Dell M70 and Dell M20 for Solidworks

The Dell M20 costs much less than the M70. What is missing on the M20?
Would you reccomend the M20 for Solidworks?

Also, the HP nw8240 is almost a year old, do you think that there will
be a new model in Jan 06?

Thanks

 

I've just got an M20 and SW works fine on it - although I have not
thoroughly tested it - still migrating over stuff.

The M20 has a parrallel port while the M70 does not, and this might be
of concern if you have a dongle - SW Vars charge to convert a
parrallel dongle to USB

I got my m20 because of this and the fact I could not face carrying
arround the m70 for meetings etc while the m20 is very compact and
easy to move around. I can even sit on the 'throne' and use it ;-).

I did not want or need to get a desktop replacement Laptop, but rather
a complimentary notebook, but that was my need. Yours might be
different, and if you want the M70 to replace a workstation then
perhaps the m20 is not up to it.


TTFN


Jonathan

 

A couple of months ago I looked at the Dell M70 as a replacement for my
aging Inspiron 8000 - but in the end I bought an AlienWare MJ-12 M7700i
and I'm not dissapointed.

Check out the link:

http://www.alienware.co.uk/product_...SysCode=PC-EU-LT-MJ12M-7700&SubCode=SKU-AUDIO


Kev.

 

A few months ago I bought a Boxx Technologies GoBoxx based on the same
platform as your AlienWare. In the end I sent the GoBoxx back because
the OS would not work properly if you turned off Hyperthreading.
Specifically, if you had HT off, after installing any piece of software
it would not reboot. I had to do an OS repair after each software
installation. Tech support seemed pretty competent, but they were
unable to help. We fully reformatted, replaced a drive, checked memory,
etc. Everything was ok if HT was on. Support couldn't say that I was
doing anything wrong, and couldn't help me get it to work, so they gave
me credit toward a tower.

I wonder if you've tried turning Hyperthreading off on your Alienware?
I'm not encouraging you to do it, because you could wind up reinstalling
your OS if I was right and there is something just inherently flawed
with the platform.

The other thing I didn't like about it was that the exhaust, which gets
pretty hot, goes right onto your escape-key hand or spaceball hand or
mouse hand if you're a lefty.

matt

 

I got a Dell M20 after reading an artical in UK CADCAM magazine where
they tested M70 & M20 back to back using solidworks (along with some 3+
Mhz) cad desktops. Both dells had 2.13 centrinos and (once the M20 had
been loaded with 2GB ram) theire speeds in all tests (except graphics)
was matched.
The M70 has a nvidia 256 card, the M20 has a Ati 64Mb carts. Not only
that but they both beat the desktops - due to centrino being based on
P3 so more optimised for solidworks !!!!

i need max portabilty and so chose the M20 - and the graphic speed is
fine ..... smooth rotations( v. complex mouldings and assemblies). So I
am V. happy.. Make sure M20 comes with the 1440 x xxxx screen, as
with 1024 x xxxx its not much good for CAD.

M70 is BIGer and heavy but the advantages of the M70 are screens in
1680 x ... & 1920 x .... (which are lovely if your eyes are good
enough)., and can extnl drive monitor to 1920 x ... (eg a nice phat
24" ;-) )........

maybe sometime we will get a 20mm thick machine with 256 openGL
graphics and a centrino 3.X ......... not hold breath tho'

 

Hey Mark,
How are you doing, long time no see, I don't know if you remember me -
I was working on the fish project for a while.

Anyway, compared to the Dells the Alienware box is a beast weighs in at
around 6kg but comes with a Quadro FX Go 1400 with 256MB of DDR, 2GB
Dual Channel DDR2 PC-4200 533MHz - 2x1024MB RAM and a Pentium® 4
Processor 670 w/ HT Technology 3.8GHz 2MB Cache

So, portability is on the edge - in fact just finding a laptop bag for
this was a struggle - I plumbed for a roll-along bag - it's a must for
anyone who gets this laptop - I can't see you riding a Srida and taking
this along!

Kev

 

Matt,

I've not tried turning Hyperthreading off - but then again I don't know
how or why I would want to?

I know what you mean about the exhaust - although I'm not a lefty and
I've got used to it.

The only gripes I have with it (apart from the weight!) is the paint
seems to be not as durable as it could be - but thats only a cosmetic
thing.

And the battery life - but I can accept that as I don't tend to use it
without mains.

Just out of interest what have you replaced it with?


Kev

 

Hi Kev,

Yep happy days Phishing ;-)

I seem to be going to china alot so portability is an issue.

I will now never buy another desk top ! The with machines like
these (the alienware sound's awsome - ever done a back to back with an
M70 ? its probably not as fast as your alien
but will be v close.)

I've just done a complex moulding set driven by the sort of curvy
surfaces we used to
get done by pro-e ..... and with 800+ features.... solidworks is weak
link on rebuild speed, would need
10x any current processor speed to make significant difference.....
I've now cheated and
dumped the feature tree and configs (via X_T) for final tooling
finishing, minor rads etc.

I tried pro-e FW2 recently with view to getting, but found it lacked
many nice features I take for granted in SWKS
eg extruding along any axis, etc. etc. with the recent surface
improvements and parasolids 15 I still like solidworks
overall as best balance of power and ease of use ........ you too ?

best
mark

 

Mark,

Yep! For 99% of the stuff I'm currently doing Solidworks "does what it
says on the tin" the other 1% I can usually fudge - takes a little more
time than I think it should but thats life.

Portability is not such an issue for me right now, the Alien is quite
manageable by car or train but for flying I think its well over the 5kg
cabin baggage weight limit!

My last forray into desktops (about 18 months ago) was to build a
shuttle small form-factor box - Athlon XP3200 + 2GB RAM, 1 x hard
drive, 1 x DVD-RW and room for a Quadro FX 500 graphics card.
Solidworks performance is pretty good - which surprised me! (and it
probably weighs less than the Alien - o=if you include a 17" TFT

I would like to take a look at the curvy job you've just done - will it
be coming soon to a website near me?


Regards,

Kev