Dell Inspiron 8600 or EMachines M6805?

[rasinhussy]

I have a change to get a Dell 8600 with a 1.5GHz Pentium M, 512MB, 128MB Radeon 9600 Pro, 60GB 7200RPM Drive, DVD+R burner... It even comes with a free camera.

OR

From Circuit City should i get a Emachines M6807, Athlon 64 3000+, 512MB, 64MB Radeon 9600, 40GB 5200RPM Drive, with a DVD burner as well.

Which one would be faster in you opinions?

Thanks

 

[MDE]

The hard drives in the eMachines seem to be hit or miss 4200RPM and 5400RPM.

 

[eastvillager]

if you're not the one paying for it, get the dell.

 

[alexruiz]

It is not about opinion, but about FACT. The eMachines is plainly faster. 3DMark 2001 could tell you they are evenly matched, but run any other gaming application that is CPU intensive and the A64-M shows who's daddy. Run also the PC Mag/eVeritest Winstone tests for the CLOSEST to reeal life synthetic benchmarks about office/multimedia performance and get your conclusions.

Get the emachines and then replace the hard drive with a 7K60 to alleviate the main bottleneck.

M6805 results (XP SP1 as isntalled from factory, no garbage cleanup. Win2000 results to be run later this week):

Business Winstone 2004 ver 1.0 with 7K60hard drive: 21.2
Multimedia content Creatino winstone 2004 ver 1.0 with 7K60 hard drive: 26.8

Those numbers are in the neighborhood of a P4 3.2 C with a desktop hard drive..... Can anyone with a P-M run those tests and post results?

I am not saying the P-M is not fast, in fact, it is the best combination of performance and battery life. However, it is common belief that it can compete in pure horsepower with the A64, and that is not true. That common belief is fueled by the lack of benchmarks, but we can get the truth ourselves. Convince yourself, I haven't found benchmarks for the P-M about Serious Sam or UT2003 framerates, or a mathematica 5, or even a DivX conversion. ALL you will find are the sysmarks and so on.

 

[Connoisseur]

Well I own an M6805 and personally I love it. You really can't get a better laptop for the amazingly low price. The athlon 64 and radeon 9600 really helpwith the games. However, the M6805 does have some minor drawbacks:
1) Screen res is limited to 1280x800. I personally like this resolution as it's really clear for me, doesn't hurt my eyes and gaming is great. If you want higher resolution go with dell.
2) You may or may not get a decent hard drive. I lucked out by getting the 5400rpm model 60gig but a lot of buyers also got the 4200rpm model. This can be allieviated by buying a 7200rpm drive for 200 bucks.
3) Battery life at best is around 2:30-3 hours. I have mine plugged in all of the time so it doesn't bother me. The 1.5P-M definitely has bettery battery life. You can probably get at least 3:30-4 hours on it.

Those're the only negatives I can really think of. As for the positives, I think the M6805 has much better build quality than the dells (I've seen many dells and they creak and bend) and it's probably A LOT cheaper than the dell (even with the 7200rpm drive upgrade).

As far as your speed question is concerned, I'm pretty sure the M6805 would take a decent lead over the dell model. According to reviews the 1.5P-M is about the equivalent of a 2.4-2.6 P4 whereas the A64 1.8Ghz outperforms a 3ghz P4. Furthermore, if you're into overclocking, the M6805 is easily overclockable to 2ghz and the vid card can be overclocked to about 40% (completely stable) which gives it a tremendous performance boost. But keep in mind that the resolution is limited to 1280x800 so if you want higher res. gaming, go with dell. Also, if you read Anandtech's Win XP-64 preview, they show a lot of benchmarks which give the Athlon 64 a dominating performance (as far as encoding etc.) over today's P4's and Athlon XP's. I personally recommend the eMachines, but it's your money.

 

[MDE]

Horsepower > eMachines
Portability > Dell

 

[Twsmit]

Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress
Horsepower > eMachines
Portability > Dell

i have a inspiron 8600 and that sums it up. Its a little heavy, but compaired to some of the A64 and P4 super notebooks out there its much thiner and overall better. One thing you might want to take into consideration is the screen size and shape. The Inspiron 8600 is a 15.4" widescreen. Its fine for games, and GREAT for DVD movies.

As for the R9600 Pro, its more of a bastardized version of desktop R9600 Pro. With Very minimal tweaking, and a 1.6ghz, 512 PC2700 and R9600 Pro i got something like 9,500 on 3dmark 2k1. In games it pretty good, running no AA or AF at 1024x768 in newer games like UT2k4 demo and CoD.

If your mission is a portable computer you might want to look into a A64 or P4 laptop (i dont know anything about that emachines so im not commenting) but the centrino line from dell is good, but nothing compaired to my XP2500 @ 2800 and R9800 Pro.




Edit: Looking at it, they are both wide screens, but the emachines is just a regualr R9600, while the Dell is a R9600 Pro Turbo. The Dell will be clocked higher, but i dont know if that matters to you.

