Latitude E6510 Owner's Lounge

So FedEx left me a notice today and not expecting anything I go to pick up the package. I look at it and it says from Dell so I rip it open and to my amazement they must have included every screw that they use to put the system together.

All I have to say is bravo Dell.

 

Well that is cool. You never know when you'll ever need laptop screws.
Maybe you should try a wireless card: Behold Dell's "Buy One Wireless Card, Get 120 Free" Promotion - The Consumerist

 

I was told that they have ordered a new E6410 i7-620M (as a replacement for my refurb E6510) on my behalf because an E6510 with 720QM is no longer available as a configuration option. I can pretty much configure the 720QM in the E6510 on their Latitude section. I don't know if they don't want to offer that or what, but they said they could offer me a new i5 based E6510.

I looked around and don't see a lot of reviews on the i5-580M.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the i5-580M vs the i7-720QM?

 

Notebookcheck has some useful tables and you can see that, in some circumstances, the dual core CPUs can out-run the quads. The latter thrive when running multi-threaded software which can fully use all the cores. For example, SuperPi is single threaded and wPrime is multi threaded.

John

 

What will you use the laptop for?

 

Hey thanks I looked through those the first thing, but the sample size seems too small for the 580m right now. And I did read through the 620m vs 720qm thread so I do kind of have an idea where things stand, between the dual vs quad debate, but my main concern was going from the i7 archi to i5 architecture. I know I'm losing 3MB L3 Cache and a lot of L1 and L2 Cache going from the i7-720qm to the i5-580m and 1MB L3 cache going from the 620m to the 580m.

But what I do gain is the 4.8GT/s FSB with the 580 while only 2.5GT/s with the 720qm.

Don't know if I'll be able to tell the difference in real life usage according to my requirements (below).

I will be mainly using it for programming, Adobe Lightroom, watching HD movies etc and general multitasking.

The thing is I use chrome a lot and the multi threaded nature of it seems to be right up the alley of the 720qm. So the only processor demanding program I use is Adobe Lightroom and a virtual machine maybe (but this won't be on the whole time) while I 100% of the times use Chrome with a lot of tabs open, amongst other applications.

I have a feeling 720QM suits my needs better, this Dell rep doesn't seem to want to give me one.

I wanted to know if I would be crazy if for unavoidable reasons I had to choose the 580m (from the newest lineup of i-series processors) over the 720qm.

P.S. I don't game whatsoever.

Thank you for your help!

 

It's your choice but personally I would go for the i5 580M. Chrome may be multi-threaded but is the cumulative CPU load substantial? Open the Performance tab in Task Manager to see the CPU load for whatever you are running now. I expect that 4 threads on 2 cores can comfortably handle the normal load and, if you hit the CPU with some hard, but single-threaded, work then the 580M will pull away from the quad core.

In everyday usage an SSD provides a bigger performance boost than a faster CPU.

John

 

Dude you don't need all that power/processors for a web browser.
Base what you are saying, Chrome takes as WAY MORE power than the craziest game on the PC. It's just a web browser. It should run super ultra smoothly under a Pentium 3, if not.. time to change your web browser , cause that would be a joke. Like a as software developer, I must tell you, that even if you do on purpose, you'll need less power than a Pentium 3 to run smoothly.

For what you need, same as mine -Lightroom, a Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz, 4GB of RAM, Nvidia GPU, is really all you need, and most of it is more for Windows and light gaming on the go, then anything. Your Hard-drive is what will bottleneck you form starting fast your virtual environment, RAM is all you need most to have it running.

I say get the Core i5, and get your self an SSD. You'll need the SSD more than anything.

 

We are talking about differences between an E6410 and E6510, correct?

I would be more concerned about loss of display screen area (desktop). What is being proposed is a 14.1 inch display versus a 15.6 inch. I wouldn't want to settle for the E6410's 1440 x 900 display.

A dual core i5 580M would probably perform well for the tasks you described. It probably would consume less energy too. A lot of people buy more CPU than they need/use.

That said, if you know you want an i7 720QM, work with Dell to cancel the order and start over. Get what you want, not what Dell decides to ship.

The E6510 with 720QM does indeed seem to be available for ordering on Dell's web site.

 

I understand you don't need anything close to a 720qm to run chrome, but my point is that it is amongst, other things, always open with multiple tabs (with a few pdfs, grooveshark etc) and thus leading to multiprocess/multithreaded conditions, which the 720qm might be better suited to handle.

I understand it is overkill for these requirements, but I was assuming that low clock freq but 4 cores might trump 2 core but higher clock for my kinda running conditions.

Noted, but given the options, and cost not an issue (since Dell is replacing the laptop), would you choose the 580m over the 720qm?

About the SSD, don't feel the need for one yet, I am waiting for the price point to hit that sweet spot.

Sorry about phrasing that a little ambiguously earlier. No, I'm only considering the 580m vs 720qm on the E6510, they decided I should have an E6410 as a replacement on their own! I am choosing between different E6510s only.

I don't know what their policy is about replacements refurbished products but it is supposed to be equally or better configured and this definitely is not. I would take the E6410 (which they ordered with the 620m and which I have told them I don't want) but I do care about the screen size and resolution, which currently I have at FHD.


The reason why I can't cancel and start over is because it's from the outlet. Let's see how they follow up. If they don't make a reasonable offer, I may just have to keep this with me. The reason I was returning this unit was this problem. Video link: YouTube - Nvidia NVS Quadro 3100M full screen flickering issue

They couldn't solve it despite me sending it to the Depot and they offered a replacement. Only they're being completely opaque to how they select a replacement and giving me misinformation about availability of i7 processors on the E6510.

I am about ready to give up on this thing and just accept this laptop as is. I got it for a decent price and I can no longer spend any more time than I already have chasing this issue!!!



I appreciate all of your replies for giving me some perspective and insight.