Specviewperf is probably a better openGL benchmark,particularly for the common openGL software used,but is a rather unreasonable download size compared to this,which does a short openGL test as well as cpu rendering tests.
So if some owners of any of the Precisions can post a score here,it will probably be helpful to prospective owners as to what sort of comparative performance between models and specs there is.
I plan to buy a Laptop within some days. It comes down to M2400 or M4400, as the T500 has no LED screen here in Europe and T400 no digital screen connection. I'm product designer but will attend business school next year, so I will do a lot of office stuff and traveling. The only difference in these systems is the GPU, I wonder how do they compare? Rhino should work fine on both I guess? Anyone able to compare those systems?
does anybody know some news abou the new models of precision line from dell? i checked that the last two series were announced after one year and the 4400 was releases in august 2008...
i'd like to buy a m4400 but i don't if it worth is to wait...
I am a Thinkpad user but extremely interested in the Dell M4400 and M6400 because of their seemingly better screens. I would love to get details on these screen, most importantly are the IPS ("FlexView")?
Questions:
1. What does "Edge To Edge" mean? 2. What does "RGB" mean? 3. Are any of these screens IPS "FlexView"?
M6400:
17" WUXGA UltraSharp Display (1920x1200) Resolution 17" WUXGA RGB LED Back-Lit Display (1920x1200) Resolution 17" WUXGA RGB LED Edge To Edge Back-Lit Display (1920x1200) Resolution
M4400:
15.4" WUXGA TrueLife RGB LED display (1920x1200) featuring 100% Adobe® Color Gamut 15.4" WUXGA AG day light viewing (1920x1200)
I bought two laptops from Dell Outlet M4400 and M6400. Really need help deciding which one I should keep (and add to my signature) and which one to send back. I am sure this community can help me make an informed decision. Thanks.
My usage:
-Development - VS 2008, MS SQL and tools. -Graphics - Limited Photoshop (Beginner to Mid level) -Virtual Machines - 1 to 2 at any given time -Always ON configuration -NO Gaming - sorry I suck at games! -Occasional Travel
M4400: $1500
QX9300 - 2GB - 80GB 72K RPM - RGB LED LCD - NVidia 1700 My plan is to swap the 80 GB with my tablet PC's 120 GB and install 320 GB in modular bay also get 4 GB RAM bringing total cost to about $1650
Pros: Manageable size, RGB LED Cons: Additional cost for RAM and modular bay HDD, Not sure about TrueLife Glossyness yet!
Pros: Pretty much everything Cons: Low res LCD and BIG+Heavy even for occasional travel or meetings.
I could find cheaper configurations but I picked the one's with QX9300. There are some available in both machines that are T9900 and are ~$300 cheaper.
Questions: 1. Am I making the right decision by getting QX9300 given my somewhat non power usage? Is heat an issue in either? I do want to future proof at least for 2 years.
2. If I go for lower CPU should I go for x9100 or T9900 or Q9000/9100, they do show up occasionally on the outlet site.
3. I really find the second hard drive option useful. Does the slightly higher mobility of m4400 justify additional cost to buy and install the mod bay HDD?
4. Are the prices reasonable for the configurations above? I can find a m4400 with T9900/4GB/250GB/WXGA for ~$1150 and a M6400 with T9900/4GB/NO SSD for ~$1200
The M4400 supports dual-channel DDR2-800 memory. The M6400 supports dual-channel DDR3-1066 memory. Both systems have a FSB that operates at 1066 MHz.
I'm trying to understand if the different memory technologies ultimately make a difference for computational (i.e. math on large data sets) performance in these particular machines.
Consider an M4400 and M6400 with identical CPUs and amounts of DDR-2 and DDR-3 memory, respectively. And suppose that all relevant memory latencies are identical. For the sake of this question, I don't care about power consumption and heat (which is obviously a benefit of DDR3).
Question: Since both machines support dual-channel memory operation, the maximum effective bandwidth of the memory bus is doubled. So the dual-channel DDR2-800 can achieve 12.8 GB/sec transfer rate, while the dual-channel DDR3-1066 can achieve 17 GB/sec transfer rate. In either case, these rates are higher than the 8.5 GB/sec rate that the FSB can achieve, so it seems that performance in both machines is limited by the speed of the FSB (1066 MHz). Is that correct?
For more info on matched FSB and memory ratings under Core 2, see: [url]
1. Popularity I wonder why there are so few threads about the M2400 on notebookreview.com! There are way more threads about the similar 14" Latitude D6400 or the 15" Precision M440! Why is this?
