Seriously considering m6700 for guerilla Visual Studio/Blend and other development

My main job wasn't coding and really isn't yet I find myself regularly using between 1 and five open solutions at a time in VS 2012, various custom tools and LINQPad, SQL server and Access databases all open at once.

The reason is I build content for a product that needs Access for the content plus SQL Server /Access for the client data. The role has a LOT of ad hoc support which at times devolves into a quick SQL query prototype on my machine-then on the client machine via remote support. Or actual code.

What I mean by guerilla coding is it's not unknown for me to be asked to do stuff by my boss (or others) and for him to have expected I'd just manually do it in some fashion i.e. not break out the code editor and actually automate the problem (the most famous being the data dictionary that I was meant to spend two weeks manually building that took me about 6 hrs to do automatically - 5.59 of those being learning enough sql to generate master/child tables from the schema). Hate solving the same problem twice .

In real life that means I need to flick open various solutions, generate code or prototype an idea, make it work and quickly / discretely compile and deploy-as part of my workflow. Just so that I don't give an impression that I'm all day writing code when I'm thought to be manually building content . Sneaky sounding perhaps, but the reality I've accelerated a LOT of my tasks by discretely developing machinary to sort jobs out rather than just being a sheep.

They've given me the go ahead to pay for my own development computer as I don't want to be held back by "business economics" of sticking to a basic machine. I'm opting for a m6700 with dual SSD raid 0, K3000m, 32gb ram and an I7 3840QM. It's to last me about 4 - 5 years ideally and solid performance all round is important. Has to be a laptop as I don't wish to leave hardware I purchase at the office when I could use it at home. The Quadro is overkill but I've intentions of learning some Cuda programming for fun sometime.

Most work code is database centric and I use VB work / and VB/F# at home.

I know the unit is aimed at the 3D / Cad folks but I suspect it isn't that far overkill especially if I decide to run a couple of VM's in it.

Would folks suggest anything better suited? The budget is around £3k as thats the loan I'm prepared to take for it!

Thanks for reading

Opinions?

 

Well, if you do not need the graphical performance, you could get the M6700's smaller brother, the M4700. You'll get access to the same CPUs, same amount of RAM, quadro GPU. If you remove the optical, you could even keep the RAID 0 SSDs.

 

I'm a software developer and I've been quite happy with the M6700. There''s plenty of room for storage and the 32 GB of memory allows for things like data-driven processing jobs, major database work, or running a few VMs at once (comfortably). Plenty to do here, it's not just a CAD box.

I have the beefy graphics card but that's more for gaming during downtime than anything else.

Like Tijo said, the M4700 will work as well, you just get a 15" screen instead, not as great graphics, and one less disk. Personally I prefer the 17" screen so I'd go for the M6700 anyway, but if portability matters to you, just something to think about really.

The only real competitor is the HP EliteBook.

 

In the 17" market, the 8770w is indeed the only real competitor, but I'd consider the Thinkpad W530 a worthy competitor to the M4700.

Like Aaron, the 17" display is one of the main reasons I got my M6700 over a M4700.

 

The 17" is my reason too. I've a Clevo variant (a Novatech) I7 with 16Gb here and a 15.6" screen; I'd very much prefer it just a touch larger. The Dell appeals because it *should* be fairly easy to connect via a replicator to the dual DVI monitors at work. I don't get options at work over kit - unless I buy myself. The screens are Hanns G 25" that work just fine but are just DVI.

Thanks for the other options: I really really wanted to look at the HP but their website wasted an hour of my life on 3 different machines before I gave up! It just refused to configure any laptop at all. Might have another go now though, maybe they fixed it.

The downside to the Dell is I'm not 100% convinced on it's looks...ok maybe that

Nope, HP site still as bad as before. Not sure if they are fussed about direct selling like Dell are but it sure makes customising a laptop hard .

 

HP's website is a prime example of what webmasters must avoid, it is a mess and the only cure I can think of is putting down the injured beast and starting almost from scratch.

I can attest to the port replicator awesome factor too.

 

Well I've mailed dell a request they offer the 32 gb in 1866mhz format as an option

 

+1 on the HP "we only sell business machine to business, don't brother trying to config a machine"

The m6700 have one more pcie slot, which give you possibility to multi ad hoc + wifi.
also IPS goodness if that matters ~~

 

Well my brother met his challenge; at least well enough to matter..complete newbie to programming, to being able to meaningfully answer questions about lambda statements and other stuff - in 4 weeks. His day job means he has maybe 1 hour a day spare to learn coding.

So he gets my old I7/16gb Clevo with 256gb M4 as reward

Leaving me laptopless.

So today after reading through enough positive reviews on these forums I went for an I7 3940XM/32gb/Raid 0 256Gb SSD and Ultrasharp panel. Sadly the screen I wanted doesn't go in the red covet base but honestly how many hours am I going to look at the case? They're supplying a dockport that has dual dvi outputs as the work monitors are only DVI. Hope it works!

With luck it'll replace the work machine next Monday. The downside is I have to carry my work computer to work with me every day, on the upside, the boss agreed that I can use it as the work machine so I get to pick all the juicy bits that "management" would never ever condone on a budget basis (there is officially one developer in the company, the owner -but I do get asked for the odd bit of programming).

So looking forward to that. Picked a K3000m - over the top, until I sit down outside in the summer and decide after a few bottles of beer that now is the time to learn how to do Cuda coding

 

Delivery is tuesday 12th March. Wish theyd have offered a delivery upgrade as my brother is waiting for my old i7 laptop to kickstart his career!