 

[gabukdatroll]

Hi Connoisseur,

Two quick questions about your post.

I own a M6805 and interested in overclocking to it to 2 GHZ as well as overclocking the video card by 30 to 40%.

What software do you recommend to overclock the video card?

And, should I overclock the processor in the BIOS?

Thanks for your help,
Gabuk

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: gabukdatroll
Hi Connoisseur,

Two quick questions about your post.

I own a M6805 and interested in overclocking to it to 2 GHZ as well as overclocking the video card by 30 to 40%.

What software do you recommend to overclock the video card?

And, should I overclock the processor in the BIOS?

Thanks for your help,
Gabuk

You can't overclock the CPU in the BIOS, you'll have to use a program such as Clockgen. To Overclock the video, I'd use ATI Tool. It automatically finds the maximum core\memory speeds and tests for artifacts. Radlinker also works if you want to do the traditional method for overclocking.

 

[Connoisseur]

Yeah ditto what MonkeyDriveExpress said. ATITools works perfect and gives you a great overclock. Same with ClockGen except the current release has a problem where it won't start with windows (so you have to set the clock speed manually every time you start windows). But generally the video card gives the best performance increase anyway.

 

[hytek369]

hard decision, but i trust dell

 

[Crellion101]

How about quality? I had an emachine desktop I bought back in 1999 and now, I hear this wierd clanking sound with my fan. Now granted this machine is more than 4 years old, but I can't help but see how emachine was able to pull off such a high-end laptop system for that price. There must be some cut-backs in the design material or something. Maybe the casing will crack after a few rough bumps. Can anyone get me wrong? How does this quality compare to Dell's 8600 Design?

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: Crellion101
How about quality? I had an emachine desktop I bought back in 1999 and now, I hear this wierd clanking sound with my fan. Now granted this machine is more than 4 years old, but I can't help but see how emachine was able to pull off such a high-end laptop system for that price. There must be some cut-backs in the design material or something. Maybe the casing will crack after a few rough bumps. Can anyone get me wrong? How does this quality compare to Dell's 8600 Design?

I've bumped my eMachines around a couple of times and it hasn't affected anything. These units are built very solidly and based on an Arima original design. They're so cheap because the only option is whether or not you want a DVD burner. They buy the things in so much bulk that they get an insane price.

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: alexruiz
It is not about opinion, but about FACT. The eMachines is plainly faster. 3DMark 2001 could tell you they are evenly matched, but run any other gaming application that is CPU intensive and the A64-M shows who's daddy.

Now just how many 3d Games are CPU intensive?

The Dell has the Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB versus a Radeon 9600 64MB. It will be faster in the vast majority of games, period.

 

[MatthewF01]

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: alexruiz
It is not about opinion, but about FACT. The eMachines is plainly faster. 3DMark 2001 could tell you they are evenly matched, but run any other gaming application that is CPU intensive and the A64-M shows who's daddy.

Now just how many 3d Games are CPU intensive?

The Dell has the Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB versus a Radeon 9600 64MB. It will be faster in the vast majority of games, period.

I bought the m6805 about a week ago and I love it to death... my poor desktop has been lonely all week and im sure its starving for some attention

anyway i have been overclocking this beast of a machine (my first laptop too! how exciting) and with my CPU floating around 1980mhz and the GPU clocked up from 300/202 to 430/230, I got a 3dmark2001 score of 11557.


if you want some horsepower this is your machine. its absolutely beautiful and i cant wait to run off to college with it.

 

[Pneumothorax]

Isn't the Emachines laptop clock-locked at around 800mhz when running on battery power? I have a Pentium-M and it is able to go between 600-1.6 while on battery power. Maybe somebody worked a fix for this by now?

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: Pneumothorax
Isn't the Emachines laptop clock-locked at around 800mhz when running on battery power? I have a Pentium-M and it is able to go between 600-1.6 while on battery power. Maybe somebody worked a fix for this by now?

Yes it is locked at 800MHz on battery power, no fix yet.

 

[Pneumothorax]

So until a fix is available the Dell will be faster on battery power while the E machines will rock on AC. Hmmm... I'm seriously considering the sending my HP back and getting the E laptop, but it's battery life and it's slower performance when on battery (I actually use mine alot) are still holding it back for me. So I guess if you use your laptop mostly plugged in then the "E" seems to be the better choice while Pentium M still rocks for battery life and performance on battery...

 

[alexruiz]

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: alexruiz
It is not about opinion, but about FACT. The eMachines is plainly faster. 3DMark 2001 could tell you they are evenly matched, but run any other gaming application that is CPU intensive and the A64-M shows who's daddy.

Now just how many 3d Games are CPU intensive?

The Dell has the Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB versus a Radeon 9600 64MB. It will be faster in the vast majority of games, period.

ALL the games that require to devote CPU power to the AI will run faster just to give an example. Regarding the 128 vs 64 debate, it makes no difference unless you are playing at 1600x1200 4xAF 8xAA or higher... and then the poor 9600 will show a slide show.

