New M6500 Discussion Thread

thanks, so all the fuzz somewhere in the middle of this discussion about Dell shipping 16GB 1600mhz on request was just a hoax? Or is there a different situation on the US market?

I'm fine with waiting couple of months for 4GB 1600mhz modules, this machine will stay with me for at least 3 years.

As for the usage - I do heavy duty architectural modelling and rendering so I was after speed, so I'm gonna get an extra 2x2GB 1333mhz and live with it for some time...

and btw - being able to use 1600mhz was one of the main reasons why I invested in 920XM too..

 

yes that's what I would do....8gb's of the 1333 will do you pretty darn good until you can get what you want...just eBay the old ram and get the new

 

no, I mean I already have 2x2GB of 1333mhz so in case I'll decide to live with 1333 I just need to buy an extra 2x2GB without selling anything, but your point brought me to an idea of ebaying those old 2x2GB 1333 and buying 4x Kingston HyperX 2GB DDR3 PC3 12800 1600MHz to live with for a year or so and then replace for 4x4GB later on... hmmm? Does that make any sense or is it stupid?

edit: funny, it's seems that at this momment there is only one 4GB kit in the UK, lol,)

 

That depends on your usage. The critical question is: Will an increase of the QPI transfer rate from 21 to 24GB/s give you a noticeably(!) increase of working speed and if it does, are you willing to pay the price difference for a temporary solution?
Getting 4x2GB of 1600MHz RAM is a temporary solution, because you'll upgrade to 12 or 16GB later anyway.

I knew that I wouldn't even need a QPI transfer rate of 21GB/s because depending on the task my bottle neck would either be the HDD transfer rate or the raw CPU computing power. So I bought mine with 2x2GB 1066MHz RAM only and now upgraded to 12GB.

It's some time ago (5-10 years) since I was doing heavy CAD/CAM/GIS stuff but even back then the computer was more waiting for my inputs than I was waiting for him to render something. And I never noticed any difference in speed due to different memory frequencies.

 

With me it's pretty much the other way around - I'm always waiting for the computer - not only to render, but also to process complex tasks, like boolean. But the problem is that I need capacity too - using Vue on my desktop with 12GB and it eats it for snack asking for more memory or making the scenes simpler,) So for me this is a dead end at this momment, maybe I'm jut gonna leave it with 4GB or order from the US....

 

So you already have a high-end workstation that is still undersized for your tasks?
Assuming that you selected the M6500 due to its computing power I guess you intend to do the same tasks on it like on your workstation. If you already know that 12GB of RAM is not enough, then why do you even consider to go with only 8GB? That would pretty much mean not to be able to do the tasks you want it to do, right?

If I were you I'd go for 16GB of 1333MHz RAM because the amount seems to be more important than the transfer speed. Theoretically the M6500 can flush the whole 16GB within 1.54 seconds with 1333MHz modules, while it takes 1.28 seconds with 1600MHz modules. Does this happen so often that 0.26 seconds make a noticable(!) difference?
I don't think so. But I think 8GB more or less would make a huge difference.

If there were no essential changes in the last 5 years to how rendering works than you need two things:
1. sheer computing power for the mesh grid
2. lots of memory for the textures

A slightly increased memory transfer rate is just a gimmick at this point.

 

yes, what are you saying is correct - the amount is eventually what I'm after - but it just doesn't feel right to max memory out with slower than top speed...I'm gonna spend £600 on 16GB 1333, with knowing that I'm not using it's full potential... Where as if I'm gonna spent "only" 250$ on 8GB 1600 now and survive for a year or so, it won't be that drastic to replace them with 16 later, no?

in terms of usage - this laptop will be my primary wokrstation, for Microstation, modelling, photoshop... but not a render-horse - for this I'm gonna get a new desktop with six-core, overclocekd to 5ghz, 24GB 2000mhz and a PCI-e quad SSD drive - I can't ask that much from a laptop so I just need it stable , flexible, the most demanding stuff in 3D will have to be setup and rendered on a desktop I'm fine with that...

so my cocnlusion it that the most economic solution is to buy additional 2x2GB 1333 and live a "hard" (lol,))) life with 8GB until these 1600 4GB modules appears on this planet,)

 

It doesn't feel right?
Well, I can't judge your feelings, but feelings is usually not what I go for when buying a computer.

If you'll later switch to 1600MHz modules anyway, then it's useless to get a full set of 1333MHz modules now. That's correct. It only makes sense if you stick with the 1333MHz modules.

Not sure what "modelling" means, but neither Microstation nor Photoshop will profit from 1600MHz modules in a way that you will actually notice. Both will mostly hold static data in the RAM or pipe portions of it to the CPU that will then have some heavy work to do. So either there is not much data movement via your QPI or it's basically sitting there, waiting for the CPU to get things done.
The only scenario I can imagine where the QPI speed matters is when you have lots of textures that shall be altered quickly but in a way that doesn't require much computing power. How often do you photoshop uniform 16GB bitmaps and change them from red to blue? More or less than every two seconds?

 

I'm having an issue with the screen resolution changing when I close the lid on my M6500. I am normally running at 1920x1200, but when I close the lid and reopen it all my windows are squished into the upper left corner in what appears to be a 1024x768 sized area. It seems closing the lid temporarily changes my resolution to 1024x768 and then restores it back to 1920x1200 which messes up all of my windows.

This is what I've tried so far to resolve the issue:
1. Update nvidia drivers
2. Change the LidBehavior nvidia registry setting from 0x11 to 0x10
3. Change the multiple display settings in nvidia control panel and windows 7 settings by disabling the second display, enabling the second display and forcing its resolution to 1920x1200

Any ideas? This is really frustrating...

 

I am considering purchasing the following configuration but one of my biggest concerns is the weight. I know someone that has an Alienware M17X and the thing is a beast weighing about 12 lbs. I don't want it to be too heavy. Can anyone provide any information on the exact weight? I know it depends on the configuration.

Thanks.

Dell Precision M6500 Mobile Workstation for Quad Core Processors w/ USB 3
Genuine Windows® 7 Ultimate, 64-, no media
Intel® Core™ i7-820QM Quad Core 1.73GHz 8MB
1.0GB ATI® FirePro® M7740 Graphics
8.0GB, DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM, 4 DIMMS
17" Wide Screen WUXGA RGBLED LCD Panel w/ integrated camera and mic
All Hard Drives, Non-RAID, 1 or 2 drive total configuration
256GB Mobility Solid State Drive
500GB 7200rpm Hard Drive with FFS
3 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 3 Year NBD On-Site Service
Blu-ray Disc™ with Roxio and Cyberlink PDVD™
Intel® WiFi Link 5300 802.11a/g/n Draft Mini Card
Dell 365 Bluetooth 2.1 and Dell Ulta Wide Band 420
No Contactless Smart Card Reader
No Mobile Broadband Selected
FIPS Certified Fingerprint Reader
210W/240W switchable Slim 3P A/C Adapter
My Accessories
No Modem
My Services & Warranties
Also Included
9 Cell Battery
Internal English Backlit Keyboard
No System Documentation