Some questions to the happy owners of the Precission M4600 Notebooks

What applications are you running on your machine? If you're using multithreaded applications and the cost isn't too great, the quad core models will undoubtedly be better.

 

Without a doubt I would get the Quad. There are too many drawbacks with the Duo. You can only use two out of your four memory slots, and slower RAM.

You're really not saving that much money, and the battery life isn't going to take a huge hit.

I'd only get the Quadro cards if you're going to be using CUDA accelerated software.

 

Yes, many applications are multithreaded, but I am not sure if they support more then two threads.

What?? I thought the number of used memory banks would be the difference between i5 and i7.

The money is not my point. Its only 45$. In a Notebook I want to have as less as possible heat.

Ok, I'm quite sure that my software does not support CUDA.

Are there other advantages of the FirePro than the price?


Thank you all very much for your help!

 

It has twice the memory bandwidth of either of the Quadro cards.

 

The problem as of right now is that the FirePro card does not get as good of battery life as the Quadro cards. However, if your choice is between the FirePro and 1000M (not the 2000M), I would get the FirePro because it will preform better than the 1000M. The real choice would be if you were considering the FirePro or 2000M.

EDIT: I just saw your other post too. Yes the OS is installed on the miniSSD, but my notebook won't boot if there is not a hard drive connected. I'm not sure if I just have some settings wrong or something simple like that, but I could not get it to boot despite the fact that the hard drive was just used for storage.

 

Ok, I will take the Quadcore.
If I take it wit 2x2GB 1600MHz Ram, can I put in additional modules with 2x4GB 1600MHz?

Concerning the GPU:
Again my biggest concern is that it will produce more heat and the fan is running faster or more often, when the notebook is actually idle...
Battery life is not that important...

 

I just wanted to say that I just ordered an M4600.
My options are 2720QM, FirePro, 250GB, 4GB 1600MHz, FullHD WLED, 97W battery.
I am sure to upgrade it soon with additional 8GB and a SSD. Most probable SSD is the Vertex 3 240GB right now.
Somehow I am also thinking about the Intel SSD 510 240GB. It is a bit slower but said to be more reliable.

 

I would avoid the Vertex 3 like the plague for now, unless you want to be a beta tester for them. Check their forums and you'll see oodles of issues going on now.

 

Ok, and how about the SSD from Intel?

 

It's a little slower, but I'd feel a lot better about having the Intel SSD. I think you would be hard pressed to "feel" a difference between the two.