Precision M6400 Owner's Lounge

That's a good point about the 3 year warranty. 2x2GB costs about $170 at newegg, so Dell is not too bad on the price...

 

I agree that the pricing diff in memory is much more reasonable and probably not worth getting elsewhere.

However...what's up with those hard drive prices? $509 for the second 320GB 7200 drive but Newegg has similarly spec'd drives for $109. Let's see...spend over $1000 for 640GB...or just $220. Am I missing something about the Dell drives?

 

I don't think you are, I had the same thought. Unless we are both missing something, then you can buy the exact same drives Dell uses (either Hitachi or Seagate, I'm not sure; I think the Seagates are marginally faster than the Hitachis, at roughly the same cost) for a lot less. If we're right, then the conclusion is to get the 80gig drives (or just one of them, depending on how handy you are with OS installs and RAID configuration), and buy the bigger drives elsewhere.

 

I'm proudly joining the lounge with my m6400.

specs:
CPU-T9400 2.53GHZ 1066MHZ
OS-VISTA ULTIMATE X64
RAM-4 GB DDR3 1066 2DIMMS
GRAPHIX-QUADRO FX 3700M 1GB
HDD-160GB 7200RPM
LCD-Ultrasharp wuxga 1920-1200
BLUTOOTH-370 MODULE

Cant wait till it comes

 

I wonder how easy it is to setup up the raid yourself if you order with the 80gb and then newegg a couple of drives.
One of the other raid-able laptops the clevo d901c has some kind of software raid controller, I wonder if the dell is the same or has "true raid" im guessing the former. Balls to spending out 1000US on 2 320gb drives. Perhaps they will change that price. They certainly should

 

Very easy - this is the one main area they still remain ridiculously overpriced. I ordered mine with 2 80GB drives so I'd have the cages and screws and such. I have two 320GB's already to put in. It is the same RAID found in other units, its the one built into Intels chipsets. Should be fine for most purposes.

N

 

Regarding the questions about the FIPS reader...

FIPS is a US Government purchasing standard for security. The FIPS compliant reader is a whole finger reader that you place your finger down on. The standard, less expensive reader is the usual swipe type reader which is not FIPS compliant. If you're not in the US GOV, you probably wouldn't value the FIPS reader given it's higher cost.

Regarding the HDDs Dell uses. The 7200rpm hard drives have a built in free fall sensor to park the drive heads during a fall. I doubt most of the retail drives have this capability, but I could be wrong. Be sure to check the cache sizes for differences too. And the comment about warranties was a good one. HDDs, memory and other components that are purchased with the system get the Dell warranty coverage.

Regards,
David@Dell

 

Nice idea Nyceis...2 x 80GB for the cages and screws. Thanks for the tip.

 

Thank you Nyceis, will be checking this forum to see your impressions about the machine. Regarding Quadro performance, from what i found out reading reviews is that the problem of gaming performace with Quadro chips is not the hardware but the driver used, that the Quadro Driver is customized to improve performance in OpenGL 3D apps, and the performance in games is much lower than equivalent hardware with standard GeForce drivers. The thing to test should be to install a standard geforce driver and see if it works with the quadro.

 

From Dell french site, new option this morning (yesterday, WUXGA LCD wasn't so priced) :

17in Widescreen WUXGA (1920X1200) with E2E Silver LCD Panel (Camera and Microphone included) [ajouter 560,00 € ou 28 €/mois-1]

Is it the high end RGB LCD panel ?
I believe for that price 560€
560€ + 19.6% (french taxes) = 669.76€ -> about 978$

EDIT : Yes, it's THE screen ! The 100% Adobe color gamut. (guess it was too early for me this morning to read "Edge 2 Edge")