e6410 Questions

Am planning to buy an e6410 with the following config.

Win 7 home, 32bit (I have Win7 prof license)
i7-640M (2.80GHz, 4M cache)
4.0GB, DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM, 2 DIMMS
Backlit Keyboard
Intel® HD Graphics with ExpressCard
250GB 7200rpm Hard Drive
Fingerprint Reader and Contactless Smart Card Fingerprint Reader and Contactless Smartcard Reader
LCDs 14.1" UltraSharp™ WXGA+(1440x900) Anti-Glare LED with Premium Panel Guarantee
Bluetooth Dell Wireless® 375 Bluetooth Module
AC Adapter 90W A/C Adapter (3-pin) Energy Star
8X DVD with Cyberlink Power DVD™, no media
Light Sensitive Webcam and Noise Cancelling Digital Array Mic
Wireless LAN (802.11) Dell Wireless™ 1501 802.11b/g/n Half Mini Card
Latitude ON Dell Latitude On Flash
Primary battery 6-cell (60Wh) Lithium Ion Battery
5 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 5 Year Next Business Day On-Site Service
Installation Services
5 Year CompleteCare Accidental Damage Protection

Found a 30% off coupon, comes to $1,482 plus taxes.

I do a lot of excel number crunching on excel, in addition to heavy web browser usage. I currently use a 5 year old T43p, which is badly in need of an upgrade.

Key Questions:

1. Price - since e6420 is around the corner, would I get a better deal on e6410 say a month or two down the road? I did not see any (approx 30%) e6410 coupons for the past few months. So am a little wary about missing this.
2. Are there any downsides to an i7-640m e.g. excess heat, as compared to a i5-580m?
3. Should I wait for e6420? From what I have heard abt the changes, nothing seems that critical to me. Am I missing anything?

Thanks

 

You can find much more attractive prices in Dell Outlet. Regarding your questions 1 and 3, see this thread and this thread.

Re question 2, the early i7 CPUs seemed to run hotter than the i5 CPUs although they are both 35W parts. However, now that they have been under production for a year the manufacturing process should have improved. I have not seen any recent reports about excessive heat from the i7s although I would expect the bigger cache to slightly increase the idle power drain. Actual performance depends in TurboBoost which is sensitive to the thermal properties of individual CPUs.

John

 

1) I doubt it. The E6420 is slated to be released in March. Dell just had a 15% off coupon the past weekend, I got my base E6410 for 458 dollars shipped.

2) There are no downsides but the i7 dual core hardly offers anymore than the i5, just slightly more cache and clock speed.

3) If you are buying IGP then you might want to wait for SB. The IGP is much more potent than the current Intel HD graphics. Though it's been rumored the E6420 is going to 16:9 so that might be a turnoff for me..

 

thanks for the feedback. On price, any chance I would get a better deal? on the main site as opposed to Dell Outlet.

 

I doubt it. The refurbished save you up to like 50% and you still get the 3 year warranty on mainstream E models. Some of the other E notebooks are crazy expensive new, like the E4310 and the refurbished is like 50% off the brand new price.

 

Thanks couple of more questions

1. There are a number of options on the Wireless Networking, not able to figure out the best option there. I dont need backward compatibility, but want to make sure it will work with newer standards which should I choose.

2. Re. Integrated graphics, which is better Express Card vs PC card? See 3 below

3. I will occasionally watch a movie, edit some images on my PC, etc my guess is the integrated graphics with i7-640m & 4gb RAM should be sufficient for that. Thoughts?

 

1. Intel 6300 or better... suppose to be energy efficient latest greatest and the cost difference is not worth quibbling over.

2. Express Card is replacing PC Card, so skip PC Card unless you have older PCMIA cards your need to use.

3. Yes.

GK

 

I've got the Intel 6200 and it seems to be fine. The 6300 can give more bandwidth if connected to a compatible router.

For example, Express card is the only way to connect USB 3.0 to the E6410.

Agreed. Only consider a dedicated GPU if you need extra 3D graphics power.

John

 

Thanks, I will upgrade to 6200 or 6300. Will go with the default Express card Integrated Graphics.

 

I ordered it yesterday. Made a couple of changes to the config, my bro suggested that I go with default 1gb RAM & replace with aftermarket RAM. The prices are around $45-50 (newegg/amazon) vs $205 for DELL 4gb stick. Also upgraded to 6300.

What is the most reliable brand / model for RAM? Thanks.