new Dell Precision 5510 (Twin of XPS15)

I'd rather have a look at the upcoming HP Zbook Studio G3, that one's much closer to the Dell than the P50 is.

 

The Zbook pricing are off the chart imo

 

That's true, but I hear you can get much better deals if you just call them.

 

Hi,

Hoping this is ok to post here, if there’s a more appropriate spot, please redirect me.

I run 2 Windows 7 VMs using VMWare Workstation Pro along with 1 instance of TeamViewer all day. My primary set-up uses only 1 3440 x 1440 monitor, but I would like the ability to run 3 (10320 x 1440) in the future. I don’t game or watch videos, but do have some automated HUD-like overlays running within the VMs (monitoring financial markets and web sites for a couple of the people I work for).

I’m wondering if I can push this on a Dell Precision 5510 with the Nvidia® Quadro® M1000M w/2GB GDDR5 (or XPS 15 with NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960M with 2GB GDDR5 if that would be a better choice). Laptop screen will be off when using this set-up / I won’t ever be pushing the 4k laptop resolution at the same time.

If it’s relevant, this would be with the i7 (Intel® Core™ i7-6820HQ (Quad Core 2.70GHz, 3.60GHz Turbo, 8MB 45W, w/Intel HD Graphics 530) ) with more than enough RAM (32 GB with 8 GB assigned to each VM, 16 left for the host).

Is this realistic? If not, what about with only the 1 monitor? I’m finding conflicting information about the significance of the graphics card when using Virtual Machines, and it’s difficult for me to test without buying a bunch of hardware.

I need the portability but I’m wondering if I’m making a mistake even considering this set-up and should sacrifice the convenience and pack up a desktop every time I commute (few times a month). I was looking at the Precision 7710 as well, but unfortunately I need Thunderbolt 3 and can’t really wait a couple more months.

Thanks for any advice.

Sid

 

Hmm, what happens to VT-d and TXT support which is only available in CM236?

 

Adlink writes (I'm not saying Dell use their mobo)
Both Basic and Compact size modules are available with 6th generation Intel® Core™ i7, i5 or i3 processors and accompanying Intel® QM170 and HM170 Chipset. ECC memory is supported by models utilizing the Intel® Xeon® processor E3-15XX v5 family and Intel® CM236 chipset. DDR4 memory is supported up to a total of 32GB

http://www.adlinktech.com/news/news...rformance-Computing_Graphics-Applications.htm

I didn't choose vpro, so I really don't hope this limits my chance of ECC...

 

Well on the flipside you should be able to order the i7 with the vPro option, which I did on my 7510.

Again I can't see how the chipset (other than maybe BIOS) has an affect on the memory if the memory has a direct bus to the processor? Someone mentioned that ECC may have a wider bus, but the i7-6820 an E3-1535 have the same memory bandwidth. And AFAIK the Xeon and i7 are pin (ball?) compatible. We haven't had a brave soul to test this yet however...

The other reason to get the Xeon is for the 200 MHz boost over the i7-6820. Which is great if all your apps run single thread, but the multi core speed is actually about the same as the i7-6820.

 

Dell did speed up their delivery, so I should be getting mine around friday. At order I was told 15th of January - maybe later.
So I'm unable to get the proper chipset, but I'll report back asap if the none vpro configuration is as expected in regards of chipset.

 

I think the new Thunderbolt dock will handle 2 4K screens so you should be good.

If you don't run any software that has ISV certified drivers (don't know if VMware is on that list) you may be better off with XPS15. Both XPS15 and Precision 5510 support 32GB RAM.

 

Just had a chat with Dell support - and Dhanpal says it's the CM236 chipset in my case when I've bought with Xeon. Even thought I didn't select vPro.

15.58.45 Agent Dhanpal N
Mobile Intel CM236 woould be the mother board model on this Precision laptop
The Laptop would come with Mobile Intel CM236 chip set with or without V pro added since the Chip set does not matter with teh V pro
Since V pro is just additional software installed on the system and that does not relate to the chipset design