Desperately need to know this!

Hi, my most performance intensive tasks on a laptop would be 3d modeling Cars, bikes, boats and stuff like that... and later rendering these.

What would the difference in performance be between a laptops with
1. Memory- 800 MHz RAM Vs 667 MHz RAM?
2. Processor - 1066 MHz FSB Vs 800 MHz FSB?
Assuming of course that the memory was the same 4 gb with 2x2gb sticks running in dual channel and the processors with similar clock speeds.

Would I notice any major difference? IF so, would that difference be worth 600$ or more?

I'm probably starting to sound crazy, so here's why I'm losing my mind - I need to buy a laptop before college starts in septemeber! BUT they are much cheaper in the US and I'm considering asking my cousin to bring it back when he's coming in July. I can only afford the thinkpad this june, but might be able to cough up more later... So that's why i'm comparing these. If the precesion or montevina can offer substantial gains, I'd like to wait but not for more than 2000-2500$.

1. Thinkpad T61p (667 MHz - PC5300 memory and T9300 2.5GHz 800 MHz FSB) Around 1800$ after tax after about 750$ in discounts!
2. Precision M6300 (800 Mhz - PC6400 memory and T9300 2.5GHz 800 MHz) +600-800$ excluding taxes.
3. Montevina (800 MHz memory and P9400 2.53GHz 1066 MHz) might lose all discounts? if so how long would you guess it would take for price cuts on these?

I'd really appreciate any help! THANKS!

 

the RAM of Precision M6300 is only 667Mhz. what graphic card does each system has? as I know M6300 has FX 3600M which is gonna be twice as powerful as whatever t61p offered. my school (NYU) always give students discount on dell systems no matter how new they are. Montevina should be a big jump from santa rosa imo.

 

no i just checked the precision it has 'Fast PC 6400 800 MHz RAM' I was pretty surprised cos i thought 800 Mhz was only on montevina! anyway, the price of the precision i was mentioning is with FX 1600m. the 3600M is a 700$ upgrade!!!!

but thanks anyway!

 

that means you source is giving you false information, check this page out by yourself: http://www.dell.com/content/product...n_m6300?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&~tab=bundlestab
another head up for you, for montevina RAM support: DDR2-667, DDR2-800, DDR3-800 and DDR3-1066 SO-DIMM.

 

whoops! i thought notebookcheck.net was very reliable.... http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Precision-M6300-Notebook.7960.0.html

hmmm... do you think maybe that mother board supports it and it was added on later?

 

You can wait until the cows come home as there will always be something coming out. I would suggest you buy based on what you need at the time you need. And price. Can't tell you what is best. I don't think the improved memory bandwidth will be earth shattering or anything. Because no systems are out kind of hard to give opinions.

 

You won't notice a major difference with those RAM and FSB speed alternatives. Some of the PC6400 RAM will also run a little faster (CL=4) at 667MHz, and CL=4 667MHz RAM is also available but is not mainstream.

The new CPUs coming out with the Montevina launch also offer increased speed, but with the usual price premium.

Do you know if your rendering is done by the CPU or the GPU? You may find that the GPU selection also makes a significant difference to the overall performance.

John

 

if dell don't do it, no ones can
keep that in mind FX 3600M is twice faster than FX 1600M

 

I forgot to mention FX570m on thinkpad Vs FX1600m on the Dell.... I can't afford the 3600m, that's a 700$ upgrade... from my previous posts on this site, i've figured 570 should be enough... I'll be using Alias studio tools...for modeling cars, bikes, boats and that kind of stuff. so if anyone has any inputs, i'll be glad to hear them!

And john, rendering apparently is done by the CPU... that's why i was concerned if the CPU's FSB would make a big diff. and the GPU can in some applications do real time rendering with much lesser detail is what i've heard...

 

Tom's Hardware has some mobile CPU rendering benchmark results. You can try to extrapolate / interpolate.

John

 

It's the final render we're talking about though. GPU is primarily still Viewport acceleration.

Anywhooo, my opionion would be to wait and see what the Montevina launch brings for timeframes they should launch before your cousin goes, but they likely won't be available at launch in June, you will likely need to wait 'til much later for non Eurcomm, Alienware, etc model. If you don't need something right now, it gives you an idea what to expect. But of course with your time limit for delivery you might simply wait until the prices go down for this generation and order before he goes in July. BUT, don't wait too too long, make sure your cousin has enough time for them to deliver it to him. A minimum of 2 weeks is safe for a relatively standard config, anything special get him to order it at least another week sooner. Personally I'd say buy the memory yourself, likely save money there.

