Dell unleashes its fury - the high-performance mobile workstation, Precision M4300, is released.

Not long after releasing several colorful XPS laptops, Dell finally unveiled its trump card: the new high-performance mobile workstation Dell Precision M4300 based on the Santa Rosa platform. The top-of-the-line CPU in the Precision series is a 64-bit Intel Core2 Duo T7700 (2.4GHz, 4MB L2 cache), with an 800MHz front-side bus. It's rumored that this configuration improves overall performance by 20% compared to the M65’s 677MHz! The system supports up to 4GB of memory, and the M4300's new 36-bit addressing technology allows a 64-bit operating system to utilize memory more efficiently.

The T7700 also supports Intel Dynamic Acceleration (IDA) technology, which lets the CPU rest one processor core when handling single-threaded programs. This means that during single-threaded applications, only one core is in use, allowing the 2.4GHz CPU clock speed to reach up to 2.6GHz.

Clearly, such a high-end machine would not rely on integrated graphics. The M4300 features the latest nVidia Quadro FX360M dedicated graphics card. According to official statements, this graphics card offers 110% higher image processing performance than its predecessor, the M65! The hard drive in the M4300 is also impressive; a 160GB 7200RPM hard drive should satisfy many users.

It's worth noting that the M4300 also offers an optional 32GB solid-state drive (SSD). You might think this would increase disk speed and extend battery life, as SSDs generally outperform traditional hard drives in terms of speed and power consumption. However, Dell itself admitted that this SSD does not outperform traditional 3.5-inch hard drives in terms of speed and has the same power consumption. Its advantage lies in stability and reliability, making it suitable for people working in mobile environments. Keep in mind that the M4300 cannot accommodate both disks simultaneously; choosing the SSD means giving up the original 160GB hard drive.

Users can choose different hardware configurations. The laptop can come pre-installed with Windows XP, Vista Business, or Vista Ultimate operating systems. Display options include WXGA (220 nits, 1280 x 800), WSXGA+ UltraSharp TrueLife (200 nits, 1680 x 1050), or WUXGA UltraSharp (200 nits, 1920 x 1200).

In terms of interfaces, the M4300 includes PC Card Type I/II, ExpressCard, S-Video, Serial, 1394, VGA, USB, RJ11, RJ45, headphone/microphone jacks. Communication capabilities include Bluetooth and 802.11a/g/n wireless network cards.

This notebook is already available in the U.S., starting at $1750, with the highest-end configuration priced around $3200.