Dell Precision 7730 / Graphics Options / Fan Noise

Hello all, I am planning on buying a Precision 7730. My biggest concern is fan noise. I need bursts of power but not sustained hi power and I don't need the greatest GPU.

My intent is to go for an i7-8850H or 8750H and most likely choose the P3200 GPU over the WX4150. Below you can see the TDP (power) per GPU - I included the full list for completeness. The WX4150 seems like a really weak GPU.

• 45w Radeon Pro WX 4150 w/4GB GDDR5 Included in price
• 100w Radeon Pro WX 7100 w/8GB GDDR5 + $189.49
• 75w Nvidia Quadro P3200 w/6GB GDDR5 + $405.56 - VR ready
• 100w Nvidia Quadro P4200 w/8GB GDDR5 + $892.92
• 150w Nvidia Quadro P5200 w/16GB GDDR5 + $1,692.15

Can users of the Precision 7730 please share with the forum their experience of the fan noise when running single/multiple monitors with typical normal loads and workstation specialized apps (CAD/CAM.. etc..). Please don't forget to state which CPU, GPU you have installed and if you are running Windows or Linux.

Here's a useful DB guide so we can have at least some form of reference:

80db = loud singing
75db = inside car
70db = normal conversation at 3ft
50db = quiet office, moderate rainfall
45db = quiet library, bird calls
40db = whisper, quiet rural area
30db = rustling leaves, ticking watch
20db = hearing threshold

Just to give you an idea, my current very old Dell runs at 50-60db 85% of the time and under load its definitely hitting an awful 60db.

Thank you...!

 

A couple of things to throw out there.

Quadro P5200 doesn't seem to be worth it; users are running into power throttling (it can't use the full 150W) so it ends up being not much faster than the P4200.

I just have a Precision 7530 (specs in sig) but I'm quite happy with the fan noise. In a "web browsing / office work" type load, the fans are usually operating around 2000 RPM and is near silent -- I have to stick my ear up to the system to even hear its sound over the regular background noise of the environment. This is with three monitors (4K in system + two external 4K). Under moderate load the fan does kick up but it goes back down quickly after the load goes away.

7730 should be similar, they share the same basic design and BIOS; the GPU choice could make a difference (if you are putting it under load).

 

My 7730 configuration is listed in my signature - (2186M / P4200). I wear headphones normally, but fan noise has never been a problem for me. It will definitely kick in while gaming, but with headphones I don't even know they're on. What's struck me again and again is just how slim this machine is compared to the previous generation. I installed a Decibel X, and my ambient sound is 45 dB (server closet in the room...), but holding the iPhone mic right up to the exhaust fans it never got to more than 52 dB at maximum load on my machine.

 

I have a 7730 with an i9 and P4200.

In general day to dya use, the fans sometimes breeze a little once in a while. A phone-based decibel meter isn't reliable for absolute numbers, but mine shows a 3-5dB increase over ambient noise when the fans rev up. It also shows my keystrokes as 10dB spikes. The clacking of my keyboard and the movement of my mouse are louder than the fans with this sort of usage.

Pushing the gpu a bit harder for extended time makes the fans more audible. I'd compare it to when the neighbour is using a leaf blower.

 

I guess, I would prefer you as a neighbour over your neighbour with his senselessly loud leaf blower ;-)

 

Hello everyone, Thank you for the feedback. I bought the 7730 with an i7-8850H Processor (6 Core, 2.60GHz, 9MB Cache, 45W) and the Nvidia P3200 6GB GDDR5 75W. I use an FHD (1920x1080) panel - 4K would have meant more pixels to process and undoubtedly more heat.

The fans are quiet about 60% of the time. 35% of the time I can hear them but they do not bother me so much. They can get tiresome e.g. when running Outlook, Firefox with 40 tabs, android studio, android emulator and backing up a hard drive all at the same time and perhaps 5% of the time they rev up if I am multitasking like crazy. Dell provides software for setting the profile but I have used these at default settings i.e. the laptop decides.

It would be nice if Dell could spend more time re-engineering the fans to make them even more quieter. Acer have done this with their Predator Helios 500 laptop and the online reviews are impressive. They just screwed up the rest of the internals (memory and nVME slots).

Also the Intel onboard GPU is not that great. OK for everyday usage, but does struggle under the Dell diagnostics testing. The P3200 is worth getting just for future proofing. A dual monitor setup with this laptop does not affect fan noise even with two movies running simultaneously - second monitor is a 2560 x 1440 pixel.

One observation. As this laptop has 4 M.2 slots, it is really tempting to use RAID 0, however I found out that that does need some planning and forethought to ensure that partitioning and system backup software will recognize RAID and restore accordingly in case of emergencies. For the moment, I am running everything without RAID. The nice thing with RAID is you could pair two Intel M2 600 series nVME SSDs and get decent speed. These SSDs are the cheapest (2TB for 200$) but also the slowest. RAID 0 would almost double the speed.

Finally I have posted the speed tests of the Dell supplied Samsung 981(?) 1TB PCIe NVMe 2280 SED CLASS 40 SSD and the Intel SSD 660p - 2TB. The slower speeds are of the Intel.

Last comment - the keyboard has good travel. Not like the new slim laptops which have no travel. A higher actuation force would have suited me better.