Dell Precision 7540 and 7740 Owner's Thread

Hi Everyone,

I have an option to buy 7740 with the below specification (it's in Polish but components should be easy to understands).
I have some questions about this laptop - based on this topic and reviews that I found:

1) Is it really that hot? In this case processor i9 and graphic card RTX3000.

And I mean mostly for normal use - Internet, Outlook, Excel etc. Of course from time to time also more heave use like photo editing, in future movie editing, maybe games but for this I accept it may get warmer.


2) What about noise - especially in this less heavy use? Is it possible that it will work silent?


3) For how long battery lasts? I've read many rreviews with information from 3 to 11 hours.. (again - for easy use - internet, music etc).


4) How is the sound? Currently I have DELL l702x in which sound is simply excellent. I have never before and after seen laptop with sound even close to this (and one of the main reason why I still have this laptop). I accept it will be worse but how much worse. My father has 7710 - will the sound be the same or better?


Laptop specification:

• Kod Procesora i9-9880H
• Ilość rdzeni procesora 8 rdzenie, 16 wątków
• Pojemność Pamięci RAM : 64GB
• Typ Ekranu UltraSharp IPS powłoką przeciwodblaskową
• Ekran dotykowy Nie
• Przekątna Ekranu 17.3`
• Rozdzielczość Ekranu UHD 3840x2160
• Pojemność dysku SSD NVME PCIe 1TB
• Zewnętrzna Karta graficzna NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000
• Karta graficzna Zintegrowana Intel® UHD Graphics 630
• Ilość pamięci wewnętrznej karty graficznej 6GB GDDR6 Pamięci własnej !

 

In hybrid graphics mode I could see your configuration getting ~6 hours at idle and light loads. Getting the Nvidia GPU properly in its idle state can take some time, the default configuration usually has random programs not allowing it to shut off.

Expect sound to be less overall volume and not as good reproduction in low / high tones. Maybe look at an XPS 17 9700 if you want better audio.

 

I was looking at XPS 17 but to be honest.. lack of numeric keyboard and total lack of any ports make this laptop a joke to me - not a machine for work. And honestly I cannot understand this approach.

 

Hello, I have a similar device, but smaller diagonal (7540). But the specs are the same (i9 9880h, quadro RTX 3000). I have linux installed, undervolting is done on 100 mv. I also have graphics switching configured with the new Nvidia driver, so the video card can be disabled when not in use.

1. I use it to work with mathematical calculations in the field of artificial intelligence and java-developing, under heavy loads, it is really hot, but without thermal trottling, about 4000 Mhz for all cores for a long time. It remains cool in office mode. It is very nice that in any use case, the upper part and the keyboard do not heat up to an uncomfortable level. My colleagues have a macbook 16, which under the same loads warms up much more, constantly makes noise and putting your hands on it is unpleasant.

High load



Office work



2. In office operation mode, up to 50 degrees, the fans are completely turned off. It is absolutely silent. When watching a 1080 video for a short time, the fans turn on at the minimum speed (about 2296 RPM), which is also very quiet, and you realize that the fans turned on only if you turn off the sound of the youtube video. Under intense heavy load, the fans make quite a lot of noise. It's enough for colleagues at neighboring tables to ask what a jet is preparing for takeoff on my desk )

3. I would say 2 to 5 hours. If you do not limit yourself to reducing the brightness of the display, it is less than a comfortable level. But I have a 1920x1080 screen, the model with a 4k screen will obviously have less. But still, this is a device from which you do not expect a long battery life, usually if you are only interested in office use and long working hours, you choose a different class of devices.

4. As for me, the sound of the built-in speakers is not very good. But it is enough to watch a movie in silence. Still, I prefer to use headphones. Before that, I only had Apple laptops, they have a much much better sound.

 

Thank you for your response. It is very helpful

I already bought this laptop - waiting for delivery. I can accept worse sound (I don't see any alternative on the market with better sound anyway) - if noise and temperatures in office work are good then I'm ok with the rest. Will test and see how it works for me when I received it.

 

In terms of temperatures and heat - is there a big difference between i7 and i9 in this model? (7740)

 

from my experience, both processors are equally hot. One of my colleagues has a 7730 with i7, the temperature indicators are approximately similar. We also have a person with a Thinkpad P53, where everything is the same. All processors ultimately run into a temperature and power limit, It just happens faster and stronger on some models.

