Dell adds high-powered ATI FirePro M7740 graphics to the Precision M6400
By Nilay Patel 
posted Aug 3rd 2009 7:31PM
posted Aug 3rd 2009 7:31PM
posted Aug 3rd 2009 7:31PM
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Whats with this display port stuff, just put an HDMI port at least then it's useful. Just forcing users to buy a converter.
Just complete sentences.
I have the M6400. It''s a sexy computer, I won't lie. I only have the 512 mb quadro card, though.
:(
Oh that's why they like display ports; they don't have to pay the royalty fee of .04USD per device.
(I did butcher that last post)
I agree, just when I was getting used to the fact that I could interchange between HDMI and DVI-D almost effortlessly, they go and introduce something I have 0 monitors with the port for. Thanks computer manufacturers for such a confusing lack of standardization and royalty-free/royalty-required plugs; it just drives consumers into waiting for the industry to settle on something and *gasp* adopt it for longer than a year or two.
I'll stick with DVI-D. DisplayPort can take a long walk off a short pier.
displayport is the evolution of dvi. HDMI is along the lines of evolution of composite.
And you don't normally have composite on your monitors....
Displayport = Video
HDMI = Audio + Video
Wow quicksilver, you clearly don't understand what HDMI, DVI, or DisplayPort are. HDMI is probably the best format to use for AV use and you'd be hard pressed to make an argument any other way.
HDMI is limited in resolution, color support, features, etc. Displayport is not only free, but has far more capabilities like resolutions above 1920x1200, 10-bit per channel color, all kinds of advanced color/profile support, etc.
@loosely coupled
Not true. HDMI 1.3c can do 2560x1600 resolution. HDMI 1.4 can even do 4k resolution (3840x2160 I think). Displayport can't even do that yet.
I do kind of see these two standards coexisting though. Most of the high end newest monitors have both HDMI and Displayport, so it's kind of irrelevant if you have one or the other. Too bad I have a T61p, it only has VGA and I'd have to buy a docking station just to get DVI output at all.
The whole 30bit thing is a bit pointless here, since ATI's FireGL/FirePro drivers only support this in XP, and not Vista or Windows 7.
It's a shame their CPUs aren't as impressive as their GPUs.
blame intel
Tehe. DORK.
For people who want to build a decent rig on the cheap their CPUs are as impressive as their GPUs. Value trumps performace for the average user especiallly is performance is reasonably close.
Yes that is very true... Vaue does trump performance. But then you forget that the majority of custom-builders prefer performance first. If they really wanted valude, they'd go to best buy and buy those desktop packages...
But in all seriousness, AMD does need to step up their CPU's... I'm not saying they are bad, they are really good in fact, it's just that Intel's are better.
I read some websites how an older q6600 quad-core intel processor still gave better results than a lot of AMD's Phenom 9-series line.
Performance used to be close. It isnt nowadays. A long long time ago I was a huge AMD fanboy. Today is a different story.
You wrote this article as if you would actually USE that power
For real. I'm using a M4400 with the 1700M and have no qualms whatsoever regarding graphics performance in Solidworks or Inventor. I think the market that actually requires this kind of performance is very limited.
why sony doesn't add something cool like this to laptop
off topic but does anyone know what happened to gizmodo?
engadget firebombed their servers.
I'm now on my second M6400 and third graphics card. For a $6k+ laptop the reliability should be better.
I don't know about the m6400, but I ended up ordering two M4400s and each one was plagued by performance and driver issues. I love DELL, but I think I'll wait for the next-gen line of Precisions.
Heh! My RSS reader which cuts off headlines after a certain length; this showed up as -
"Dell adds high-powered ATI FirePro M7740 graphics to the Pre..."
I thought the smartphone wars had been won in a single stroke!
We're on DDR5 already? What the hell happened to DDR4, let alone 3 being totally phased in...
Nobody uses FirePro.
Prosumers and professionals only debate between using Geforce or Quadro cards. ATI/AMD doesn't get any light