Of course I/O and memory speed boost are nice for the Montevina, but it does depend on the cost.

Likely a good balance of something like a T9300, with the most memory you can pop in the rig with a fast harddrive and CAPABLE GPU is the way to go. and while the P9400 may give you a slight boost, unless it's the same price I wouldn't pay much more than a $100-200 premium for it (for the same specs), and most of that would be for the future processor and other option support.

If you plan on keeping this rig for 2 years or so, then Montevina no question, if you might upgrade again by the fall of 2009 then the T9300 will likely tide you over very well and upgrading is not an issue.

BTW, it's unlikely any Montevina laptop will support both DDR2 and DDR3, they will likely pick one or the other and then go with that due to the SODIMM pin requirements.

As for the Quadros it's a GF8600 vs GF8700 essentially, and the difference between the 570M and 1600M is negligeable.

The 3500 would offer a nice boost, but for view port acceleration and then specialty CUDA accelerated apps only. Won't affect final render for most things.

For your particular situation I'd say short term it won't matter, the differences will be minimal. the major Montevina benefit to you is upgradability.

That being said I think DDR3 will be pretty expensive until 2009, and even if it offers you some speed boost, likely 4-8GB of DDR2 would offer you more performance than 2GB of DDR3-1066 depending on the size of your work sets.
If you work with small models, then the DDR3 may be noticeably faster otherwise I would take size over a tiny speed boost.

As for the 800mhz Memory question, it was supposed to be added later, but sofar it looks like it will never be added for the current platform. What they probably posted before was the expectation of the 'platform' not the actual current shipping hardware. May still be upgraded through a firmware push, but I wouldn't count on it, especially if it hasn't happened already with the amount of cheap DDR2-800 out there.

 

If you gonna use Alias you definitely NEED a good graphics card with OpenGL 2.0 support. Believe me. If I were you, I'd rather sacrifice a CPU as it can be upgraded easily, but go for more powerful graphics card.

 

But the question is what's the benefit of X more graphics power versus X more CPU power and the price of both.

Most ALIAS products amount to this GPU=preview / CPU=final product.

The options he's listed for GPU are all OGL2.1+ , and have sufficient buffer space in VRAM so they won't limit him, just be slight differences in viewport performance, and really we're talking usually about a small difference.

It's like comparing a T9300 vs an X9000, is it worth the premium? Sure versus an L7300 it's a huge gap, but as they get closer together on the high end there's diminishing returns.

Ideally X9000+Q3600M+fast SSD+8GB fastest RAM. But are you now spending 100s of dollars for ever smaller gains? For gaming the GF8800 is night and day versus the GF8600, but for modeling it will amount to less unless you truly are in the habit of rotating or adding motion to your many faceted objects quite a lot. For cars bikes and boats, most of the work is static, and then exported.

Also if he needs to have his cousin bring this too him to get a good deal, it's likely he doesn't have the same upgrade options we do.

I would say the $700 could be spent better elsewhere.

 

the fact is that when working with alias you spend most of the time in preview mode. When your model gets more and more detailed, graphics struggle to pre-render it quickly when you rotate/move the camera. Anyway, both cards should be fine and, of course, it does not worth 700. In my previous message I meant $200-300 difference, not more

 

You guys are awesome!

My cousin is already there and he'll be leaving around the first week of june. Right now, I can order a Thinkpad T61p with T9300, WUXGA, 4GB ram, 200 GB (7200 rpm) and FX570m and 2 years NBD warranty (is this an international warranty?) for about 1750$.

[getting 1gb saves 150$ how much lesser would 2x2GB sticks cost? is it worth the extra shipping and effort?]

Now if Montevina is announced in june and released by OEMs in July, will I be able to get one by September? IF that's possible will I be able to get the kind of performance (with the faster FSB and possibly faster memory) compared to the config I'm getting now ? Or will I be paying extra for only a marginal performance increase and the 'newness' and centrino 2 name? I don't really care that much about the battery life which the montevina might increase drastically...

I know these are vague questions, but I'm pretty sure with everything you guys have heard and read about, ur answers would be more accurate... :-D So, seriously, THANKS A LOT for all your time!

