Latitude vs Precision

Good to see owners of both the Precision 5510 and Latitude E5470 here.

I'm torn between these two models. I'm coming from a mediocre MacBook Pro that failed and have reverted to my ancient Dell Latitude C640. I've always liked the Latitude series and looked at them this time.

It appears the Latitude line isn't what it used to be. My old C640 cost ~$2000, and you can't even buy a Latitude for that price anymore. Also, it isn't possible to have the highest-end quad CPU with a dGPU, which I'd like for engineering purposes.

The Precision 5510 seems much more well suited with the same quad CPU + dGPU. There also doesn't seem to be much of a reason to buy a Latitude instead of a 5510, since they're about the same price except for portability.

So what do you all think as owners? Is the Precision really the modern equivalent of the old Latitude?

 

I carry a 5510 for work, and have a 5470 on order; I take some pictures comparing them side to side on Monday.

Boy, the prices on the 5510 base configurations have fallen a lot. At $1299 for the base i7 5470 and $1649 for the base i7 5510 (with a little more memory and the DGPU) you are not looking at a big difference in price anymore.

The GPUs in the old Latitude line were increasingly useless as time went on and iGPUs got better -- I was really glad to see them not be mandatory with the quad-core CPUs in this generation.

I had the Inspiron 4150 which was essentially the same machine as the C640 just with the docking port disabled -- after a coke incident, I replaced it with an actual C640 motherboard off eBay. I didn't pay anywhere near $2000 for mine, but it was a relatively lower-end CPU at the time and I upgraded the RAM (and later the HDD myself.)

Reasons to get the Latitude E5470:
- A little lighter, a bit more compact
- 65W power adapter vs 130W for the Precision
- Real docking port
- Built in ethernet
- Real dual-pointing keyboard
- Potentially a lot cheaper via the Outlet.

Main reasons NOT to get the E5470:
- Need a dGPU and not willing to go down to an i5
- Want/need a HiDPI screen
- Want/need a Thunderbolt port
- Want a bigger screen without going to a heavier model (5570, 3510, 7510)
- Are not comfortable upgrading RAM yourself and need 32gb
- Need more than 32gb
- bigger battery option (if you're willing to pay the Dell premium for an SSD)

Reasons to get the 5510 in particular over the 5470:
- Need a dGPU but don't mind a low-to-medium power one for the generation
- Want a 15" screen but want the smallest/lighted 15" with a real CPU
- Don't need any of the missing ports (docking, real ethernet, mainly)
- need 32gb and aren't comfortable upgrading it yourself.
- Mac Envy

Other models to consider:
- 5570 or 3510 (essentially the same machine.) Weaker GPU than the 5510, but not by lots, and AMD rather than Nvidia if you have a strong preference. Roughly similar GPU in both, but 3510 is the "ISV certified" version. Doesn't officially support 32gb on the Latitude.
- 7510 : bigger GPU, 15" with all the ports, 64gb max memory rather than 32gb, supports a full-size battery + HDD rather than trading off space.
- XPS 15 9550 - essentially the same machine as the 5510, but a consumer (non-ISV-certified) GPU instead

 

How do you like your work 5510? What made you choose the 5470 for yourself?

I want a 14" screen. 15" is too big, especially with a widescreen computer. But the 5510 seems to hit all the right points otherwise so I might just go for the Prec.

"Need a dGPU but don't mind a low-to-medium power one for the generation"

What does this mean? The Prec seems to carry the strongest GPU Dell's mobile business line offers.

"- need 32gb and aren't comfortable upgrading it yourself.
- Mac Envy"

I'm also not sure what these two points mean. The Precision seems to be the opposite of the Mac, cutting edge and heavy, while the Mac is yesterday's technology in a cheap shell.

The C640 was very good. Nothing could break that computer, it was heavy and built to last. I am currently using it with Windows 7 and Linux to do my engineering schoolwork at home (talk about slow). It could even take 2GB of RAM when the specs said 1GB, probably because 1GB single sticks didn't exist in 2002.

EDIT: If I go Latitude, I'll probably go i7-6600U + AMD GPU rather than i7-6820HQ + iGPU. Shared memory never works well.

 

I would note that there's also the Latitude E5570 which is the same basic hardware as the Precision 3510 and both these share the same BIOS as the E5470. I recently bought the E5570 and it weighed in at 2.35kg with the big battery. The E5570 is available as quad core + dGPU. Probably the bigger chassis allows a more generous cooling system and hence the higher combinations of CPU + dGPU.

