Dell Latitude 7290

Hello folks.

I was wondering if anyone has bought the Latitude 7290. The fact that you get a quad core in this small form factor seems impressive and I'm curious to hear how the heat management/throttling performance is on this machine.

Any first hand experiences?

Thanks!

 

I do not have first hand experience, nor even second hand. However, it could be noted in a review of its dual core predecessor:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Latitude-7280-7600U-FHD-Laptop-Review.200696.0.html

Its predecessor throttled heavily (thermal) when running a dual core. On paper, the 15W Quad Cores only use as much energy as the 15W Dual Cores, but in practice, they need nearly twice as much (surprise, surprise). This means the Quad Cores are also likely to be heavily thermally constrained in the 7290, not to mention the other issue of single channel RAM. It's what killed the 72xx, 73xx from my consideration a while back (I stuck with my E5450, eventually diagnosing and resolving the battery issue I had).

 

Ah bummer. I was hoping they would have beefed up the thermals with the move from dual to quad cores.

I was hoping the same from the 7490, but I think even those thermals remain unchanged.

 

Ah, I see. In that light, it may still be okay. The 7390 with the quad core still seems to perform well, despite the usual quad core throttling. Even with complete thermal throttling, the quads will still be faster than the dual cores.

Like in this 7390 review:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-...8650U-Touchscreen-Laptop-Review.301900.0.html

Similar results from Anandtech of the 2in1 model.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12643/the-dell-latitude-13-7390-2in1-review/

Both reviews note the long term true TDP is somewhere around the low 20W range (for the 7390).

In the end I'd prefer the 7490 because has dual channel RAM, but I'm mostly a bit of a stickler on that because of my biases. In practice, the performance difference for single channel vs dual channel outside of IGP gaming is practically nill.

The thermal performance of these laptops are probably just put in a poor light because Dell's stock fan profile on these laptops are very biased towards quiet. Maybe the software tools Dell provides can adjust that, but I don't run any of Dell's software tools.

Also, don't go for the 5290, since it is limited to a very poor display.

 

I actually like that Dell biases their laptops towards quiet! I was hoping that bias would be carried over to the quad cores. I don't think I'll go for the 7290, but I'm tempted to choose between 7390 and 7490.

I wasn't paying attention, going by your statement, the 7390 doesn't have dual channel RAM. Personally, that's not a deal-breaker.

 

I have a 7390 2-in-1 which dell rep said has single channel RAM. HWinfo shows it's running dual channel RAM. Also, I have the i7-8650U and it's very fast and relatively quiet. Under stress, it seems to throttle down to 3.3 to 3.4ghz with all 4 cores active.

I don't know if the 7290/7390/7490 non 2-in-1 are the same but I would imagine they are not too different.

 

If the RAM is soldered (as indicated by the absence of SPD data) then is likely to be dual channel. If there is a single SODIMM slot (as is often the case in smaller notebooks) then it's only single channel. A disadvantage of soldered RAM is that a memory upgrade needs a new mainboard (if made with the required RAM). MicroDIMMs, which are smaller than SODIMMs could be one solution but appear to be increasingly uncommon.

John