2. Quality If you have a M2400, are you satisfied with it? Do you have problems? What would you improve?
3. Price I'm from Canada and it seems there are less coupons for Dell Canada than for Dell US. The default M2240 is currently listed as (1670$ - 251$) = 1419$CAN, which is 1,133.40$US. What would you do to get a better price? Wait for a chistmas discount? Call a rep and try to get a better price (how much can I save doing this?).
I've upgraded my precision m2400 about 2 weeks ago and noticed that the battery life has gone down significantly even when adjusting the power options / screen lighting / keyboard backlight and wifi.
Wasn't windows 7 suppose to improve battery life on laptops? The battery life has gone down by about an hour with variation on different power option settings. Anyone know how to fix this or anyone else having this problem? I'm using it with a 9cell battery.
Image you're using your notebook for things like 3D CAD, photo and video editing and of course for travelling. For my purpose I think the M2400 with its 14,1" monitor should fit perfectly. The perfect combination between mobility and performance.
Now I have to decide between 2 processors. As you know the P8600 isn't available and even Dell couldn't tell me if it will be available in the next weeks.
As you know the M2400 can only be ordered with the following processors:P8600 (2,4 GHz, 25W, 3MB Cache)T9400 (2,53 GHz, 35W, 6MB Cache)
So which one would you choose and why? The price difference is about 100$ (71,4 EUR).
Why is a lot of people on ebay selling the m2400 with a quadro fx 380 Dell dont have the 380 on their homepage and i cant find it on nvidias homepage eiter
I use my laptop about 10-14 hours daily (job and home/university), so it’s very important for me that the laptop will be cool and quiet. The tasks which I do are: programming (C++, PHP...) with Eclipse and other IDEs, UML programs, databases, surfing a lot... I don't use CAD or similar, only a bit a photoshop.
I got the same price for e6400 with P9500 and for m2400 with T9400.
I know that one difference between P9500 and T9400 is the power consumption. There are more differences? What is better for my tasks? T9400 are more powerful?
Can't believe I scanned through the whole owners threads for the M4400, E6500, M2400, E6400. Can't believe I still have questions, but they are listed below:
Background: I'm a pro photographer and am looking for a road machine that has a decent, accurate display. Won't be used at home, won't be used for games. I have looked closely at the MBP (older matte and new glossy) and could live with the screens but the smug gets to be excessive and it would be demeaning to live in bootcamp or lose the touchpad by loading just windows (no interest in switching to OS X). I have also looked at the sony sr & z 13" and could live with either if I gave up and went size over power and durability.
I have not seen any of the LCD choices for the Latitude or Precision in person unfortunately and have no place to view them, which leads me to this post. What got me here is that I have read that the macbook pro shares LCD panels with the WXGA+ LED screen of the M4400 and E6500. Now there are other choices namely the WUXGAs and possibly problems with the WXGA+ displays on both the 14 and 15 inch dells, or maybe with specific samsung or LG models of either though it isn't really clear which one is superior.
Question 1) Truelife = Glossy? AG= anti glare? Ultrasharp = high res?
2) Is the main functional difference between the latitude and precision the video card choices and possibly a display option for the 15"?
3): I would prefer to go with the smaller 14 inch model but looking at the comments on this forum and the review on notebookcheck.net left me thinking the 14 inch LED screen was not up to the level of the 15inch model. Am I wrong on this?
4) The M4400 thread refers to several tables with Contrast, gamut and brightness data for the 4400 --- does anyone have a link to this data for the M2400, E6400 and/or E6500?
My other questions refer to the M4400 and E6500: 5)Is the Canadian website's ultrasharp UWXGA CCFL display the same as the 2 CCFL display mentioned in the M4400 thread? Anyone know if the RGB LED display is available in Canada?
6) Is the UXWGA CCFL monitor the same on the E6500 as the M4400? Is the UXWGA RGB LED monitor available on the E6500?
7) From the specs banded about is the following true: WUXGA CCFL -- 75% of ARGB gamut, 350 cd brightness 1:400 contrast MATTE finish WUXGA RGL LED -- 100% of ARGB gamut 300 CD 1:500 contrast GLOSSY finish WXGA+ LED 45% of ARGB (or similar) 300CD 1:500 contrast MATTE Finish
8) Is the WXGA+ LED display really equivalent to the MBP lcd quality? Are there still problems?
