[User Review] Dell Precision M4600 15.6" Mobile Workstation

I am planning to buy M4600. I want to know whether this laptop gets heated up very fast if we do software development on .NET for approx 4-5 hours a day. I have HP Pavilion dv6000 but it is a media computer and hence gets heated up very fast. I am looking for comparatively cooler machine and hence narrowed down my search to M4600.

I am planning for following specs:
i7-2820 QM - 2.3 Ghz
4GB DDR3 - 1600 mhz
128 GB SSD - SATA3
Backlit keyboard
integrated Webcam

I think the above configuration is sufficient for a development machine. Please let me know your thoughts.

Regards,
Pratik
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HP Pavilion dv6000 | Intel duo core 1.67 Ghz | 3GB DDR2 667 Mhz

 

There was a British review of the M4600 that I recall reading last week when the reviewer remarked at how cool the machine ran compared to others in this class. Of course I can't find the review right now but here's another one that you can look at Review Dell Precision M4600 Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews scroll down to the section "Temperature". I had mine running for six hours doing photo editing work and it was remarkably cool but only running on 4 Gigs of Ram. I presume it will run warmer when I install the the additional 8 GB that are en route.

 

Likely not, RAM isn't very power intensive.

 

What about 6 hours on wprime tests ...cpu fully loaded ?
I'm curious about that ...
i'm doing audio and cpu can reach 80% during long mlixing sessions .....

I'm still thinking between 8560w and 4600 or 17 mbp ...i tested the mbp , pretty noisy ...

 

Good and thorough review, thanks for posting it and also for keeping it updated.

I'm considering an M4600 with IPS to replace my ageing M90 - going from 17" to 15" screen to save a little weight. I was particularly happy to see the 180W vs.210W bower brick comparison. My M90 currently uses the 210W brick as the original one failed. That brick, plus the M90, is a heavy weight to carry around.

 

Lol, I just ordrered mine, and before reaching the 18th page of this post I really thought I got pwned by the weird dell sub-site I used. But actually it seems not, if looking at the performance test of the supposed 128 GB mini-card SSD, the Samsung PM800, the part I was afraid of and was advertised under the alias "SSD 128 GB SATA 3"... Aside of this the configuration seems good. Me too I choosed the non IPS, quadro 2000M, light quad-core 2720QM + 2 batteries, one having the 3-year battery replacement warranty on it, because the condition for my laptop was to combine raw calculation and displaying power, and autonomy: it HAS to last the 6 hours of train non-stop without plug I do every weekend, with possibly a movie in these 6 hours, so with 2 batteries and optimus I might hold that for more than the first 2 months of the batteries' life!
Will post some comments when I get it should be soon!

 

Does anyone else find that when casually using their m4600 the fans constantly turn on and off roughly every minute, rather than remaining at a low level to preserve safe operating temperatures? I find the noise of the fans turning on (a "click" and then loud "whirr") very irritating whilst trying to do any sort of non-computationally intensive work.

I've stumbled across a rather outdated looking website offering software to give the user more control over the fans (i8fan), but had no success in installing it.

My machine: i7-2820QM (2.3GHz, 64bit), FirePro M5950, 16GB RAM @ 1600MHz, hdd: 750GB Serial ATA (7.200 Rpm)

 

Yes, but I have no solution.

 

I have been running that on my M90 for several years now, and find it very useful. Its a shame it is not updated for newer machines.

 

This might be a useful alternative (I have no experience of it):

SpeedFan - Access temperature sensor in your computer