Now, you sound very sure about your claim. Do you have data? Or are you going just by the 128 vs 64 numbers? Bring data on.... I hope you start collecting your data..... want to test a game in particular? I am sure several of the M6805 owners will be happy to prove you WRONG.

I almost forgot, the radeon used in the M6805 is clocked at 300/200 default, but it can go easily to 350/220. Some persons have gone as high as 430/240...... not too far from a M11. Mine does 380/230 without much effort, and I have not tried anything higher. I am sure these card were clocked as base because they didn't pass ALL the test of sustained operation at higher clock, but for a a few frags they will have no problem.

Regarding the battery operation, the bug is the DRIVER for WinXP. Mine is running win2K SP4 and powerNOW! switches between 800, 1600 and 1800 almost instantly as needed while running on battery. If you are planning to jump into winXP 64, I suggest a dual boot between Win2K and the XP 64 bits.


Alex

 

[MatthewF01]

Originally posted by: alexruiz

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: alexruiz
It is not about opinion, but about FACT. The eMachines is plainly faster. 3DMark 2001 could tell you they are evenly matched, but run any other gaming application that is CPU intensive and the A64-M shows who's daddy.

Now just how many 3d Games are CPU intensive?

The Dell has the Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB versus a Radeon 9600 64MB. It will be faster in the vast majority of games, period.

ALL the games that require to devote CPU power to the AI will run faster just to give an example. Regarding the 128 vs 64 debate, it makes no difference unless you are playing at 1600x1200 4xAF 8xAA or higher... and then the poor 9600 will show a slide show.

Now, you sound very sure about your claim. Do you have data? Or are you going just by the 128 vs 64 numbers? Bring data on.... I hope you start collecting your data..... want to test a game in particular? I am sure several of the M6805 owners will be happy to prove you WRONG.

I almost forgot, the radeon used in the M6805 is clocked at 300/200 default, but it can go easily to 350/220. Some persons have gone as high as 430/240...... not too far from a M11. Mine does 380/230 without much effort, and I have not tried anything higher. I am sure these card were clocked as base because they didn't pass ALL the test of sustained operation at higher clock, but for a a few frags they will have no problem.

Regarding the battery operation, the bug is the DRIVER for WinXP. Mine is running win2K SP4 and powerNOW! switches between 800, 1600 and 1800 almost instantly as needed while running on battery. If you are planning to jump into winXP 64, I suggest a dual boot between Win2K and the XP 64 bits.


Alex

my desktop has a Ti4200 128MB. My m6805 has 64MB... the only thing i have run on BOTH machines thus far is Call of Duty and theres no large performance jump or dropoff, despite this being A64 and my desktop being a barton @3200+... like alex said unless youre running highres and high detailed textures, or running doom3 () I dont think its a big deal.
As for CPU speed, I run SpeedSwitchXP and I have it set to Dynamic Switching both on AC and battery. When plugged in, the speed kicks up when I need it, just about instantaneously, but on battery it sticks at 800mhz because it thinks that is the MINIMUM AND MAXIMUM speed so it just doesnt go anywhere.

However thats where CLOCKGEN comes in. Configure a few Ghost Mode settings for diff. speeds/voltages, pop them on the desktop, and kick in whatever speed you want. That has been my solution so far. I also have ATITools configured with a number of speed settings based on what I need:
-stock speeds (300/200)
-Powerplay Underclocked (i disabled Powerplay cause it would crash the system when i launched UT2k4 on battery, but it clocks the vid to 100/100)
-Power Boost (350/212) just for a little extra kick
-Top Speed (430/230)

 

[txxxx]

Some of you are forgetting that the non pro version of the Radeon 9600 has the same core = Overclock!

 

[MatthewF01]

Originally posted by: txxxx
Some of you are forgetting that the non pro version of the Radeon 9600 has the same core = Overclock!

thats sort of what i was beating around... but the idea of 128mb RAM is attractive to some people..

 

[txxxx]

Originally posted by: MatthewF01

Originally posted by: txxxx
Some of you are forgetting that the non pro version of the Radeon 9600 has the same core = Overclock!

thats sort of what i was beating around... but the idea of 128mb RAM is attractive to some people..

Has anyone benchmarked a 9600 64MB and a 9600 128MB? Im quite sure the differences will be negliable in a real game, but just wondering....?

 

[MatthewF01]

Originally posted by: txxxx

Originally posted by: MatthewF01

Originally posted by: txxxx
Some of you are forgetting that the non pro version of the Radeon 9600 has the same core = Overclock!

thats sort of what i was beating around... but the idea of 128mb RAM is attractive to some people..

Has anyone benchmarked a 9600 64MB and a 9600 128MB? Im quite sure the differences will be negliable in a real game, but just wondering....?

oooo just thought of something...


with regular AGP video cards, traditionally cards with less ram have FASTER ram...
same principle applies here? overclocking would be better too, ja?

 

[txxxx]

I'd hope so, but given the confined area in which air circulates around the memory, you may find the more memory you have, the less chance of overclocking the memory to higher levels...or so I think