Kaby Lake Precision pre-release discussion (5520 / 7520 / 7720)

It's a pitty that the 5520 supports only the Maxwell card and not Pascal.

 

Dell promised it for the XPS15 but didn't say when. When it arrives then I would expect it to be an option for the 5520. It will need a different palmrest unit.

John

 

Looking at Nvidia's data on the M1200 card, I'm a little intrigued. It has a TGP (max power draw of graphics sub-unit) of 45W, meaning that with the memory it probably isn't much more. They don't list TDP, but typically, cards have a lower TDP than TGP (mxm vs. attached to board). So if the Precision 5520 is using a 35W CPU and a 45W GPU, it should be quite cool and easy on the battery.

 

At least some people DO have Torx drivers around; even fewer have Apple's silly Pentalobe driver.


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I was actually eyeing eGPU before Pascal generation came out. But having seen some reviews it seems that you simply loose too much performance going that way and I'm not even getting started about frame times, latency and compatibility. I'm looking to buy a 7720 and maybe in two or three years when Volta or Volta refresh is out eGPU might be an alternative to buying a new laptop.

I think some vendors put 1080 in their boxes without sufficient cooling, so they will only reach max performance for a brief time before throttling. But it's hard to tell without reviews. I would love to see some top performance offerings from AMD but I think we will have to wait for Vega for this.

I think you got it backwards. Do we buy consumer cards from professional-oriented vendors like Evans & Sutherland, Matrox or SGI or do we buy professional cards from consumer-oriented vendors like nVidia and AMD? Think about it, a couple of years ago, before the cloud and deep learning, the professional market was tiny, volume wise. Back then AMD and nVidia offered pro solutions because they were already making these high-volume consumer GPUs and adding the features for professional need was (comparably) easy and cheap. Nowadays it's a bit different with cloud, deep learning and automotive. But the main revenue still comes from the consumer market.

 

Yes, it's the cooling. I don't know what they expect, but the current cooling technology can't do slim and powerful. It's either of these, not both, since as I said both result in underperforming, which results in false expectations - "Oh look it's TITAN XP in 1mm laptop!!!". Which brings us to the P5000 again. I understand thermal limitations very well, I'm building my own cooling, since mine is not very cool. It would've been best if they named it P4000 and the model that's now P4000 be called P3500, which it really is, since it's between P4000 and P3000. The PR department didn't feel that way though. So once again we have non-equivalent GPUs with equivalent model numbers and even if they are equivalent (the consumer ones), they are not consistent. What a mess.

Would they add it mid-cycle? They have before but it was more exception, than a rule (partly because releases synchronized). Also note, there's this thing that bothers me, if the chip that floats around (with 2 HBMs) is the small one (it's pretty big), I don't think that we have chance to see this GPU in standard MXM-B form (it wont fit between the holes), which all of the listed GPUs so far are, or at least I think so. Which means - redesign, which means unlikely to be done for 7720. We'll wait and we'll see I guess, end of March is when more light would be shed (on Vega and hopefully the mobile one as well).

 

Pretty sure the last time Dell added a new GPU option to the Precision mid-cycle was in 2010 when they added a high-end Quadro option to the M6500 a bit late. (I don't remember the details of that very well, but they definitely haven't done it in any systems newer than the M6500.) Unlike something like the Alienware line where they add new tech rather promptly, these things have to go through ISV certification, and it makes sense to just do that once for everything when the machine is launched. And of course, refreshes follow Intel's CPU release cycle. Don't hold out for new GPUs newer than what you already see until the 7730 launches in summer 2018.

 

That is VERY helpful - thanks! Looks like 20 to 30 is not much gain, but 30 -> 40 is a big leap. I think I'll target the 40.

 

In reality, the faster speed provided by NVMe is not obvious unless you are reading very large blocks of data. Windows and other software packages might boot slightly faster but how many times per day do you do that. That said, it's the way forward and price differentials between NVMe and SATA will shrink but at the moment I would spend my money on more capacity rather than faster speed. Any SSD is likely to slow down if it gets near to full so more capacity which provides empty space, helps to maintain performance.

John

 

Unfortunately Dell dropped the second 2.5" slot in the 77xx line (and optical dropped as well, where I added a third 2.5" ssd in a caddy in my m6800).

Currently m.2 2TB is at 1200€ (without competition) compared to 560€ in 2.5".

The lack of 2.5 slots makes an upgrade really pricey as I would need to buy at least one m.2 card and are left with two (almost) unusable ssds (can be used as upgrade in other systems, but not internally in a new 77xx :-(