M6600 - Add 512GB SSD or upgrade i7-2720QM to i7-2960XM?

Which do you believe would add the most userland performance, adding a Crucial M4 512GB SSD, or upgrading the i7-2720QM to i7-2960XM?

 

This age old question comes down to what you use it for.

Assuming that you are using conventional HDD right now, Overall, I would recommend the SSD.

But this is only because overclocking is not supported for the xm chips with M6600. And hence, you will not feel any much "snappier." in relation to the SSD.

Though the difference between 2.7ghz to 2.2ghz is not negligible, if your programs demand raw cpu power. Also keep in mind that 2720qm chip runs to 2.4-2.5ghz for all four cores at 100% if the temperature is fine, thanks to turboboost 2.0. I can only see the xm chip running close to 3.0ghz with the right temperatures. But is having a chip with 10w higher TDP worth for a 0.5ghz increase? That depends on what you need it for.

Tell us specifically what you use the machine for and what aspect of current computing that appears to be "too slow" for you.

 

That's what I'm thinking too.

I agree, this one is not so easy to call.

I won't have it until tomorrow.

I own and IT company. I need to be mobile, and do a lot of everything. I have developed two large ERP programs that support large Tier-1 automotive suppliers, and two more to automate mid-sized tooling and pattern companies, which is why I really like the screen on my 9400 and was seriously tempted buy the M6500. I'm not even sure I made the right choice. I despise the 16:9 screens because I can see less code, but I can't stay there forever, I'd lose out on HDMI, and the XM has no more power than the 2720QM. I have the 6th largest weather site in the world, so I do some graphics and web development there, work a lot with UNIX and VMware's ESXi. I do P2V on critical customer Windows Server networks before making changes. I may be tweaking in Microwave communications between plants too. I get called by large companies and software companies for database consulting. I take large databases with me and prototype changes and roll-outs. So far so good with the T7500 and 9400. Here are the areas where I hit the wall, and why I bought this machine.

1) Large business customers never used Vista at all. I had more people on Vista when it first came out than any other time. It was great for my bottom line, and bad for theirs. I only had about 2 seats of Vista to support. However, since about March, Windows 7 is going in, in volume. I support customers with it, but don't use myself. I'm always able to help them, but I'm always a little off balance. That's not good.

2) I took on an accounting firm and an investment firm as customers. These are critical systems. They not only need solid systems, there is not time for changes and upgrades going wrong. That means P2V so I can work on their network off-line, and I need to prototype new network architectures because I only have a short window in which to do what I need to do.

3) I need to have different versions of software to answer people's questions. Running VMware workstation on a 4 gig machine takes a lot of time-consuming tweaking of VMs. I don't need to work that hard on my ESXi servers in the DC. Yet, it would take far too long to upload and prototype via VPN to the DC. That leaves me with P2V to a laptop, or an external drive, and connect it to a server at the office. That adds steps to the process, and I don't have it with me when I'm stuck waiting for a process to complete at a customer, so I decided to get a laptop that would last me awhile because it takes more than 60 hours to set one of these up. If I like how it works, then I'll buy more of these.

4) Because I get pulled in so many directions, I tend to have a lot open at once. I'll probably install a carousel in Windows 7 so I can have a desktop like Beryl.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

Depends what you (mainly) do with it.
If you think you need a 10 - 15% increase in CPU speed - get the 2960XM.
I would buy the SSD - in a New Yourk second rather than the CPU (for my needs).

 

I'm thinking that too. The only time I wait now is when the the hard drive light is on. When a process is running, I don't care that much. When I want to open something, I want it now. Once it's up, unless I'm in a big compile or a big database query, the CPU is doing basically nothing. An SSD plus the 750GB that came with the machine should keep me out of disk space trouble for awhile. Throw in 16 gigs of memory, and wait around for a deal on an XM. Judging from eBay, the i7-2720QM has some resale value. What also is driving to toward the XM is the fact that when I prototype, I can better approximate from the prototype what the performance on a server will be. It probably won't be the first piece I buy.

