Firepro M5950 GPU does not idle = poor battery life

So, for that, they should force you to pay a $150 upgrade for less capable graphics or $300 for as capable graphics for the IPS Panel. It's also unfair to ATi that the capability of their graphics chip is misrepresented. And please don't attempt to say that the Dell IPS is somehow superior: The DreamColor display is the most sought after display in the industry. The price point on Elite Book Mobile Workstatikons is to high for me to justify and the Envy's are all overheating, so, i want a Matte Display. Now that I see this, it appears to me to be an anti-competitive strategy that AMD's chip isn't wire-able to Dell's IPS yet the industry leading IPS display is sold with this lower level ATI chip. Memory Slots has nothing to do with the argument, though the slot delta is an accurate fact, it contributes nothing in context to this discussion.
So, can someone from Dell explain this to me, please!?

 

I'm with you... The IPS display was just released for the M6600 and you can't configure it with a Firepro M8900. Pretty frustrating since I need good multi monitor support. The much more expensive Nvidia chips only support 2 monitors (including the laptop LCD) without optimus enabled. Optimus can't be enabled with the IPS. Pretty lame considering the M8900 can support up to 5 monitors and is more powerful than the Quadro 4000m.

 

Yeah, I was hoping the M8900 might get the support. I was willing to get a rolling case for the M6600. Heck, my Vostro 1500 is 8lbs already, and i'm tired of carrying it. Now that I need to graduate to a nice piece of equipment, Dell's giving me/us all a configuration nightmare. Why would I NOT want to be able to plug an IPS laptop into several other monitors. If i'm already a monitor freak for buying the IPS. What, they assume we all only have 30 in Dell/Apple Cinema Displays to work with? Please. I know one guy who keeps a low contrast monitor handy just to see if he should adjust Gamma down/up for people with poor equipment so items look good to everyone visiting webfronts he consults for. It's over in a corner and he plugs that cable in just once in a blue moon. Anyway, it all comes back to I don't like when companies purposefully under utilize great hardware to A. Drive Profits (Just reduce the 'discount' your giving on that package) or B. Create a misconception that you NEED nVidia for professional graphics and to use Higher End Equipment. ATi was always Nipping on Matrox's heels in years gone bye as the extremely close #2 in display signal stability and strength. I feel they long ago surpassed them. And I've seen one to many NVidia color depth issues (anyone familiar with dithering and some of teh 24/32 bit issues? not sure if that's a current issue anymore, but I have a long memory). So, I prefer ATi based on experience. The Desktop currently has a very nice 6950 2GB I just can't get time to exploit for the fun i'd like. But boy do the images look nice when I'm done editing.

 

2 weeks and no patch as stated? what is making dell delay? damn why so hard, is just a normal driver update no? when other company like hp (who wanted to go out of business) can release a working amd mgpu for laptop at the start! makes me feels uneasy supporting dell!

 

Hey Dell-Mano G, where's the update? On the M4700 in May? C'mon.

 

I'm frustrated with some of Dell's decisions but you shouldn't direct it at Dell Mano G. He's not in charge of everything Dell does and he can't make the programmers put out drivers any faster. He isn't even responsible for PR but he is on these forums all the time answering questions and giving out info. If anything you should be appreciative of his presence here. I ask him stuff just like everyone else and he doesn't always respond but it's pretty amazing that puts himself out there as much as he does for the Dell community.

 

Fair enough. It's just that NOBODY has their act together on the high end. The HP Envy's are overheating, they are overcharging for their Elite Book Mobile Workstations, Dell's screwed the pooch on the AMD power management, Lenovo has watered down the Thinkpad product to nothing special, and Toshiba has forgotten what a Quality LCD looks like. There's practically nothing out there that I want to buy because they ask me to compromise or upgrade for the sake of them wanting to make money using the same class or even inferior hardware. It's gotten absurd.

 

Agreed. I haven't been able to pull the trigger on a new system yet because there is nothing out there that I want. Not only are the Elitebooks overpriced but they have inferior cooling, supposedly grainy dreamcolor IPS displays and a weaker AMD gpu on the 17"... As soon as Dell releases a system with a powerful AMD card and IPS I'm going to buy.

 

And we continue to wait... I'd love to feel comfortable buying one of these... maybe after the AMD switchable graphics is working and I can get okay battery life instead of horrendous.
Can someone tell me how much a 4600 on FirePro is lasting on full charge for web browsing etc?

 

4600 on firepro lasts about 4 hours surfing over wifi with brightness turned down slightly. At max brightness it's about 3 hours