Dell Precision M6700 Notebook Review: The Enterprise Split
by Dustin Sklavos on December 12, 2012 7:43 PM ESTWorkstation Performance
Here's the one place where the Clevo notebook will be unable to keep up: workstation performance. The Dell Precision M6700's i7-3920XM and Quadro K5000M can finally stretch their legs here, as these are the benchmarks the M6700 was really designed for. Since I only have results for a couple of mobile workstations, I'm including the desktop workstations I've reviewed as reference points.
The sheer brute force of the Quadro K5000M, despite its substantially weakened FP64 performance, is enough to get it to score consistently better than the last generation GF100-based Quadro 5010M. Unless you need a high end desktop workstation GPU and a chip with more than four cores, Dell's Precision M6700 is capable of being a very potent workhorse. Remember that a Quadro 5000 desktop card costs almost $2,000 on its own; that puts the M6700's steep workstation price tag into a bit of perspective.
The M6700's CPU unfortunately gets hit harder in SPECapc Lightwave. Faster CPUs with higher core counts are the order of the day here, and though the i7-3920XM may be able to keep pace with a top-of-the-line Ivy Bridge CPU in short bursts, eventually its turbo speed settles down. Switching to a desktop workstation can still shave 33% off of Lightwave's render time, but you'll pay through the nose for it.
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hrrmph - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
WiFi-ac?More crickets.
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p05esto - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
And in a couple years where there WIFI-ac routers and services on the market I'm sure the M6900 will support it. Right now, totally not needed. Are you an Apple sheep or soemthing?critical_ - Friday, December 14, 2012 - link
Does anyone make half-length mini-PCIe 3x3 (or greater) 802.11ac cards these days? Last I checked there isn't one BUT once there is replacing the wireless card in the M6700 shouldn't be tough.hrrmph - Friday, December 14, 2012 - link
Good point.For what its worth, WiFi-ac is the only one of these subjects that I have any sympathy for the manufacturers on.
It is THIS year's nascent technology. Its hard, but not impossible to get this year's new tech onto a machine.
I use the laptop at home primarily, and infrequently in the field.
In the field I need autonomy for up to 2 months at a time, sometimes in very far flung places with little else available infrastructure-wise besides mains power and maybe 3G or 2G GSM. Hence the obsession with local storage, but I digress.
At home, I have ADSL.
The NetGear WiFi-ac router R6300 is available now at Amazon. I think it is 3 x 3 so you might get close to Gigabit WiFi speeds, or in actual practice, maybe 75% of Gigabit WiFi speeds. That's a very impressive boost over WiFi-n.
The equivalent NetGear ADSL Gateway Modem with built in WiFi-ac Router is the D6300. It is currently available at Amazon UK and should be available stateside any day now.
WiFi-ac is today's reality. Why buy an uber-expensive laptop this year when next year's model will have wireless that is 5 times faster...
Unless you want to gamble on the upgrade working.
I hope that you are correct that these machines can be upgraded from WiFi-n to WiFi-ac with a simple mini-card replacement.
But, when I tried to upgrade my existing ancient HP 17" from WiFi-g to WiFi-n, it didn't work. So I emailed HP and asked why. They said that for the newer WiFi-n mini-cards to be compatible, the BIOS needed to be changed and that HP wasn't willing to issue the necessary BIOS revision.
Granted my machine isn't a mobile workstation (it is one grade below that). I would hope that in the future if I pony up the cash for a mobile workstation class machine, that the manufacturers would be more accommodating with BIOS revisions than what I've experienced with the "desktop replacement" class laptop that I have now.
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ShieTar - Friday, December 14, 2012 - link
So? You connect to your own company network by cable anyways, and if you are traveling, what are the chances that even if you find a WiFi-ac connection that there is an Internet-Connection behind it that is actually fast enough to utilise -ac speeds?hrrmph - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
UEFI capable BIOS?What happens when drives exceed 2TB capacity. Is the Dell machine stuck? Or does it have UEFI so that it can keep on keepin' on?
Th HP has it. I presume the Dell does too and the reviewer just didn't mention it. Still, it would be nice to know.
Dell's website on the subject of UEFI: Silent.
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critical_ - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
Yes it is UEFI, has Secure Boot, etc.hrrmph - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
Sounds like the IPS panels are troublesome.Also, both Dell and HP make you drop extra equipment like the telephony SIM slots and GPS capabilities if you choose the IPS displays.
So how much Adobe RGB gamut do we give up if we downgrade to the non-IPS panels?
For graphics non-pros would it be noticeable? Annoyingly so?
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critical_ - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
I am a M6700 owner. The IPS display causes the loss of Optimus. This is due to the display chain being pure 10-bit throughout which the Intel HD 4000 can't do.As far as SIM slots and GPS goes... Dell's online configuration tool won't allow you to add these but they all come with a SIM slot and antenna leads for a WWAN (and GPS) module regardless of the screen you pick can be added separately. I'm running the Dell 5630 (Gobi 3000) without any issues that I added myself.
hrrmph - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
Bummer on battery life...Anyone want to guess if Haswell fixes this?
I'm guessing not, unless Intel redesigns the EUs.
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Sweet! on SIM and GPS.
Just to be clear:
Is the SIM slot full-sized? (I hate to even ask, knowing it must be, but you just never know what you aren't being told when you buy something)
Are the antennas themselves already installed?
If not, did they come with the Dell 5630 card?
Thx
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