M6600 Owners Thread

Just going to put in a quick plug for dell outlet. I recently purchased a precision m6600, and when i received it it had a few dings on it from the manufacturing process. Dell offered to send a tech out to replace the whole chassis etc, but i started looking at dell outlet and found the EXACT same laptop there, only with a bigger hard drive, for $1000 less than the employee purchase program price. I strongly suggest you look around because here's what I got for $1500:

i7 2760
4gb RAM
750gb HD
Firepro 8900
FHD 1080p wideview
webcam, SC, FP

(i'm also upgrading the HD to dual ssd's and getting 16gb of RAM myself, for a total of about $2000)

That $1500 also covers the upgraded north american tech support and has a three year premium warranty.

that exact configuration, only less hard drive, was $2400 out the door counting the military EPP discount that I got. Check out the outlet, you might find something you like. Just yesterday I saw an m6600 on there with dual SSD's and 16gb of RAM for about $1800, it also had an i7 and a quadro m3000.

but, also you should know, I did a lot of research on the firepro 8900. I went with it because it actually has more raw power and suits me very well for gaming; unless you need the CUDA features from the quadros, it's a very robust card that will get you well along your way

 

I need a 7 port hub to go with the dock. Then I need the USB to optical so I can use my Z5500 speakers.

 

Anyone looking at the M6600 needs to look into the Sager/Clevo lineup, especially from the Mythlogic and Malibal dealers. (You can get the 3000m/4000m Quadro's from them as well) I do believe I will be putting the Dell at the bottom of my list unless I can find such a screaming deal on the outlet, that it just doesn't make sense not to buy it.

The upgradeability of the sager/clevo lines is awesome. Though its a little more bulky, the cooling is fay better, the case is ventilated better, and you can actually run desktop processors in them.

Granted, this is going to tax my battery life - but at the end of the day I am more concerned with power, ability, and longevity (in both ways) then I am about having long battery life. I would rather have to buy a second battery or be plugged in a bit more often. I often find myself plugged in with my laptops anyway. Plus I can get a docking station, multiple monitors, and all together eliminate my desktop/home pc.

 

m8900 or 3000m for a cad-3dstudio max-photoshop use ?

2760qm and 2860qm are much different or only a little bit in rendering ecc ?

 

Thanks, that is pretty much where I am at. I am only going to purchase the M6600 if I can find something on the outlet that is to good to pass up. Otherwise I will be going the Sager/Clevo route via Mythlogic or Maribal if I do indeed purchase a brand new one.

I will indeed need the Cuda cores at some point. My curiosity of buying the M8900 and upgrading to the Quadro down the line was just saving money at first as I'm sure for the first year or two the uber basic drawings and rendering we will be doing would be well within the capabilities of the M8900.

I really love the warranty that Mythlogic and Maribal offer, as well as the upgrade terms they offer if you wish to upgrade your laptop in the coming years. Its a big investment, but I think one that would be worth it. But, if I could literally save $2k by coming out with something I'm still quite pleased with... the Dell Outlet and a M6600 it shall be!

 

and , new ivy-bridge are copatible with the m6600 ?

 

Been there, done that... wasn't that great.

The Sager NP8170, which is the closest to the M6600 in terms of stock specs, is 90% plastic, does not offer a backlit keyboard, does not have a better cooling design yet does have a louder fan, is bundled with a boat-anchor sized PSU, does not offer the expandability of the Dell (docking/internal mSATA/mPCI-e/etc), and comes with a warranty that is not as robust as the Dell. Plus you have to pay extra (an unreasonable amount in my opinion) to insure you get a good LCD without any dead/stuck pixels. With that said, the Sager line is still nice and the newer 2012 systems will be something to evaluate, but it does not get us past the fact that the Sager is consumer grade and the Dell is business grade with overall superior construction quality and post sales support.

Regardless, to each their own.

Scott-

 

IB will most likely not be compatible with mobile chipsets like the QM67 used in these and many other systems. I hope I am proved wrong, but it looks like cross compatibility will be a desktop MB focus and not one for the mobile chipsets.

Scott-

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Ref:
According to an article over at the Chinese hardware site, My Drivers, both a firmware and BIOS update will be required in order to ensure that your motherboard will be able to use a new Ivy Bridge CPU. Unfortunately, only the H61, H67, P67 and Z68 chipsets will be “Ivy Bridge-upgradable” with the Q65, Q67 and B65 chipsets being left behind (UPDATE: HM67, HM65, UM67, QS67, QM67 chipsets are also reportedly excluded from the update). However, it is important to note that, according to My Drivers, your motherboard must be equipped with the ME8 (management engine) firmware, which cannot be upgraded by the user.

Even though an upgraded firmware and BIOS will allow most users to be compatible with Ivy Bridge CPUs, those users will still be lacking much of what Intel’s 7-series chipsets bring to the table such as native USB 3.0 and PCIe 3.0, but should be able to take advantage of Ivy Bridge’s much more powerful DX11 graphics.

 

I can't wait until my new M6600 gets here.... says delivered by 4/20. IPS screen was a must for me.

 

Just an artificial restriction to make people buy a whole new system.