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Buying a M6300 with FX 3600M

post #1 of 18
6/11/08 at 3:20pm
Thread Starter 
Hi all,

I'm just selling my Inspiron 9400 on eBay and considering to buy a M6300 instead.
It seems to be a powerful Laptop and a worthy upgrade.
But I have a few questions, maybe some owners can help me:

1. Is it worth to buy 3 GB of RAM instead of 2 GB? I mean, is there ANY performance boost (for gaming)? Or will upcoming titles be probable of making use of more than 2 GB? I will be using Win XP btw...

2. Is the C2D T8300 (2.4GHz,3MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB) a good choice? Or is the T9300 (2.5GHz) THAT much better (in terms of gaming performance)?

3. Is the 1440x900 non-glossy screen any good? Maybe some comparison to the one I used before (sharp/1920x1200/glossy)?

4. My set of choice will cost around 1550 euro (without the VAT Tax) and be something like:

- T8300 (2,4 GHz)
- FX 3600
- 200 GB HDD (7200 rpm)
- 1440x900 non-glossy
- 3 years guarantee

Is there any 15"/17" laptop from dell with a similar graphic performance at a similar (or cheaper) price?

5. Is it really worth to pay the 350 euro more to get the fx 3600 instead of the fx 1600?


Thanks in advance!

felix
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post #2 of 18
6/11/08 at 5:24pm
Seriously. I would look at the Gateway 17" with the 8800GTS since it is the same video, but much less expensive.
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post #3 of 18
6/11/08 at 5:34pm
Thread Starter 
yes, but they don't really sell them in germany (import => difficult support).
and i like dell.
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post #4 of 18
6/11/08 at 5:37pm
Well. I can speak to the 6300 and it is a great laptop.
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post #5 of 18
6/11/08 at 9:06pm
My M90 has the matt wxga and it has poor viewing angles. Its a good screen though, but between the 2 I prefer the wuga truelife for the colours an extra space.

ram is pretty cheap now, 3 or 2 is good for xp Only get it from dell if its the weekly bundle offer as it cheap in the 'real world" check www.crucial.com for prices

that processor is plenty, the money is best spent on the gpu, its fantastic
the fx1600 is an 8700gt which is << fx3500 and <<< fx3600

there's a sticky with the GPU performances at the top of this section

its a really well made fast laptop with a great guarantee
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post #6 of 18
6/12/08 at 1:26pm
Thread Starter 
thanks for your answers.

today i ordered the thing. actually i wanted to buy a cheaper one (xps 1530) but i couldn't hold myself back... beside that the xps only has driver support for vista (no xp drivers from dell!!!). and i hate vista.

i ordered it on the phone and they made it 100 euro cheaper and shipping is free, so i pay 1483 euro with the t8300/fx 3600M/200GB+7200rpmHDD/Fingerprintreader/2GB RAM/1440x900 Screen.

i think this is a good price for one of the fastest laptops available to date and i really love dell's service, so i stick with them.

if i find some time i'll try to post some benchmarks or small review, but it'll take another 2 weeks until i get it.
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post #7 of 18
6/12/08 at 2:05pm
Thread Starter 
btw: what drivers are recommended for the fx3600?
are the stock drivers good for gaming? or is it much better to use some 8800 drivers instead?
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post #8 of 18
6/13/08 at 4:35pm
I use the ones modded by fennux available on this website
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post #9 of 18
6/14/08 at 11:10am
Thread Starter 
dell offers this one on it's site: v.175.75 ISV (it is only 4 days old)

what's the difference to normal 8800 drivers?
what does the "isv" mean?
how is performance compared to the modded drivers?
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post #10 of 18
6/14/08 at 11:52am
ISV means the drivers are certified for use in various video/CAD etc products as far as I'm aware
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post #11 of 18
6/14/08 at 12:09pm
Thread Starter 
understand. but this shouldn't have any negative effect on otherwise performance?
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post #12 of 18
6/14/08 at 5:50pm
fennux's are tweaked for gaming, usually they are better, sometimes the Dell ones are great too. Usually the higher revsions have fixes for new games

