Dell Precision 7560 & Precision 7760 pre-release discussion

The strongest value proposition to me isn't necessarily the performance characteristics of the notebooks. Gaming notebooks have consumer technical support, and if you want some wonderful examples of that, check out the /r/Dell reddit. ProSupport on the other hand, is just the best, and Dell will make sure you get what you paid for. This is my direct experience with them. The ProSupport just adds a small proportion of the cost compared to what you get, in my opinion.

 

I beg to differ: the workload and the use-cases of the Alienware and Precision are very relevant in Dell's choice of aesthetics, marketing and target audience, the performance profiles, and, as @alittleteapot mentions, the support offered to these notebooks.

Coffee Lake and later, as well as NVIDIA's boost algorithms have changed a lot of how notebooks used to be. CPUs regularly draw well in excess of 70 W at full tilt, and they boost as much as they can now; likewise on GPUs. If there is thermal headroom, the card will go faster, simple. Fixed core clocks have pretty much gone by the wayside over the past 3-5 years. This also means that the Alienware is likely to get as hot as notebooks usually do, and there are four fans, so linearly scale up all four fans running at full tilt.

The things you've mentioned are really more a result of Intel's and NVIDIA's decisions than Dell's.

 

Support is a valid point, but you have Premium Support available for Alienware, which has on-site repairs, although it's not next business day guaranteed as with the Precision's ProSupport. But next business day on-site only works when they have the part available as I experienced myself when my K5000M on my M6700 died and I had to wait a couple of days because they had no replacement K5000M (a lot K5000Ms died back then because of a manufacturing problem by nVidia). Actually ProSupport (Pro) and Premium Support (Plus) sound a lot alike when you compare the two. Plus the only thing that I really need from support is the on-site repairs.

I need to question Dell's motive here. Why put the more advanced technology in a consumer product? It seems Dell's business unit has fallen behind a bit.

We will see who is right about the noise when the reviews come in. But I'm not seeing how putting a better cooling system inside a consumer part is more Intel's or nVidia's "fault" than Dell's.
I do acknowledge that we have different priorities when I comes to laptops and I think each point of view is valid.

 

The Alienware is very appealing but I will look like a fool and be extremely out of place if I have a colorful neon gaming laptop. So unfortunately I have to settle for the worse performance. It's sad that we have to chose between $4,000 based on looks and not performance smh. The ok thermals of the 7750 are making me want to wait out for the 7770, but that might be too long of a wait (although the parts shortage might be gone by then).

 

I really find these discussions about which system is better for whatever workload, very interesting. Just because I state that the specs for the 7760 CPU is XYZ watts and XYZ watts for the GPU, doesn't mean that is the max they will run at. If there is thermal headroom, which there almost always is in the 7760 thanks to the thermal solution, we can boost the CPU to >100W and the GPU to >140W individually and greater then >180W concurrently, for example. Precision mobile workstations are designed to be powerful and reliable. Gaming systems usually only have a 1 year warranty vs Precision with a 3 year standard warranty. Gaming systems allow you to overclock and superheat your CPU/GPU but this reduces long term reliability. Precision customer regularly state they have been running their systems for multiple years. I've had customers who have run their GPU's in their systems at 100% for over a year while running the Folding@home distributed computing software crunching for a cure to Covid 19 with no issues whatsoever. Like @EyeOfTheBeholder I also had an M6700 Covet edition which I ran for multiple years. FYI, I have been the product manager for Precision mobile workstations since all the way back to the M90 and have used most of them as my personal work computer at one time or another.

 

...Hang on...

Previously you gave the figure of 115W max on the GPUs in the 7760. Is the 140W value like a temporary high-power boost, or what...?
(Just trying to understand how the power limits work.)

 

Quite curious about this, too. From what I understand of previous machines, the 110 W limit was a hard no-exceed power limit enforced by the VBIOS. Has the boost/thermal algorithm changed with the 7X60 and Ampere?

 

I have to agree with reliability. My M4800 with an i7 4810MQ and K2100M never goes above 90 degrees for the CPU and 62 degrees on the GPU in a combined 100% load. And I have never repasted the thing a single time which is quite impressive.
However, I really do hope that, considering the impact that thermal paste makes on performance, the new Element 31 paste gets put in the Precision. It would be interesting to see the thermal improvement that it would bring.

I believe it might be Nvidia Dynamic Boost 2.0

 

Indeed, seems like it. Also makes me wonder if the 7560/7760 supports Resizable BAR.

 

Considering that they implemented Dynamic Boost, I would think they included a resizable BAR.