Its 15.6-inch display has the option of being an UltraSharp
with PremierColor technology—a plus for animators, designers or others
wanting the truest color feedback—or multitouch technology with support
for a stylus and four-finger simultaneous touch input.
There are DDR3 (double-data rate) memory options, four DIMM
slots for up to 32GB of 1333MHz memory or 16GB of 1600MHz memory. Optional AMD
Eyefinity technology enables the workstation, when docked, to support up to
five displays simultaneously, or three displays when not docked. There's
support for just about every connectivity option—wired, wireless LAN,
WiMax, mobile broadband, GPS, Bluetooth—niceties like an antimicrobial
keyboard and noise-cancelling microphone to go with the Webcam and
video-chatting software, and a slew of optional support services, including
Dell's 24/7 ProSupport.
The M4600 starts at 6.15 pounds and like the M6600 is built
of aluminum and magnesium and is military-spec tested to put up with
temperature extremes and things like dust, vibration and humidity.
The M6600 similarly offers much of the same, but with a
17.3-inch display, a 9-cell battery (the M4600 offers the option of a 6- or
9-cell) and a starting weight of 7.77 pounds. Other differences include a boost
in graphics, with options including an AMD FirePro M8900 Mobility Pro with 2GB
of GDDR5 (graphics double data rate version 5) dedicated memory. Dell later will offer Nvidia Quadro 5010M
graphics with 4GB of GDDR5 dedicated memory.
Both offer SSDs (solid-state
drives) from 128GB to 256GB, with a 512GB
option on its way, as well as RAID O or RAID 1 storage.
The M6600 additionally offers RAID 5,
with the requirement of two 2.5-inch drives and one solid-state Mini-Card.
The Dell Precision R5500 workstation, according to Dell,
offers "voracious productivity ... rock solid dependability and
harmonious manageability," making it sound like an ideal spouse. Plus,
Dell officials added,
it's cool and quiet, making it an ideal work companion.
Should the work environment be crummy, however, it can be
paired with the Dell FX100 Remote Access Device, enabling workers to access the
rack workstation from anywhere. A Dell spokesperson offered the example of a
Dell mining customer in Australia whose mine is hundreds of miles from anything
more interesting than rocks and scrub. Given that it's difficult to find
workers keen to work in the middle of nowhere, the company employs an FX100,
and its workers head into offices in a major city and, relying on a solid LAN
environment, are able to work as though they're on the workstation.
The rack offers one-on-one remote access, PCoIP
hardware-based compression technology that transfers only the rendered graphics
pixel data over the network, so the user experience is quick, and a dedicated
half-height PCIe slot for a PCoIP remote host card, so PCIe slots can be used
for other purposes.
Other features include Intel Xeon processor options with up
to six cores, optional dual graphics cards or dual GPGPU (general-purpose
computation on graphics processing units) cards, up to five SATA drives and up
to six SAS drives, optional redundant power supplies and extensive support
options.
The Del Precision M4600 and M6600 workstations will be
available worldwide May 10 starting at $1,678 and $2,158, respectively. The
Dell Precision R5500 rack workstation will start at $2,551 and be available in
the United States and Europe, the Middle East and Asia beginning May 3, and
continuing on to Japan May 10.
Earlier this month, Dell competitor Hewlett-Packard
also introduced a new fleet of workstations.
Desktops and Notebooks News & Reviews 
