Precision M4400 Owner's Lounge

I agree 100%, and not just because of the underwhelming performance gain of the FX 1700 over the FX 770.

"Mid-size gaming notebook" is something of an oxymoron, assuming "gaming" refers to stressing the notebook's CPU/GPU for extended periods of time. I had to learn this lesson myself, with my Quadro FX 570M equipped Lenovo T61p. Any computer can only dissipate a certain amount of heat, and a 15" notebook is usually going to do that worse than something larger (such as a 17"+ notebook, or a desktop). What we get with these mid-size powerhouses are systems equipped with hardware (Quadro FX 1700, Intel T/X/QX9x00) for which they can't adequately dissipate the potential thermal output.

My T61p could run World of Warcraft at max settings and native WSXGA+ resolution beautifully, but only for a short time. It would eventually overheat, with the graphics going haywire or the game crashing. I'd have to drop the resolution and quality settings down *significantly* in order to keep it stable. Forget about Warhammer, it would run for about 2 minutes before overheating the system.

If gaming is your thing, be prepared to take your notebook apart (voiding the warranty), and replace all the thermal interfaces with high-quality arctic silver or something appropriate for notebooks. Plus, be prepared to not be able to run your games at the theoretical max your hardware is capable of. You might also consider getting a lower resolution LCD panel, to allow your games to run smoothly at native resolution.

It didn't take long for me to give up gaming on my T61p. I ended up building myself a cheap-but-powerful desktop system to use for gaming. I just bought a new M4400, more or less maxed out, but with the lowest CPU (P8400) and the Quadro FX 770. If they'd offered integrated graphics instead of the Quadro FX 770, I'd have been tempted to take that option. A high 3D Mark score is worthless (for gamers) if the system can't actually sustain that performance over a long period of time. (FYI, it would take anywhere between 2 and 50 minutes for my T61p to overheat, depending on the game and game settings).

 

FX1700 has a minimum increase performance in games benchmark(3DMark...) but in cad benchmark (SPEC Viewperf) is efficient on 20-30%

 

someone posted the results, there wasnt much of an increase, in cinebench as well. its buried somewhere in this thread i think, also, check out the "fx1700" review thread in this subforum too.

Fignuts: i think your T61p might have had a blocked vent or something, none of the other T61's i know experienced this issue. These cards are based on the mid range nvidia gaming cards, the 8600GT in your case, and 9600GT in the precision's case. if it was a 9800GTX in a 15" chassis, maybe what you say might be valid, but a 15" chassis should be able to handle these cards without any problems.

keep in mind, these notebooks are tested under full load to make sure their cooling systems can cope with the hardware inside. the support costs would be murder on an OEM's already slim margins if they had to deal with all the returns due to hardware failure/non performance due to heat.

think of the notebooks just 5 years back, most of them ran hotter than most of the notebooks on the market today, needing dual fans etc.

 

I've narrowed down my wired network disconnection problem that I reported earlier in this thread.

If I leave my M4400 idle with Windows (Vista Ultimate 32-bit) locked and the screensaver on for any length of time (e.g. 20 minutes), then the network card goes into power-saving mode even while on AC power, reducing the connection speed from 1Gbps to 100Mbps. I can see this because the colour of the LED on the port changes. The reduction in speed causes a brief disconnection. When I unlock Windows, there is another brief disconnection as it reverts to 1Gbps. If I go to the Link Speed tab on the network card's properties in Device Manager and force it to 1Gbps instead of Auto Negotiation, it warns me that power-saving features will be disabled, and then I don't experience the problem and it never disconnects. "Reduce link speed during battery operation" is unticked.

I've tried upgrading the driver to 9.50.14.2, A01 (released on 24/02/2009) but the problem still happens. Does anyone else experience this?

 

For OpenGL, the improvement is very significant. Windows+DirectX will be used mainly for OOrg slideshows in Windows and for Viva Pinata and very occasional sessions of "Assassin's Creed." 99% of the time the system will be booted to Linux + KDE + Compiz-Fusion, which is a desktop environment which is a fully OpenGL user interface. So, while the upgrade for DirectX may be negligible for hardcore gamers, I haven't had time for gaming in 8+ years so any throttling issues and lack of DirectX optimization in the FX1700M drivers is insignificant. OpenGL performance is what I care about, along with 100% Linux compatibility. If I could get this notebook with the FX3700M I would but unfortunately that isn't an option. Given that I will take whichever fastest OpenGL accelerator is available and in this case it is the underwhelming FX1700M - which is better than my desktop's 7600 GT in any case.

 

from the benchmarks i've seen, the fx1700 didn't really perform better for opengl as well.

(i had the card installed on my system for few day's as well, and couldn't tell any improvement at all)

 

I'm surprised you didn't consider the Latitude E6500, as it is basically an M4400 with a lesser GPU.

 

Weird - I just went to the Nvidia driver download page to check for FX3700M drivers (I'm also considering the m6400 - but without the battery slice I'm very hesitant since runtime is maybe 90 minutes) and this time I was also able to select FX1700 drivers.

 

Please show your benchmark for SPECviewperf

 

I'll admit, I didn't even know about the E6500 when I pulled the trigger on the M4400. I hadn't read too much about it on these forums, and what little I did read indicated it was not as good as the M4400. Honestly, my biggest concern in buying a new laptop was display quality. I'm so terribly tired of looking at my dim, "frosty" T61p screen, I just want something that's not crap. From everything I've read, it's next to impossible to find anything that rivals the old IBM Flexview (IPS) screens. I asked around for "the best" LCD panel currently available in a mid-size notebook, and was directed to the M4400's RGB LED screen. I realize that it still a TN panel, but "good" reviews with useful, quantitative data about the image quality of LCD panels are really hard to come by. Most of them stop at providing brightness and contrast ratio, which says very little about the viewing angle quality, color gamut, and other important qualities. I couldn't find anything that might be better. If there were any reviews which had solid, quantitative numbers showing that the E6500 or E6400 had a better quality LCD panel at least WXGA+ resolution, I'd go for that in a heartbeat.