The first thing I'll do is make sure the M6600 will work for me. A good screen, good keyboard, and performance is what matters to me. I'm used to 17" laptops. I hate the 16:9 screen ratios, like I've been selling customers, but I'll have to deal with it I guess. There are no new technology 16:10s, and there doesn't look like there will be any time soon.

Thanks!

 

Hi,

Especially since the mention of moving to Windows 7 it may be helpful to note that Solid State Drives perform very well within a Windows 7 environment. There is also a great MSDN blog post discussing the Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives that may prove beneficial as you consider your options.

In addition, Microsoft has a Microsoft PowerPoint deck detailing the Windows 7 Enhancements for Solid-State Drives that you may also find interesting.

As an added resource, you might consider downloading and installing the Windows 7 Enterprise 90-day Trial before committing to the use of Windows 7 in an effort to test the performance of a solid-state drive.

Jessica
Windows Outreach Team—IT Pro

 

The Windows 7 support in the first link for SSDs was useful. I'm not new to Windows 7, except for my own machine. Everything I sell and installed over the past year uses it. I get everything MS sells to test for free. My only experience with SSD has been with our servers. A few years ago, as I came to realize we had zero failures with over 700 X25s SLCs, I went with RAID-0 on everything. That sure isn't how life goes with 15,000 RPM SCSIs. LOL! MLCs were junk at that time. However, this isn't 2008 anymore. I started feeling a lot better about them when Micron/Intel came up with their cell design. I'm contemplating a RAID-0 of 512s. I may wait until they come down to the $536 in-hand the were for a few days a couple weeks ago. I didn't expect them to go back up. IMO an SSD will do more good on user machines than servers. Over the past few years, RAM and CPU cores got cheaper, and ESXi, UNIX, databases, and web servers got better and better at caching and SMP. I really can't see any difference when I migrate the VMs to mechanical drives when I'm redoing one of the SSD servers. Servers are much more predictable so you can tune for the specific requirements. A user is not predictable, and is constantly starting and stopping different things. The drive killer on laptops is movement. Laptop drives last us between 18 months and 3 years. The savings of downtime pays for the drive and then some. You can even take them with you when you upgrade.

 

I would considering getting SSD on my machines if windows 7 can support full TRIM in RAID 0 mode. I dont want to compromise on anything. Not sure if this is os problem or more fundamental hardware issue. I guess two 512gb will be enough for programs.

 

I see what you mean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIM The Intel RST that the M6600 uses doesn't support TRIM in arrays. That would mean once the SSDs aged enough to where the locations had been written once, a RAID-0 of SSDs would be significantly slower than a single mechanical drive. Thanks for the heads up!

 

Even with the lowly Core i5 in my new M6600, the 7200 RPM WD drive is the obvious bottle neck. Short of possibly mapping the human genome, I think you will see the biggest performance boost from the SSD upgrade.

I ran some benchmark tests with my Force 3 vs. the 500GB 7,200 RPM that came in my XPS 17 (before I returned the machine to Dell). I don’t have the specifics in front of me but the SSD drive had 2 to 3 times the sustained read/write throughput for just about every file size the benchmark used.

Another thing I noticed from a different benchmark is that the read/write performance of the spinning disc steadily tapers off as the heads move closer to the center of the disc. It makes sense since the linear speed of the disc relative to the head is a function of angular speed and distance from the point of rotation. This and file fragmentation are non-issues with an SSD.

I also did a few stopwatch tests from power on to (Windows 7 Home 64-bit) desktop and power on to all startup icons loaded. The standard disc took roughly 38 seconds to desktop and 48 seconds to desktop with all startup items loaded. The SSD would bring up the desktop in 17-19 seconds and desktop plus all startup items in around 24 seconds.

Once I get the Windows 7 Pro 64-bit media (mine shipped with 32-bit), I am going to reimage the SSD, fully patch the OS and rerun the tests in this machine. The M6600 boots much quicker than an XPS, even with the standard drive.

Two other advantages are that the SSD ran about 10ºC cooler in the XPS and makes no noise.

Hope this helps.