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OS X Lion Compatibility - D620 vs D630


seb3

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Hi, I am getting a dell latitude to make into a hackintosh tomorrow. I am getting it to run Lion, I cannot use snow leopard. I have seen better compatibility with the D620, but the better performance persuades me to buy a D630.

I was going to get the D630 with the Nvidia Quadro as I will be doing alot of 3D CAD, etc. I heard many laptops failed with these chips.

Which one works with Lion best?
Will the Nvidia chip in the D630 fail even if I update the BIOS to A12?
Is there much of a performance improvement withe the D630?

Help much appreciated!!!

Thanks

Seb

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The chip will die eventually, the BIOS update will not help. They will always die eventually and cannot be avoided, unless your notebook is always in a cool environment and on a cooling pad when it is on. That will increase it's lifespan by a longer time. And for Lion there are fan kexts you can use to make the fans run faster -- that will also help it.

 

The only performance improvements are in the CPU and the nVidia chip is newer I believe. The D620 is a very good machine and can be better depending on the CPU speeds.

 

In the long run, it all comes down to the specs, because the D620 can be better than the D630 and the D630 can be better than the D620 depending on kexts.

 

Mac OS X Lion runs nice on both of these. Not really much of a speed difference for either, except I have heard it's easier to get Lion running on the D620. Might not be true but it's what people have told me.

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Thanks alot for the advice! I decided to get the D630 and risk it. I reckon if I make sure the temps are low but speeding the fans up it should last long enough hopefully. I already have a netbook with GMA 950 graphics like the D620, and they are unbelivebly slow.

 

I did some research and the Nvidia Quadro is about triple as fast as the intel. Also as I do lots of CAD design, and the Nvidia chip is designed for that hopefully it will work well.

 

Its coming tomorrow - cant wait!

 

Also it says on the spec pdf that the max memory supported is 4GB however I saw one being sold with 8GB could that be possible?

Has anyone managed 8GB in the Laptop?

 

Thanks,

 

Seb

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Dear seb3,

 

Yes. The D630 can take 8 gig of RAM. You may want to consider replacing the copper cooling arm (heat sink) to one that is also attached to the gpu. It will reduce heating of the gpu. Offcourse, if it does not have it already.

 

Cheers!

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I took a look inside, and the laptop does have the new style of heatsink with the copper block on the GPU. Before I installed OS X it came with vista and I noticed the Nvidia card never really got above 65C. Is that too high? I thaught it was ok.

 

Thanks,

 

Seb

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I would recommend applying a new thermal compound to your heatsink, like Arctic Silver 3. Computer manufacturers in most cases use a cheap thermal compound so if you are able to, get a higher quality thermal compound. This will make the machine run a little cooler.

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go to the upgrade section for the d630 on intel site... they state 8 gb i bought the memory they specify from corsair and installed it... it ran 8 gigs detected.

 

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&sku=A2784675&mfgpid=193419 click on compatability be a little more thorough before typing

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