You may well find that the E5570 weight (starting at 2.09kg depending on configuration) is less than the old C640 although it is not as thin and light as the Precision 5510 (basically the same as the XPS15 9550) but it is lighter on the wallet.

John

 

Thanks for the continued assistance.

Budget isn't as much of a factor to me, I buy a computer so rarely.

How much GPU performance will I lose if I go iGPU with the 6820HQ in the Latitude compared to 6600U+Radeon M360? My MacBook Pro had an integrated Nvidia 320m GPU and it was a mess, always marking memory for itself and being overall slow. Apple claimed it was the most powerful iGPU in a 13" notebook at the time (2010). Hilariously, in GPU-centric applications the old 32mb Mobility Radeon 7500 in the Latitude about matched it and my desktop absolutely blew it away. That really gave me a negative impression of iGPUs, even modern ones.

I don't care about battery life or weight.

My problem with the 15" notebooks are that they are simply too big and wide. In the 4:3 days it was fine, but now 15" is too wide for a mobile computer in my opinion, especially on my semi-cluttered desk. To Apple's credit, the 13" MBs are the perfect size, especially with the high-resolution retina display.

EDIT: According to passmark, the Intel HD 530 has a higher score than the discrete Radeon. Hmm...

 

The iGPU on recent Intel chips is pretty good, enough to match any lower end mobile discrete card

Intel launched iris pro skylake in q1(6870hq), but no one has it yet (and Dell hasn't said anything about iris pro potential upgrades)... More powerful igp and 128mb edram

Not sure if you are willing to wait-and-see(and possible vaporware) or just buy it

I decided not to wait, got my e5470 in Feb/march...

 

Notebookcheck has a very useful list of mobile GPU benchmark results so you can compare results for different tests. Select the GPUs which interest you and then press the restrict button to compare only those. Here's an example with three GPUs. Note that the performance of the Intel GPUs depends on the system RAM. Dual channel DDR4 gets the best performance. Single channel or DDR3 performance will be lower. My E5570 with Intel 6440HQ and 16GB DDR4 RAM managed 909 in the 3DMark Firestrike.

There is also a similar list for mobile CPUs.

John

 

The 5510 shares three things that really annoyed me about my M3800:
* Clickpad + no pointing stick
* No built-in ethernet or traditional docking
* Relatively heavy 130W PSU which can't be use on airplanes or with a standard 90W DC adapter in cars; also it's a much less sturdy connecor
* I'm not sure if it has a WWAN slot
* Kind of meh keyboard feel

I chose the 5470 for myself because:
* No dGPU (plays better with Linux for work, good enough for casual gaming in Windows)
* Travel-friendly 65W PSU
* Smaller
* dual-pointing keyboard with real mouse buttons
* built in ethernet and docking
* Definitely has a WWAN slot

I'm pretty sure it also has the older-style and much sturdier power jack. I don't know if the keyboard feel will be any better.

No, that would be the AMD and NVidia GPU options (W7170 or M3000/M4000) in the 7710, or the middle options (W5170 or M2000) in the 7510. The M1000 in the 5510 is a midrange card -- roughly comparable to the Geforce 945M on the consumer side. It's a little more powerful than the AMD one in the 5570 or M3510 (or the Geforce 940MX in the Lenovo T460p when they actually start shipping that) but nothing to write home about.

BTW, the Geforce 960M in the XPS 15 9550 is a bit more powerful (roughly the same as the M2000M) and if you don't need the ISV-certified drivers, that might be a good choice (they're also much easier to find on the Outlet than the Precisions, if you're open to refurbs.)

Dell lists 16gb as the limit for the 5470 and 5570. This is simply incorrect (just as the "8gb" limit for the E6x20 generation.) It's almost always more cost effective to buy the minimum (or package-discount) amount of RAM from Dell and upgrade it yourself, but you have to be comfortable doing so. For 32gb on the 5470/5570 there is no other option as Dell will not sell them with 32gb.

They will sell the Precisions with 32gb (or 64gb on the 7510/7710) although the premium is pretty high (although not as ridiculous as it used to be, or as their SSD prices still are.)

The M3800 and to a lesser extent the 5510 are visually and ergonomically very similar to the MacBook Pro 15".

