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Review of the DELL Precision M4500, a portable workstation for CAD & Design

Solidness is undoubtedly the immediate, first impression we get on opening the Dell Precision M4500 mobile workstation for the first time.  A bright and clear display along with a keyboard and touchpad with a good tactile response make the DELL Precision M4500 a pleasure to work with. Besides, the Intel Core i5 system delivers solid performance.

This system is perfectly in that mainstream CAD category.  The results on the Viewperf benchmark placed with its NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800 GPU show it. Dell Precision M4500 is definitely a good choice for a mobile workstation for the AutoCAD, Inventor, and SolidWorks.

Here are some of the details on the system you need to know:

• NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800M GPU - a professional graphics solution tested and certified with nearly any professional application you will need to use.

• Intel Core i5 CPU for good multi-threaded application performance.

• 15" display at a 1600x900 resolution that provides adequate information for mobile computing.

• plenty of connectivity for a mobile workstation (list of connections)

The unit tested comes in at €1484  but we would recommend to spend more on a few details for a longer-lived system.

• Firstly, you should opt for the maximum memory configuration of 8 GB, as the 4GB of main memory is not adequate today,

• Secondly, even if the screen resolution of 1600x900 looks fine, the highest possible display resolution is preferable and on the Dell Precision 4500 you can select a screen resolution of 1920x1080.

• Finally, the reviewed system's hard drive of 500 GB can be bumped up to 750 GB which is money well spent. It is possible to opt for a SSD drive, however the size drops to 256 GB and the price jumps 640€ - not a smart trade-off.  On the other hand, it is possible to add a mini-card SSD drive in the M4500.

• As for the graphics, the Quadro FX 1800M is the top of the line for the 15 DELL, and for a Graphics Workstation why would you want to skimp on this option?  Indeed the Intel Core i5 520 is not the current offer - that would be a 560 today, but none the less, for those who crunch numbers, it is possible to go from the i5 to a Quad-core i7 940XM adding 1000€ to the price which is just over-kill for this mainstream CAD mobile workstation. Finally, my configuration came with Windows 7 Professional 32 bit operating system, and depending on your applications, you should seriously consider the installation of the 64 bit version at no additional charge.

All in all, the recommended changes bring the system price to €1 782 - a nice price for a professional, certified, mobile graphics workstation.

I tested the Spec Viewperf  benchmark on this mobile system to help place its performance in perspective while running applications that matter to you.

Here are the SPECviewperf 11 results.

Viewset Composite

CATIA 03                                           16.54

Ensight-04                                        12.72

Lightwave01                                     24.55

Maya-03                                            15.34

Pro/E-05                                              5.18

SolidWorks-02                                   24.31

TCVIS-02                                           11.54

Siemens NX-01                                 14.58

 

Even if the M4500 clearly doesn't compete with its big brother, the M6500, the system delivers good solid performance for this class of mobile workstation.

Its solid feel and bright display along with good mainstream CAD performance become addicting. It's not the lightest notebook you'll ever carry with you, but The DELL Precision M4500 does a good job of meeting the demands of a professional user in a 15" format. Remember to increase the system memory and the screen resolution, and you'll have a system that will last.

 

About the Author

CADplace provides you the news and events in CAD. Tom Lansford has been working in IT for over 25 years and is a specialist in CAD, visualization, and GPUs.

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