to do with power to spare.

 

I think so. I did upgrade my M6500 to a Lenovo P70 (the Dell 77x0 only offers one 2.5" bay), but the M6500's i7-920XM is a much slower processor than what you have in your M6800. My P70 works nicely for image editing; its processor (Xeon E3-1505M) really isn't any faster than the i7-4910MQ. I can't speak to the graphics; if you find yourself wanting more graphics power, as you say, there are upgrade possibilities, although the M5000M by itself is very expensive and probably would not be a worthwhile upgrade.

The big thing you can get on the newer systems is a better screen, at least if you want 4K and wider gamut. And yes, there are 6 and soon to be 8 cores, which will help, but whether all of those cores will run all-out is another matter.