Dell updates high-end Precision notebook line with Sata-3 support

Mobile workstations given support for faster hard drive formats and Nvidia Quadro 5010M graphics cards

Dell has updated its high-end Precision Mobile Workstation line, promising dramatically increased performance for applications such as medical imaging and video and image rendering.

The M4600 and M6600 notebooks combine 6Gbit/s 512GB Sata-3 solid state drives with Nvidia Quadro 5010M graphics cards to boost speeds in traditional high-performance fields.

Mano Gialusis, Dell Precision Mobile Workstation senior product manager, told V3 that the laptops are further enhanced by the use of Nvidia's Cuda platform which uses GPU processing cores to help with multi-threading tasks.

"We have had instances where people said what used to take 15 to 20 minutes now takes 45 seconds," he said.

"You do see it moving beyond the enterprise, beyond the professional space into the consumer environment, and you will see users migrating more and more."

The 17in M6600 is fitted with two 512GB SSDs, while the 15in M4600 has one. The Quadro 5010 card, meanwhile, offers up to 4GB of RAM and uses Error-Correcting Code (ECC) memory when rendering images.

Gialusis explained that the use of ECC memory is a first for Dell notebooks and an indication of the increased computing power the company is putting into its mobile workstation lines.

"The ECC memory used to be exclusive to desktops, towers and high-end servers; now it is making its migration into the notebook environment," he said.

"It is a little bit more expensive, but it makes for a better graphics card and a better experience for the customer."