9) How tiny is the text, icons, etc on the WUXGA screen? At home I have a 22" CRT running at nearly the same resolution and I am worried that I'll have to use the "special" features of windows to read.
10) There was brief allusion to problems profiling the RGB LED screen on the M4400 thread -- I've got the older xrite DTP 94 colorimeter-- will there be problems?
11) For those with the LED RGB WUXGA display --> are there banding problems from the wider gamut and (presumably) still 6-bit display?
12) Finally given all the above I didn't seem to find a consensus on the best fit for a monitor for my purposes. The choices being A) E6400/M2400 with WXGA+ LED, B) E6500/M4400 with WXGA+ LED, C) E6500/M4400 with WUXGA CCFL, and finally D) M4400(E6500?) with WUXGA RGB LED.
Yup me again, in my hunt to determine if M6400 is right for me as it costs just about as much as a used car, I want to make sure its a good investment before I buy it.
What is the main difference with the M6400 and the M6400 Covet?
I configured both with the same specs and the Covet is about $900 more in price?
I have come to grips with the fact that my E6400 (see specs below) has idle temps of around 42 for both CPUs and around 62 for the GPU (while docked).
While these are not dangerous, and while the slow fan speed is very quiet and therefore doesn't bother me, I refuse to accept defeat so easily.
So, I am thinking of replacing the thermal paste and possibly the thermal pad on my E6400. There is at least one person here at the Latitude/Precision sub-forum who did that, with amazing results
I guess I'm about to get a mobile workstation. I already got an M90 it is great. Only one dead/stuck pixel and the front panel silver button paint came off in a few month of usage.
But I love it. So I am thinking of getting an M6400. Can you back me up on this one..?? Please if you own one tell me the pros and cons.. Have you noticed any Dead/stuck pixels.
What about built quality, feel, comfort, performance, heat, cooling, fan noise, screen quality ( thinking of LEG or RGB LED)..
Any creeking noise while opening the lid or holding or working on the laptop?? Any thing you can tell me about this beast of a machine will be a great help for me indeed
2 Intel X25-M 80GB SSD drives will be replacing those 80GB's.
First - my first thoughts are that this system is Fantastic!
The screen is great - its an LG, fantastic colors, no dead pixels. Typical viewing angles for non LED screen, not great, but not noticeably bad either.
No noticeable bleeding, no graininess - very happy with the screen.
Ran 3Dmark 06 (1280x800, stock drivers) - 11,619
GPU temp was around 80 C - not bad at all.
So far, very happy. Putting the SSD ddrives in now - will post more thoughts as I do more. Will post pics ASAP.
Update 1: 2 80GB SSDs are in place - this has Intel's Matrix Storage which allows the creation of one RAID1 volume (which I will use for valuable data) and a RAID0 volume for the rest of the space - this is very nice - get the benefits of both types of RAID in one system!
Update 2: The power brick is completely absurd. Its HUGE - 210W. The good news is that I plugged in a 130W from a M4400 and although I get the popup about the AC adapter not being at least 150W, it does charge the battery and allow the system to run. To me, this is an acceptable alternative to lugging around the giant brick, at least for most things on the road - Later on, I will test the system with this adapter and see what kind of slowdown is caused.
Pics:
RAID Setup:
Next to a M4400 (that I believe I'll be returning very shortly):
Next to an older E1705 - these are virtually the exact same size - its astounding what new tech can cram into the same space
Whilst working away at my desk, M6400 docked it just powered down.
Pressing the power button causes it (the power button) to light briefly and then go out. Pressing FN+Power (as requested by Dell Tech) does nothing at all.
I've tried it with another PSU (I got 2, one with M6400, other with docking station) - and if you plug the PSU in, and then hit power on the laptop - the blue light on the PSU goes out - and doesn't come back on till the power is cycled. The M6400 does nothing during all of this.
The PSUs work just fine with my D820.
Dell techs are coming tomorrow to fix it. I'll let you know what they say!
I've just bought a refurbished M6400. It comes with no preinstalled OS. I have a dell install disk for Windows XP SP2. Is it ok to install this on my M6400? I will then update to SP3 over the web.
I guess i will also need to install drivers for the graphics card, etc etc.
Please let me know if you have any advice and pitfalls to watch out for.
I'm also considering adding a second hard drive. What drive specification do i need?
I recently noticed that you can not configure a 64bit covet any more, which results in not being able to configure more than 4GB Ram. Also, the covet has only a few specified configurations that are allowed.
Is there an issue with the 64bit? Anyone know why Dell removed the 64bit options?
