I have to laugh at myself a little. People are reviewing new hardware/technology, here I am 'reviewing' old laptops, not far from becoming 'landfill'. 
Among other old hardwares, I have Dell D630 with nvidia GPU.
Recently, I acquired more D630, and 'luckily' they have intel GPU, so I can compare the 2 models.
I thought, I write my experience/opinion about them.
I have no preference (nVidia/Intel) - depends on what you use it for and which OS.
From what I read, people avoid the ones with nVidia, due to the 'heat issue'. Personally, I have no such issue so far (touch wood). Probably because I don't use them extensively. And they are reqularly cleaned, re-pasted with arctic silver and I replaced the thermal pads.
From the heatsink design, you can tell Dell anticipate more heat out of the nVidia. The nvidia has copper heatsink extension, the intel does not (no heatsink at all).
- nvidia.jpg (16.23 KiB) Viewed 273 times
- intel-1.jpg (20.92 KiB) Viewed 273 times
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All my D630 are updated with latest BIOS available (A19). In the updated BIOS, DELL 'addressed' the heat issue. By running the fan more often/higher rpm when it detected nVidia. As the result, nVidia ones are louder than the Intel ones. The consequence is that the nvidia ones have lower temps on the sensors than the Intel ones.
I didn't like seeing the higher temp on the Intel. I experimented with fan control software a little. Obviously, if you set the fan setting (RPM/temp), at the same 'loudness' settings the nvidia will have higher temp than the Intel. I ended up leaving the BIOS to control it. Hence, my D630 with nVidia is louder but lower temp than my D630 with Intel. (Note - I compared same CPU). At full load - it does not matter which ones, all will sustain over 80C, Fan will be revving, say, when makesquash used all 100% CPU power.
For Windows (I only use Windows 10). Both nVidia and Intel OEM driver still works. So, for my purpose, indifferent - I didn't test performance. I can get 1280x800 on both instead of using MS-generic driver (lower res).
For Linux, I mainly use Debian Dog, hence I post this in Debian Dog section - mod, pls move it if necessary.
But I loaded whatever I feel like at the time, from old puppy to the latest easyOS. I haven't got around to tinkering KLV stuff yet....maybe one day.
In Linux, whenever I can use OEM nVidia driver, this lower CPU util for GPU intensive apps.
In such a case/need, I use Buster since it still support nvidia-legacy-340 driver without much tinkering. I did try using OEM nvidia driver in later Bullseye, etc. for learning exercise. But concluded that for something stable, Buster is the last one I can use with OEM driver.
D630 with nVidia - In early days of Bullseye, I found that I needed to blacklist nouveau driver for stability. But nowadays, I found from Stretch to Bookworm, it just works OOTB stable (i.e. straight from Fred's mklive of any flavour Dogs). I maybe wrong, since I do OS hopping frequently. But worst case, I know I can blacklist nouveau and it seems to fix it when I did have problem.
D630 with Intel - Buster boots very slooooow, others are okay. I did some research and found that there's an Intel bug in the kernel (some version only). I don't know enough to list which kernel are affected, but my Buster was using k-4.19.0-xx. The fix was to disable SVIDEO-1 and it boots fast/normal afterward.
D630 with nVidia GPU comes with Broadcom b43 WiFi.
D630 with Intel GPU comes with Intel WiFi.
Both are 5G capable - they're interchangeable if you want.
The Intel WiFi annoyed me at first, cause it's blinking when there's activities. Some people like it, others don't. Anyway, I did research and found that you can easily disable the blinking (at least in DD). Funnily enough, now I don't care whether it's blinking or not, sort of gotten used to it. The point is, Broadcom WiFi-led light solid by default, Intel WiFi-led blinking by default.
Well, that's a liltle of my experience with Dell D630.
Share yours is you like...