M6600 Pre-purchase Questions

If you spend alot of time using CUDA enabled applications (photoshop, premier pro, CAD, ect) the NVidia card is well worth the money in my opinion. If you're not using CUDA enabled applications the ATI card will most likely provide better performance.

The other consideration is battery life. When using premier pro or autocad I get 2-3 hours of battery life. When I am on the integrated graphics only (surfing the web, watching a dvd, checking email, ect) I get 9-10 hours of battery life.

 

I'm not a gamer, I do work in Photoshop, but it's like a every three months for a project, if that. Unless it does something for the color, it doesn't do anything for me because I'm plugged almost all the time, and I do fine with it on a XPS 9400 with the 32 bit XP being my main limiting factor. The main attraction for me is less power, less heat, and the computer not working as hard. I'll pay something to get that, but not a lot.

 

Question on motherboards. If I get an i5:
1. Can I replace it with an i7-2920XM?
2. Will I be able to see the full 32GB of 1333, or 16GB of 1600 memory?
3. Will it perform as if it always had the i7-2920XM, and allow it to go to run at the normal 55+ watts in turbo mode?

Thanks!

 

1. Yes
2. NO you have to have a quad core cpu to use 4 dimms
3. What do you mean? it will utilize all 55w when it needs it.

 

Perfect!

The i7-2920XM is a quad core, and it's logical that I would because of the CPU and chipset. I've never tried it, and don't know if Dell makes any changes that would limit that.

It is not quite that simple. The XM chips are allowed to pull 55 watts all the time vs the 45 in say the 2860qm. I learned from a forum expert here that the M6600 will allow the XM chips to pull over 60 watts (I think 67.5) until the chip heats up to around 85C. The end result is that the XM chip will run in an almost constant state of turbo mode. The 2.5ghz 2920XM never goes below 2.8ghz even when you try to slow it down with artificial loads like Prime95. When encoding video where the load spikes to 100% and drops to 60% in cycles it will stay over 3ghz for over 90 minutes across all 4 cores. What I don't know is if I buy one set up for an i5, and I swap in a 29?0XM, if I will be able to get the standard 2920XM behavior.

Thanks!

 

Hi,

Really need some advise please as I'm tearing my hair out as to which laptop to go for.
My needs are as follows -

As a hobby will be using both Maya 2012 and 3DS Max 2012
would also like to play some games like SWTOR along with some FPS games

I was really interested in the M6600 as I see its used as a workstation laptop so it would cover my interests in the 3D stuff but am concerned it if can also handle the gaming side of things as well?
Any feedback will be appreciated
cheers

 

If you are going to game with this laptop, I would highly suggest you go with either the higher-end Nvidia, or the ATI card. Currently I have the ATI and it does pretty well. However my replacement is going to have a 3000m which I am dreading at the moment :/

However since you will be usaing Maya and/or 3DS you may need cuda - so the nvidia will be a benefit to you.

 

I can't determine what the real world differences are between these two -- are they functionally different?

Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250 802.11a/b/g/n and 802.16e Half Mini Card [add $15.00]

vs.

Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 802.11a/b/g/n Half Mini Card

 

Simply - without getting too technical, one has WiMAX and one does not. They should be almost the same otherwise.

WiMAX - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I have a question regarding this.
Why is 6300 centerino comes with 2X2 which means 2 antennas instead of 3X3 like in almost all other laptops that has 6300?
Thanks,