Precision 7510 Owner's Thread

After much procrastination and anxiety, order finally placed! I haven't spent this much on a personal item in a long time. Excited, I haven't built a new computer in a long time too.

I will be ordering the machine with a 2TB spinning hard drive with Windows 10, and then re-installing Windows 10 on an aftermarket M.2 SSD (Samsung 850 M.2), some review questions if you guys don't mind.

1. Do I need to even boot from the 2TB hard drive and go through the process of the initial setup? Can I just slap the on the M.2 SSD right away and start installing Winwos10? Or should I update the BIOS first before trying to install the M.2 SSD?

2. Aside from setting the BIOS to ACHI, is there anything else do I need to do so that the motherboard will see the M.2 SSD?

3. I understand that the recovery media that comes with the machine is not actually a Windows 10 installer, I have to download the image off of the Dell website onto a USB and boot from that, right?

 

1. No need to update the BIOS before starting the Windows install, just update it soon after the install is done.
2. You either need the SATA mode set to AHCI, or you will have to provide Intel Rapid Storage drivers to the Windows 10 installer before it will see the drive. I say, leave it in AHCI unless you plan to use RAID.
3. Easiest to just download the install media from Microsoft, the tool will create a bootable USB drive for you. After the install, most drivers will come in directly through Windows Update, you will just need to install ControlVault and Thunderbolt (and maybe touchpad) components from Dell.

 

Thanks! Really excited, I haven't had a an excuse to do a fresh install of Windows 10 yet

 

Did you already buy the 850? It is a SATA drive, so you are loosing some performance, compared to NVMe like 950, PM/SM951 or the new SM961.

 

I think I can still cancel but price is a limiting factor for me. I did consider those but with my budget, I would have to get the 256GB version and I don't think I will be able to use the super uber fast speed so I opted for more storage space.

Do you have any link for a 512GB stick at below USD 200.00?

 

No, 512 is close to $300.

 

Ahh wait: PM951 512GB $180:

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-PM95...?ie=UTF8&qid=1468327300&sr=8-1&keywords=pm951

 

Same here, can't wait to get mine Order placed last thursday. With ****ty RAM and HDD. Already bought new RAM, and two 850 evo drives (one M.2 and on 2.5" sata). Only then I started to worry over drive compatibility... but everything should go just fine (see link below) !

Clear and valuable information, thx.
Still, one question comes to my mind : better to keep drivers from Windows Update, or some of them should be replaced (intel graphics, nvidia, ...) ?

The drive performances should not be his main concern. He should be worried about drive compatibilty. Hell, I was, as every single Dell documentation I found so far state that this M.2 slot is PCIe.
But those guys (http://notebooks-und-mobiles.de/dell-precision-7510-im-upgrade-test) got a M.2 sata SSD working, so Dell is not telling all the truth Also : the dell BIOS options list 4 sata ports. I assume 0/1 are for SSD drives. No idea what 2/3 are for...

Now, sure, the 850 evo is not as fast. Not as fast by a huge margin in benchmarks. *Just* not as fast in real world usage. Given the PCIe x4 NVMe drives are way more expensive (cost near twice as much in my country), I'd say the 850 evo is a good choice. And he can upgrade to a 4TB 1150 evo (or whatever the name of Samsung mainstream SSD line is in two years) for the same amount of money. Well, that's my plan actually

 

Thanks for the link! Though its coming up as USD 206.00 at my end but still tempting. Is it really worth the additional USD 40.00?

Also, just in case, the RAM that I am getting is Kingston Technology HyperX Impact 8GB Kit (2 x 4GB) 2133MHz DDR4 Laptop Memory HX421S13IBK2/8.

 

Thanks for the reassurance but that link from @SvenC is awfully tempting! Any personal experience with 850 EVO in your current machines? How do you like it?

I will be coming from an HDD and I haven't experienced SSD yet on my own personal machine...ever. So in either case, I think I will still be blown away by the performance

PS.
Do I need to order a screw to install the M.2 850 EVO? I just noticed it in one of the amazon comments.

edited for clarity