Dell's New Mobile Workstations: These Are The Laptops You're Looking For
by Dustin Sklavos on April 26, 2011 1:00 AM ESTHaving had the chance to check out Toshiba's and HP's impending enterprise-class notebooks, more and more I'm convinced spending up is the way to go when it comes to buying a notebook that both looks and feels like quality. While Dell's Precision notebooks are still a little boxy and aren't quite the ladykillers the new HP EliteBooks are, there's still something very austere and functional about them that puts consumer-grade laptops from any manufacturer to shame. If you're one of the people that didn't much care for Dell's new XPS line, these may be for you.
Dell has announced two new mobile workstations, the Precision M4600 and M6600, 15.6" and 17.3" respectively. Both are based on Intel's Sandy Bridge platform, supporting up to 32GB of DDR3-1333 (16GB of DDR3-1600) in four DIMM slots along with ramping all the way up to the 55-watt Core i7-2920XM, and each offers a range of choices from AMD's FirePro Mobility GPUs and NVIDIA's Quadro GPUs. Best of all, Dell is offering bare-minimum 72% gamut displays on each of these notebooks along with an optional upgrade to an IPS RGB-LED display on the M4600. Let's break them down.
The 15.6" Precision M4600's screen options start from a basic 1366x768 screen, move up to a multi-touch enabled 1366x768 screen, then on to a 1080p screen, and then finally Dell's PremierColor IPS RGB-LED backlit 1080p screen. GPU options include the AMD FirePro M5950 Mobility Pro with 1GB of GDDR5 (GPU equivalent to the 480-shader Radeon HD 6670), the NVIDIA Quadro 1000M with 2GB of GDDR3 (GPU equivalent to the 96-core GeForce GT 540M, depending on the clocks), and the NVIDIA Quadro 200M with 2GB of GDDR3 (GPU equivalent to the 192-core GeForce GTX 460M, but without GDDR5 and only a 128-bit memory interface). Additionally, the M4600 can be configured with a 128GB SSD mini-card to supplement the hard drive; two 128GB SSDs can be configured to run in RAID 0 or RAID 1. It offers virtually every type of connectivity under the sun: gigabit ethernet, 802.11n, Bluetooth 3.0, WWAN, 2x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0, FireWire, eSATA, HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA, ExpressCard/54, and a SmartCard reader. The M4600 starts at $1,678 and will be available on May 10th.
Moving up to the Papa Bear, the 17.3" Precision M6600 brings to bear all of the same processor options and connectivity as the M4600, but graphics, display, and storage options are improved. This time, the display starts at a basic 1600x900 panel, but can be upgraded to a 1080p display with or without multi-touch capability. It won't be launching with an IPS display option, but Dell expects availability soon after. Graphics get a boost as well, allowing the following: the AMD FirePro M8900 Mobility Pro with 2GB of GDDR5 (GPU equivalent to the 960-shader Radeon HD 6970M), the NVIDIA Quadro 3000M with 2GB of GDDR5 (240 cores, likely using a GF106/GF116 die, which means roughly GTX 470M with more bandwidth but fewer cores), the NVIDIA Quadro 4000M with 2GB of GDDR5 (336 cores, again with a GF106/GF116 core, but now surpassing GTX 470M), and topping out at the NVIDIA Quadro 5010M with a whopping 4GB of GDDR5 (a full 384 cores, a full-fledged GF104/GF114, matching up with the GTX 485M). Besides the graphics and processor choices, the M6600 adds a second 2.5" drive bay to go alongside the first bay and the offered 128GB mini-card SSD, and these three can be configured together into RAID 0, RAID 1, or even RAID 5. The M6600 starts at $2,158 and will be available on May 10th.
Besides these two notebooks, Dell is offering the Precision R5500 rackmount workstation. This monster is capable of supporting up to five full-length, full-height PCIe x16 cards, dual graphics cards, up to 192GB of memory, up to five SATA drives and six SAS drives, and runs one or two Xeon 5600 series processors. These chips are still based on Westmere technology as opposed to Sandy Bridge, but combined can allow for a total of twelve physical cores and twenty-four logical cores. The R5500 starts at $2,551 and will be available in the states and Europe on May 3rd, showing up in the Asia-Pacific region a week later on the 10th.
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Iketh - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - link
LOL +1khimera2000 - Thursday, April 28, 2011 - link
I dont know about you, but I got mine fixed within a week, and the only reason why it took that long is because they orderd the wrong part. I even had someone come out and fix it for me, at no cost. They also kept me informed throughout the entire process even when they made the wrong part order, they called me up and redid the service date.so in this regard I will have to disagree with you and agree with Lous.
jwaight - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - link
I'm impatiently waiting for a Lenovo review with a Sandybridge processor. The Edges offer good performance for the money, but the forums are complaining about a variety of things.So, I guess a T series it is then? Or maybe not, wish I knew.
Dustin Sklavos - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - link
It's not for lack of trying. It's extremely difficult for us to get Lenovo hardware in house anymore, we'd be reviewing it if we could get it. Until then you're going to be stuck hitting NotebookReview or big mainstream consumer-oriented sites like PCWorld to get Lenovo reviews.jcompagner - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - link
In our company we have quite a few M6500, but that was because that was the only laptop from dell (and also not many outside of dell) that had a 1200p screenSo for us programmers that wants as much pixels as possible in a 17" screen the price was ok.
But now they are expensive workstation class machines with just 1080p screens... We don't need the workstation GPU thats pure overkill and completely unused.. (and we don't also care about gamut or full rgb screens and all that nonsense, it just must be a decent screen that even the vostro 1700 from 4 years ago already had)
So now we are forced to go to that full hd madness then there are plenty options for us and the big price of those machines are not justified at all anymore for us.
Not that dell has loads of other choices, but i am currently quite content with the XPS 17 (L702x) laptop, the only issue is that the fan is not completely configured right.. And will make a little bit to much noise now and then.
Candide08 - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - link
They are still producing SUV's when everyone else is making PriusesStuka87 - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - link
That comment is just as much fail here as it would be on autoblog.Just because somebody doesn't need a vehicle (or computer) capable of heavy work, doesn't mean nobody else does.
I for one need the hardware provided in a workstation class machine. Just like a lot of people need the hauling and towing ability of an HD truck or full size SUV.
LoneWolf15 - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - link
This is bull. Dell makes the Latitude line for business, and the Vostro line for entry-level business, just as the Precision is targeted at the mobile workstation market.That's not including the Inspiron and Studio lines for home users.
Please do a little research before you open your mouth again.
khimera2000 - Thursday, April 28, 2011 - link
did you not hear there are SUV hybrids out to :DIf you dont get why these systems are made, then they are not targeting your field of work, or your life style.
But if you need a couple of reasons:
- People in the military have sevearly limited space, but love to game. a consol will not fit in combonation with a LCD TV, so in most cases these people will opt for the fastest thing that they can sandwich into a seabag.
-Some people move around alot, but still need a high performance system to do there work, be it graphic, video, or anything high in resorce use. The thing is that these people are not really moving that notebook around once they set up at there location in which case this is alot safer to bring with you then a desktop which has a risk of loosing the associated paripherals and cords.
-Any one that is in need of horsepower, but needs to travel significant distances with that power will find good use for these systems.
danjw - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - link
I don't want all the spam ware they put on their computers. I will NEVER, EVER buy a Dell!