Ugh. Yeah, talk about slow. My wife and I had three of them between us (well, Inspiron 4150s but same machine basically) and I did not have the same experience. They were decent, fairly thrifty business machines for the time, but they were prone to overheating and heat related motherboard failures -- my second one, which had completecare, had three motherboards in the three years of the warranty because of the overheating failures. My first, which I accidentally killed in a spill, and which later got revived with a 2nd hand C640 motherboard, was used much more lightly and didn't need any replacements. I hope you paid for a better processor than I did -- the Pentium 4 mobile 1.7ghz (or 1.8ghz? can't remember) was pretty much obsolete within a year or two when the D600 (aka Inspiron 600m) and Pentium M came out. Also, the square power jack on those were fiddly.

1) I really can't see why you'd get a dual core ultrabook i7; they're a TERRIBLE value -- a good bit more expensive and more expensive than the much faster quad-core i5. If you want the better battery life, get a i5-6300U, if you want the best performance you get get with a dGPU, get the i5-6440HQ. If you want the highest performance, get one of the 15" models (or a Lenovo T460p) with the i7-6820HQ and a dGPU
2) What's the most recent iGPU you've actually tried? In my experience, for the past couple of generations (since Sandy Bridge) the Intel integrated graphics have actually outperformed the midrange discrete business graphics of the prior generation.
3) If you can actually live with an ultrabook CPU, what about waiting for the Iris Pro version of the E7470? Or if you really need the dGPU, there are dGPU E7450s on the Outlet, and there isn't a huge advantage to Skylake.

I'm sure it's cooling-related, but they do sell the 5470 with quad-core i5 (albeit de-rated to 35W) + dGPU.

That wasn't really an integrated GPU in the modern sense (processor graphics); it's in the chipset and using shared memory. I'm not sure if the shader cores in that are comparable to modern ones (or if it's pre-CUDA ones -- I think that's old enough it has to be pre-CUDA), but even if they are, 48 shader cores is tiny. A 2-generations back midrange chip is 384; the current ones are 512.

That was a lifetime ago in terms of GPU design, and for that matter, in terms of memory bandwidth compared to modern DDR4.

HiDPI works very poorly with Windows, and even more poorly with Linux, if you ever have to plug in to an external monitor (unless your external monitor is also HiDPI.) I went back to 1920x1080 (on both my work and on-order personal machines) because my monitors are 1920x1200 at home and work and HiDPI 16:10 ones are way too pricy.

One thing strongly in favor of the 5510: the bezels are really small, and for a 15" model it is amazingly compact.

Have you looked at the XPS 13?

Wouldn't surprise me at all. The Ivy Bridge iGPUs were fast enough for any general use, and the Haswell iGPUs fast enough for light gaming... and that's three generation back and two generations back respectively.

 

Thank you for your notes mr_handy.

Indeed, there is no point paying the Dell premium for RAM or hard drives, especially since it takes two minutes to swap them out yourself.

I'm not concerned with weight, battery life, or price (well, maybe price a little). I just want the highest performance (with the best screen) in the 14" business laptop shell. It appears that is the E5470 with the 6820HQ and FHD screen. The Precisions are too big dimension-wise as are the bigger Latitudes. Would you agree with that?

The XPS series is a consumer line and I would imagine are built to a lesser standard.

Would that be a better choice than the 5470 with the 6820HQ?

Likewise, would the quad i5+dGPU be a better overall choice than the 5470 6820HQ?

I'm thinking of just choosing the 5470 6820HQ. It looks like a great deal.

As a side note, I'm surprised to hear you had so many troubles with the C640/Inspiron. Mine had the second-to-fastest CPU available (2.0GHz Pentium 4-M). I grabbed it for free from a company that was going out of business in 2004 and had ordered the notebook for one of its sales reps. The only problem it ever had was the hinges wore out, and they had to be replaced. That was an $8 part. Everything else has been rock solid. Pretty much the opposite of my MacBook Pro which had all kinds of problems. It still runs Debian Linux quite snappy.

 

I don't know... If DELL had to put a power cap of 35w even on an i5 6440HQ inside e5470, how much actual performance and stability could one get from i7 6820HQ? Notebookcheck has not written a review on e5470 with regular CPU, but seeing their results with T460p (they call it "compact hothead") I doubt e5470 can do much better.
If you don't mind the appearance and battery life, perhaps some thin gaming laptops such as MSI GS40 or razer blade are also worth considering?