 

Ok. Thank you. So i7 would not change much.

I already have this laptop. Everything seems to be really nice except two things - as expected - heat and sound.

1) Sound.. it's ok. Not that bad as I was afraid of but of course worse than in l702x. But it's loud, clear. Suprisingly I could live with that.
Today I tried for the first time sound on headphones and it was a little dissapointing. Maybe a matter of settings. Not sure what sound card this laptop has and if there is any difference comparing to other lapotps on the market (and l702x - although I would not expect it was better in 10 years laptop). For now it lacks middle tones a little. Bas is ok (on headphones), highs .. I think ok. Something in the middle could be richer. But I need to test it more.

2) Hear and noise. It's.. again somehow better than I expected. In everyday work (for now Internet, music - don't have any programs installed yet) it's definately all right. It's either totally silent or quite silent. Nothing to complain. Suprisingly also under heavy load it's not that noisy as I expected. I run Doom 2016 for around an hour, taking off headphones from time to time and noise was really acceptable. I wouldn't say it was very noisy, neither unpleasant. And I need to mention - I'm have very sensitive hearing - both for noise and sound quality. I would say big plus here.

For heat however it's a little worse than expected. Right after I start computer temperatures are around 45-50. It's difficult (or impossible) to drop lower. They don't raise much during light work (again, for now music., internet), maybe to around 55-60 or so. But I also tried Doom 2016 for an hour and checked temperatures after that. I saw measures at around 95-100. I don't know if it's too much but it seems a little scary.

What was good however was comfort - many times during playing I checked temperature of keyboard and chasis in general - it was quite cool. Maybe a little worm on keyboard and above but very little. I was really suprised how cool it was. Later however when I finished the game and checked at the bottom.. It was hot. Not warm - but hot. This 100 degrees could be definately visible here (even the desk under lapotp was very warm).


Now - not sure if this is ok. I'm not heavy gamer (or gamer at all) so those conditions will be rather rare. Still though it is 100 degrees. Is it normal for this laptop? Can it run like this?

 

A little bit of feedback.

Regarding the sound card and headphones, take a look at the "Waves MaxxAudio" piece of software which might be messing with the sound output. There are many users here that prefer to uninstall it. However, it does allow you to greatly boost the volume of sound coming out of the internal speakers. These days, I am pretty much always using a USB DAC for headphone output — that can be a way to bypass the sound card if you do not like it.

CPU temperature: the ranges that you have posted seem normal. My Precision 7530 stays in the mid 40's under light load. (I've seen it go below 40 if it is doing basically nothing and the displays are powered off because of the idle state.) Under load, it is normal for the CPU temperatures to hit 100 C. This is fine, that is the upper range of their tolerance and the clock speed will be lowered to keep it in check. When I do serious 3D games on my M6700 it often pushes the CPU temperature up to 100, and all of my Precision systems have been left running big compute or encode jobs for days on end with the temperatures sitting at the upper 90's and it has never been an issue.

The engineers have done their best to make the "hot spots" of the chassis spots that you do not normally touch like the bottom or the back of the system. I've had cases where my 7530 under load was not pleasant to pick up and move. So it's normal that you are seeing this. The CPU and GPU together under load together can pull nearly 200W, and all of that heat has to go somewhere... Probably not the best system to use actually on your lap.

There is a triangle of three concerns with a high-performing laptop: performance, noise, and temperature. You can use the "Dell Power Manager" program to select a performance profile that maximizes one of these. (I.e. "Ultra performance" profile increases performance at the expense of noise and temperature; while "Cool" and "Quiet" profiles similarly reduce one of those components at the expense of the other two.)

 

Hi @Ionising_Radiation ,

I know that I’m late to the party, but I’ve had my RTX 3000 graphics card fail on my Precision 7540. Would you have any more of those cards you had ordered? I’m in the US and Dell US doesn’t have part MWDWM in stock. Ebay is too expensive for the part - around USD900 for the part. I’m sorry for hijacking this thread, but for now, my WFH is hampered as I can’t run on my external monitors. I work in UX design, so I need the firepower. Help, please!!