Precision 7530 & Precision 7730 owner's thread

My initial impressions after a couple days with the 7530:

i7-8750H
16GB 2666mhz CL19
Quadro P3200 & 91whr battery
1080p Touchscreen
256GB Toshiba nvme
512GB WD Black nvme
Backlit Keyboard
Intel Wireless 9260 +BT 5.0

Performance is a beast with a cooling system able to support it. I didn't spring for any of the higher tier CPUs due to the value I'd gain from it, but it still screams with the lower i7 option. I ran a sequence of Cinebench runs to determine if there was any throttling when running a CPU or GPU load. My results can be found here: https://pastebin.com/yHu8BaYH

The gist is that the first run yields ~1250, with every subsequent test settling at 1150. I monitored the performance during the run and noticed the chip approaching 100 degrees celsius before dropping the clocks from 4000mhz to 3500mhz, with the temperatures dropping to the mid 80s. It remained there for the rest of the tests. I suspect a heavy CPU+GPU load may push it down further, but so far that's been my observation. Speaking of GPU performance, I was able to get an 11,100 in Fire Strike. GPU thermals were well below 70c for the duration of the benchmark.

The display, I must admit, is a bit disappointing. I considered 90% sRGB volume to be a minimum for the work I need to do, yet this display only scored 86.5%. I'm not sure if this can still be considered 72% NTSC and am contemplating a replacement. Additionally, there is what seems to be a speck of dust behind the display. It's tolerable, but so far this has been the lowest point of the experience.

Inputs are largely improved over the previous 7510. The trackpad now features precision drivers which perform night-and-day better than the old Alps drivers. The keyboard, which I originally didn't like as much, is growing on me. The keys themselves don't snap back as sharply as the 7510, but the edges are softer, making it more pleasing to glide across. The touchscreen is about what you'd expect - glossy and responsive. I actually like the glossy look, as I think it makes the machine appear more premium.

Battery life isn't what I thought it'd be, but my expectations were a bit unrealistic considering the 78w GPU inside. Basically, with the P3200/91whr battery and the 1080p screen, you can expect 4-6 hours of general use. Optimistically, I'd say it hangs around 5 hours based on discharge trends and Windows estimations. My time writing this has me at an estimate of 6 hours. I have not fully drained it myself yet, so take my experience as an estimate vs. reality.

The speakers are a marked improvement from the previous generation, offering more bass and clarity. They get far louder as well. I never realized how important speakers were on a laptop until I've had to run presentation audio from my device. Too many broken AV conference setups out there...

As far as heat and noise goes, it's acceptable. Thankfully there's no offensive coil whine, as is the norm for this class of device, but it does run a bit warm. I'd assume that has a lot to do with the GPU I chose, but otherwise it's nothing out of the ordinary. I've noticed some strange fan behavior, where the fans start up and quickly turn off in succession. It doesn't last too long, so I don't think it's too bad. I've also noticed that at times only one side actually spins, which is pretty cool. The side vents are an excellent addition as well, as I can feel heat coming from them during times of load.

Lastly, I absolutely love the build of this machine. It feels slim (for what it is), solid and reasonably weighed. I miss the old quick-entry mechanism on the bottom allowing for quick upgrades and battery access, but at least we have captive screws.

Overall, I think this is a great improvement over the 7510. Going from an M2000M to a P3200 is roughly 3x the graphics performance alone. I don't really mind the loss of MXM as they had to use their own implementation to get this level of performance at this size, and MXM upgrades are becoming harder year after year. I only wish the display was a bit more on par with other 1080p notebooks in terms of color gamut.

 

Thanks for the input . I agree speaks are actually very important. What make Mac stand out have a lot to do with the good camera and speakers. Looking forward to buy mine

 

@Div033
Regarding the screen, my M6700 had the same issue when I first got it, some kind of dust captured in the screen behind the top-most layer. I called them up and they replaced the screen straight-away, no hassle...

 

The touchscreen drains a lot of battery when idle. I got the non-touch option and I expect the battery life to be around 8 hours of browsing the web and up to 12 hours of note-taking and reading pdf files.

 

I'll be really surprised if this happens without an extreme effort to conserve power. These machines aren't all-day-battery machines.

 

I would expect 12 hours of "looking at desktop" when power profile set to "battery saving", disconnect all peripherals, turn off keyboard backlight, disable wifi and bluetooth, and turn screen brightness all the way to the bottom.

 

Actually was waiting for your pics lol

 

. Here is a video for precision 7730 which I don't understand anything this guy's wsa saying but it is a high quality video

 

This worked great for getting the Touchpad to work. I was thrown off because there were no missing drivers / unknown devices showing up in Device Manager, but sure enough, once I installed the serial I/O driver then the touchpad appeared in the list and started working.

 

Awesome - can you add it to your first page post? I figured it out around the 3rd build that I did. It is the second driver I am installing now after the base chipset drivers.