 

If he's leaving the first week of June, then forget the Montevina, it will be a later concern.

If you can get the full 4GB for only $150 more then go with the pre-configured 4GB.

You can get 4GB for under $150, but really it avoids hassle, and then Lenovo is responsible for making it work, and there's no risk of being BIOS locked out of using it. So for what amounts to maybe about $50 saving, save yourself the hassle and just get it pre-config'd. If you knew someone who wanted the 1GB they'd give you then maybe it'd be worth it, but go for low hassle over the slight savings (if it were enough to get other options, then maybe, but really not worht it if it were me).

I wouldn't bother waiting for Montevina if you have to try and find another way to get it to you. It's not about immediate performance improvement so much as more options in the future, but for your current limitation of your cousin leaving in first week of june, then you don't have the option of doing it this time.

The Thinkpad should be a strong option, and I wouldn't worry about the Montevina option unless you have another cheap shipping opportunity before you need it. As for the warranty, IBM used to be worldwide when I owned them, not sure about Lenovo now.

I'd say the T61 will do what you want and has powerful specs to get the job done. You might wanna see if your cousin can get you a cheap Wacom tablet, or better yet a Cintiq tablet may be a little pricey but they are nice to use, and to me that would be a better productivity increase than anything else we've discussed. I'd take a 12" Cintiq over the Quadro 3600 for that $700 (MSRP $999 but can be found for less if you shop around during sales).

 

too bad hes leaving so soon. a lower grade m860tu would be great for you. im getting it for cad, 3dsmax, mudbox and gaming ^_^

 

Hey Ape,

I can't thank you enough for putting things clearly in perspective, and this is not the first time!

The warranty sounds good, I will ask lenovo about it and I must ask... are you psychic or something? cos I was planning to buy a notebook for as cheap as possible to be able to easily pay for the 12 inch cintiq!

Anyway, you've made me feel great about getting that tablet as well... THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH for everything... I feel great now, I've actually been keeping an eye on this site and researching for more than a year for exactly this moment!

Carthik

 

I am truly heart broken

 

lol nirvana... I for the first time was clear as to what notebook i wanted, but unfortunately less than 5 minutes later was confused...
The 8510w has the fireGL V5600 for 50$ less than the FX570m and apparently the fireGL is better than the 570 AND the FX1600m for Autodesk studio tools! The 8510w being in the same class as the t61p has the ATI card but unfortunately is about 300$ more at the end inclusive of taxes. do you guys think it's worth it for my usage of 3d modeling cars, bikes or boats on Autodesk Studio tools??

 

you sure V5600 is better than FX 570M and FX 1600M?

also this thread will answer lot of your questions: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=80145

 

yea they seem to be in the same class but apparently for some reason it works better than the other 2 on autodesk studio tools...

 

Nice image, but what's it supported by?
Any tests?
All the tests I've seen for the desktop equivalents put both the 3600 and 5600 above the 570 and the 1700 betweent the 3600 and 5600 closest to the 3600 (which is DDR2), so I don't put much credence in that image that seems to be based more on the lineage of the Quadros of old than the reality of the current performance.

Not really, there's not much information there. It's alot of consolidating of PR and generalized info on what this market is and what the cards are and what they're used for, but little actual performance information to back up placing one in one spot and another in another spot, it seems rather here-and-there based on personaly preference.

Considering the different performance of the cards depending on the app, the very pretty image is alot of wasted space better occupied by a few test results. And putting the FX1500 in a class above the FX1600 and V5600 is ignorant of the serious geometry power that the new designs have, regardless of their slight memory limitations.

 

Hey when you've worked with the stuff enough you know what you personally would do with the money you have.

I don't work enough in any serious app anymore to warrant it (still play with 3DSMax, Maya and Rhino on occasion just to try something but for just a few hours a month at most if that) if anything I've played with CheifArchitect more recently for my own personal home design and because my cousin uses it proffesionally so I sometimes help troubleshoot an issue. And really CA wouldn't need it as much since it's less free-form.

But for what you're using it for, it seemed like a better use of your money. Glad to see you were already considering it and I didn't suddenyl just make you lust after another unexpected 'expense'.

Anywhoo, if I bought one right now, definitely be a waste, probably mainly doodle and cartoon with it instead of anything serious and worthy of the purchase.

 

i'm using Intuos3, love it and dream about buying Cintiq someday))