Dell Precision 7540 and 7740 Owner's Thread

@Hopper82 What happened to that heatsink? The heatpipes are all mangled/dented, all those marks and divots make them perform worse than they can..

 

@senso : Long trip from china, not a perfect packaging. But luckly no performance issue, only cosmetics (no heat-interruption nor uneven heat distribution).

 

I didn't realize I never talk in detail about temperature, if someone is interested.

With my actual config and undervolt, these are the cpu consumption / temperature range (using Cinebench R20 in continuos loop mode):
-20W (battery on ECO, cpu tuned to max 2.4ghz allcore no turbo) --> ~52/55°c no fans at all / avarege score ~ 2500pts
-45W (battery on max performance, cpu tuned to 40-33x from 1 to 8 core) --> ~68/71°c with fans at minum speed / avarege score ~ 3400pts
-75W (AC on max performance, lower power limiter kicked-in, cpu tuned to 50-44x from 1 to 8 core) ~78/81°c with fans at medium/high speed / avarege score ~ 4000pts
-107W (AC on max performance, upper power limiter kicked-in, cpu tuned to 50-44x from 1 to 8 core) ~88/91°c with fans at maximum speed / avarege score ~ 4200+ pts (btw this is not a 'reliable full score' since the lower power limiter kick-in before the single benchmark run is ended)

So, no more thermal throttling at all (except if you want to use a too aggressive low-speed fans profile).

Also, new bios v1.3.3 is available, already updated and everything seems ok (like with v1.2.3).

 

Never saw that before. Anyway, reading some feedback here and there, seems not to be a big deal vs a good thermal paste.

 

ya but it has a thickness and I wonder if you can stack it for other areas where you use the thermal pads? It is conductive though

 

From testers here in the forums, graphite pads generally don't work well unless there is very high pressure, which you can get in desktops but generally not in laptops. It makes a sort of sense if you think about it, the biggest problem in thermal pastes is air bubbles and gaps, and since the graphite pads are sort of spongy, without the pressure to minimize their air gaps they don't work well.

Sent from my LG-H872 using Tapatalk

 

Hi
Need an advice on selecting a screen for 7540. TLDR: which one is the best for working with text?

Longer version:
I'm a programmer and my current daily driver is 4 year old MBP, which shows its age and I have to replace it with something. I want to switch to linux too, and 7450 fits the bill.
I don't like glossy screens. MBP retina is nice, and though it's glossy, I somehow got used to it.
So I bought system76 adder ws first, which comes with 4K OLED. It is glossy as well and I thought I'd adjust, but it has much more reflections than MBP, feels like a perfect mirror. I ended up returning it.
Now I got 7450 with UltraSharp FHD. I like it overall, but text aliasing is noticeable, as well as color fringes. I played with freetype settings and couldn't find a combination which would completely satisfy me, so I'm thinking about 4K.
7540 UHD screen is matte, right?
How's overall screen quality, and for text in particular? I guess there's no need for subpixel antialiasing with proper fonts scaling?
Intel UHD gaphics is enough to drive it?

Thanks

 

Yes it is matte. In fact, as a rule, all Precisions only offer matte displays, unless you select a touch display.
Intel UHD graphics can handle the 4K screen (but it seems to struggle a bit with some things if you have multiple 4K displays attached).
Text clarity should be similar to what you get with your rMBP. I've never had a problem with it in my 7530, it is definitely quite a step up from a 1080p panel even for just reading text. Viewing angle seems to be a little bit worse than the 1080p IPS panels that were in earlier models though.

 

thank you. One more question: "Internal US English Backlit Keyboard" is going to have a trackpoint? I think I saw an explicit mention of a dual-pointing device when I was configuring a FHD option, but I don't see it mentioned anymore.
Configuration link: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/sho...rationid=e2503c11-1d87-4b04-b34e-42458d0b5c8f

 

All of the keyboards have a trackpoint. (Though I've heard many stories of users coming from ThinkPad systems being disappointed in it...)