Next Generation Latitude release date?

I'm a bit puzzled by the specs of the new NVS 5200M. It looks like it's basically a GeForce GT 620M with a 64-bit wide memory bus, most likely a 28nm GF117 chip (that's right, no Kepler ). According to Dell the chip is paired with 1 GB of GDDR5. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, would GDDR5 really give a performance boost for such a low end GPU? I'd expect them to go with DDR3...

 

That is very common Latitudes are paired with very week graphics and feels crippled that way. Basically will be better to use the included HD4000 which quite close to 620M performance, but without adding extra power consumption and heat.

 

You are being a little short sighted here. HD4000 graphics are around 50% faster than HD3000 was, but the HD4000 uses a lot more watts of power. Remember, Intel chips will clock the CPU up until the thermal envelope of the of the overall chip is met. This means that when the integrated GPU is running at full tilt, the CPU on the same die will not have as many watts available for turbo mode.

Having a dedicated GPU off the Intel chip means the CPU can always use all of the available thermal overhead to stay in higher turbo modes since the heat generated by the graphics workload is now on a separate chip.

Also, HD4000 will run at Diablo III at 26fps med/ 15fps high while the N5200 should do 48.7/29.1. So about twice the performance of the integrated graphics. Not too bad.

 

Diablo 3 is one of the few games, that Intel HD cannot play well. Here is an better comparison with more demanding games:



N5200 equal about with 525M. And if CPU can always use all of the available thermal overhead with dedicated GPU, than N5200 will causing extra heat unnecessarily. Personally I say; near today's integrated graphics have no sense of dedicated graphics under 640M.

 

Anyone know how USB3 is supposed to be supported on the E-Port Replicator and if it's compatible with current replicator docks that are out in the wild?

Checking Dell's site the e-port replicators don't seem to be updated with any USB3 ports yet Dell's E6x30 configurators appear to suggest they do support it now.

 

I was basing comcomparisons on the 620M. Since specs are so limited, I used the one software title listed for both.

Also, thermal envelopes are about the power consumed and heat produced on a chip. If they share a heatsink - which they probably will - then yes, a video card's heat can affect the cpu's heat. But for what I was talking abot, the cpu only cares about what it consumes and produces.

 

I noticed that, too. Could be, that some new USB 3.0 versions of docking stations come first only with the new laptops and later come to the open market. It was similar with the Modular USB 3.0

 

Do you think the new E6530 have same MB/internals as the E6520?

If so I wonder if the new E6530 Bios could work with some modification on the E6520...so could upgrade to Ivy Bridge

 

E6530 has QM77 Express Chipset and native USB 3.0
E6520 has QM67 Express Chipset and no native USB 3.0

I think, the MB is different. So far i know, Dell engineers answered, that Ivy Bridge could work on the E6520, but you would have to change the chipset firmware or something like that.
I doubt, that they would write a bios, that would allow to use Ivy Bridge in the E6520, because you wouldn`t have to buy a E6530 then.

 

Good point...would a E6530 MB fit in an E6520?
If I find it cheap on ebay...but I think it is not worth the performance increase overall - only curious to know