More often than not the mobileforce/tweaksrus or laptopv2go give better game performance, best just to read the postings on each driver and then check yourself with fraps to see what FPS and IQ you get, and what your happy with

i recommend drivercleaner.net to get rid of the old ones, its only $10

love the modded drivers here
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post #13 of 18
6/15/08 at 12:47am
Thread Starter 
yeah, i know about the tweaked drivers.
so far i used a 7900 card and need to say that i liked the dell drivers most, especially the 167.51.
but in this case i was especially wondering about the fx drivers (as i'll get a fx card soon), if there is any HUGE difference to normal drivers. i mean, if the difference is just about 10-50 points in 3dmark then i don't really care.

btw: i thought drivercleaner is for free? at least it always was...
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post #14 of 18
6/15/08 at 11:53am
It used to be free, new version cost $10

you'll notice more heat in your new system compared to old, your cpu should be ok, but x7900 runs hot. The gpu runs high 40s in 2d mode and games at ~80deg c with the clocks I use. The gpu can overclock really high, but I found I was getting artifacts in gaming so checked with atitool and use the clocks now in my sig to keep the temp profile flat. I submitted the bios to nibitor developers as it does not recognise the fx3600m. Plan to try a little volt mod to see if higher clocks can be used without artifacting, when nibitor is revised

I found the dell bios fan control to be too much, blasting on and off. Fangui 3.1 works great, had to reduce the enforcement setting to 10msec to stop it stuttering against bios control though

When at home I use the D-dock for external LCDs and I notice that the laptop runs hotter in the dock

The dell driver website has the latest drivers, I didnt bother with trying the AHCP (spelling?) software install, and I dont have trubo memory module.

I dual boot vita64sp1 and xp-pro and honestly have to say that side by side xp is faster, just a little. Like the vista features though

can't think of any other tips off hand. enjoy your system! cheers
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post #15 of 18
6/15/08 at 1:10pm
Thread Starter 
thanks a lot for your info. good to hear that from someone who actually has the machine.

you have a nice cpu. i chose the t8300, simply because it was a lot cheaper. it will make some difference in 3dmark probably.

the score you have reached in the benchmark looks like the one you get with a desktop 8800gts using a similar cpu. that's pretty good for a notebook imo. and with higher oc you might even come close to a desktop 8800 gtx (around 9300 3dmarks with a 2,6 ghz dualcore)..

i don't think i will oc in the beginning, simply because the card should be capable to play all the games i use at the moment at max settings & max resolution (cod4, gears of war).
but it is good to know, that the card has some oc potential and is even more futureproof.
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post #16 of 18
6/16/08 at 12:21pm
reds2k and I did benchmarks in this thread

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread216225.html

the overclock in my sig is safe ie temp profile plateaus there with hours of gaming with different games

Although the higher clocks got a higher sythetic,there wasn't much difference in the FPS values, and artifacting like texture flashing and high temps (in the 90s) spoiled IQ and threatend thermal throttling - ie the clocks were unsustainable for gaming.

The volt mod may help, thats another project for another time. The form factor cooling struggles a bit with this cpu/gpu combination, I reckon.

I'll try the new dell drivers against the latest and greatest tweaked next weekend

(your cpu is fast, I got the 2.8 just cos I stumbled apon a good deal and the enthusiast/fool and money soon parted scenario. I notice a difference between the 2.33 and 2.8 but its not drastic)
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post #17 of 18
6/16/08 at 11:58pm
Thread Starter 
i have just one more question: why do you oc for gaming? are there any games you can't play at max settings without oc?
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post #18 of 18
6/19/08 at 3:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZX81 View Post
I'll try the new dell drivers against the latest and greatest tweaked next weekend
What tweaked drivers did you get that listed the Quadro FX 3600M? Did you modify the .inf yourself?

I'm installing the new(ish) Dell drivers tonight on my M6300 to see what has changed. I'd like to run and develop some CUDA applications so if you know of a tweaked .inf that will allow this I would be very interested.

Thanks,
deaks

UPDATE: With the latest dell drivers installed (R189274.exe) my CUDA application detects one CUDA-capable GPU. GPU-Z reports the driver as ForceWare 175.75.
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