Dell M6500: A Precision Strike on Bling
by Jarred Walton on March 9, 2010 3:00 AM ESTDell M6500 Workstation Performance
As expected, SPECviewperf shows real benefits from the hardware features enabled in NVIDIA Quadro GPUs; here the difference between the two otherwise similar systems is night and day. Watching the M6500 run through the SPECviewperf tests compared to the W870CU (and really, we're comparing the GTX 280M to the FX 3800M) is like watching a game running on a moderate IGP compared to the same game running on a top-end GPU (think HD 4200 compared to the HD 5870). Real-time interaction with the type of applications tested in SPECviewperf is possible with an FX 3800M, but it's very choppy with the GTX 280M. The Quadro FX 3800M turns in performance that's anywhere from 4x to 14x as fast as the GTX 280M.
One of the features enabled in the Quadro drivers/firmware is improved antialiasing (particularly line antialiasing), which gives us results like the above table where the GTX 280M lists "no result for multisample performance. That's because SPECviewperf deemed the performance as "too low" or "unacceptable". Looking at the M6500/FX 3800M result, we see that most of the tested applications can run with antialiasing at 2x or 4x with little impact on performance, with 3ds Max able to run at 16xAA with acceptable performance. Note that SPECviewperf considers a result "too slow" if it's not within 10% of the baseline (0xAA) score. Let's look at the detailed multisample results table.
Besides better antialiasing performance, the Quadro chips also support up to 32xAA (compared to 16xAA on GeForce cards). As you can see in the above table, while the GTX 280M is able to run at roughly the same rate with or without antialiasing in many of the tests, the final speed is still much slower than even the worst Quadro result. At worst, the 32xAA on Quadro 3800M still turns in performance that's 2.7x faster than a GeForce (e.g. ensight-03); at best it's an order of magnitude faster at equivalent settings.
Wrapping up with multithreaded performance, we see that the W870CU fails to ran many of the quad-core tests, which is why those sections of the table are blank. This is most likely a driver/firmware/OS incompatibility, and it goes to show that having a certified system can make a difference. Like the other results, the M6500 is still 6 to 13 times faster than the W870CU. Let's wrap things up with SPEC's LightWave benchmark.
In contrast to SPECviewperf 10, and similar to the x264 encoding and Cinebench results on the previous page, the LightWave tests depend almost entirely on the CPU in your system, so the scores of the M6500 and W870CU are close. The M6500 scores higher in the "Interactive" benchmark of LightWave while the W870CU scores higher in the Render and Multitask LightWave tests. Differences in drivers and the type/configuration of RAM may account for the slight discrepancies, but largely we're looking at CPU tests that show the two notebooks as being equal.
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GeorgeH - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
Wow, those LCD results were shockingly poor, and there's simply no excuse for it in this class of laptop. Hopefully HP and Lenovo will do a better job with their updated models.For personal use the way to order laptops of this class is to get the most stripped version possible and then upgrade it yourself; once the "New and Shiny" tax expires you could probably put together an equivalent laptop for around 3k. Still expensive but the build quality might be worth it, as AFAIK you simply cannot get a "gaming" laptop with anywhere close to the level of this and other "workstation" laptops.
P.S. @ Jarred - Unless you're talking about the design's weight in earth's gravity, I think your dictation software has failed you. ;)
JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
Figured out how to get the LCD to calibrate better... and it's MUCH better. But no one should need to calibrate to 1.8 gamma on Windows, and more to the point you should be able to calibrate to 2.2 just as easily. *Weird* to say the least.And I understand that aesthetics are a personal taste, but seriously: this is a better built and more attractive notebook than any of the gaming monsters I see. You're not going to make a thin and light Apple MacBook Pro out of these components, but this is about 2x as fast as the top MBP in CPU tests and an order of magnitude (actually more) faster in workstation apps.
ghotz - Saturday, July 10, 2010 - link
I've been trying to calibrate the monitor for some time now but didn't achieved yet the good results I had with my M90 yet.There are some problems that Dell should definitely address (the sRGB and aRGB color profiles that come with Dell ControlPoint have strong color casts) and other "features" they should definitely tell customer about like the LCD changing color temperature as shown in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_UQpeI8CRY
I'm starting to become really unsatisfied with this machine, nearly as much as I was satisfied with my 4 year old M90 :(
CList - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
All that sex appeal and modern technology and they STILL have a VGA port.FFS Dell!!! Get with the program already and ditch that crap. DVI -> VGA adapters do exist for those presentation projectors after all...
They probably still have a parallel port on the back of their docking station as well.
Cheers,
CList
Granseth - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
We still uses software that needs a parallel port for dongels, as well as allot of hardware that uses serial ports.And the VGA port would be invaluable if you travel around and have to use projectors at different locations.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
Well, by the same token they sell a DP -> HDMI dongle, so you could adapt to other ports. I would guess their research has shown there is still enough need for VGA to not remove it yet.justaviking - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
You did a great job of positioning this beast (I mean that in a good way) by talking about what software you would run on it.I see my former employer's logo on the slide on the last page.
We used to demonstrate enterprise-level software to potential clients, or conduct training classes before their system was up and running. We basically used our laptops as portable servers.
We ran large databases, our application, a web server, CAD rendering software, and clients, all from the same "laptop". It's amazing it ran at all, let alone usually having decent performance. Nothing we had would come close this this.
The pre-sales "demo" guys always had the faster, newer hardware, but they were trying to make multi-million dollar sales. If a $5k laptop makes your software run better than a $2k laptop, it could be a very good investment.
kahmisz - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
Speaking of use in Enterprise situations. Under $1600 for Enterprise pricing with i5, under $2100 with i7.lordmetroid - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
I think that may be one of the ugliest laptops I have ever seen. Damn, I can't stop looking, it is like watching the horrible scene of a car crash.TEAMSWITCHER - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 - link
I agree, this laptop looks like it was beaten severely with an ugly stick. I'm sure the engineers over at Apple will hang a picture of this up in the design room to improve morale.I'm beginning to think that Apple has a patent on eye pleasing notebook designs.
Dell, please send this one back.