Dell Precision M6700 Notebook Review: The Enterprise Split
by Dustin Sklavos on December 12, 2012 7:43 PM ESTApplication and Futuremark Performance
The Intel Core i7-3920XM CPU that powers our Dell Precision M6700 review unit isn't just the fastest notebook CPU we've tested, it's also potentially as fast as a desktop Ivy Bridge processor. At the same time, the NVIDIA Quadro K5000M is based on the fastest mobile gaming GPU currently available, and the M6700 is also enjoying a Samsung PM830 SSD as its system drive. All told, this should be the fastest notebook we've tested thus far.
So what happened? It looks like PCMark slightly favors the Crucial m4 SSD the Clevo notebook uses. That's unfortunate, and frustrating, as once again PCMark shows it skews so hard towards the SSD that a system with a substantially more powerful CPU (lack of access to QuickSync notwithstanding), the Dell Precision M6700, is somehow eclipsed by a gaming notebook. But then I've been campaigning to remove PCMark from our testbed for some time now.
3DMark06 at least reveals the substantial performance of the i7-3920XM.
Inexplicably, Clevo's P170EM is able to produce better first pass results in our x264 benchmark, but in all other cases the M6700 is faster. For comparison sake, a stock i7-3770K (the one in the HP h9 Phoenix) is able to produce 100fps in the first x264 pass and 40.51fps in the second; that means that Intel's fastest (well, second-fastest now that the i7-3940XM is available) mobile chip is actually able to nip the heels of their fastest mainstream desktop chip. That also means that the 100MHz bump to the 3940XM is probably enough to get it to 3770K-level performance, which is frankly astonishing.
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bramv101 - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
I agree with most comment above. I use this workstation for small FEA and CFD runs.This is not to be compared to a Macbook pro, which is a machine for graphic design.
I dont think any serious engineer would consider a macbook pro for these type of tasks
j_newbie - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
@Dustin Sklavos,Looks like Anandtech readership has a high percentage of mechanical engineers using fea and cfd programs. The benchmarks provided focus mainly on 3d modelling performance.
One benchmark you could consider adding is specfp 2006.
Since I am the IT dept in a small (15 engineers) services firm in Bangalore, I find it to be one of the most usable benchmarks for FEA and CFD.
These programs rely on four things:
FLOPS, memory bandwidth, memory size, disk speed.
An alternative would be to ask ansys for a 64 bit copy to run benchmarks on
something like these http://www.padtinc.com/support/ansys-benchmarks.ht...
Hope these will help,
cheers,
borceg - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
Could you make a review for Lenovo ThinkPad W530 ?critical_ - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
I've owned a W520, W530 and own a M6700 right now. It is a smaller machine with a slower graphics card. The only thing that bothers me on the W530 is the cooling system isn't great.borceg - Friday, December 14, 2012 - link
I'm looking for 15-inch machine, GPU either k1000m or k2000m should be fine. I'm not working with some ultra heavy CAD.How is build quality, screen, keyboard and touch-pad ?
borceg - Friday, December 14, 2012 - link
And according to this review, http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-ThinkPa... temp seems fine to me (maybe I'm wrong)bernstein - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
with these machines the choice chart it is really really simple.as long as you satisfy one of these your set. otherwise buy a macbookpro or similar.
1) you must have a quadro/firepro gpu
2) you must have > 16GB RAM
3) you can't live with 6% less cpu ghz
4) you must have a 10bit panel
and seriously hope you don't care about weight, build quality & usability...
Jaguar36 - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
A bunch of folks I work with have these, and I'm shocked at the size of the power brick. Its about the same size as a regular desktop powersupply, and weighs more than some smaller laptops. That's completely unacceptable. Most people I know had to get two power supplies so they could leave one at the office.Also no-one should be comparing this to an Apple anything, nobody is going to cross shop the two.
DanNeely - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
It's a 240W power supply; so of course it's going to be bigger than the normal 50/100W units that come with IGP/low end discrete GPU laptops. That said, unless Dell's serving up the wrong picture it looks like it's roughly 3x5x1" in size; and while the former two numbers roughly match up with an ATX supply; the latter is typically at least 5" (for the 120mm fan) in the third.Jaguar36 - Thursday, December 13, 2012 - link
Just measured one, its 4"x7.5"x1.75" or so. It's completely ridiculous.