Precision 7530 & Precision 7730 owner's thread

This is one of the reasons I went with Dell's RAM in my configuration...didn't want to risk a software/firmware update breaking use with third party ram.

 

I thought it was to be a clean system w/o all that junk in order to make it as fast and efficient as possible. I'll have to read about it again.

As for the memory, I'll have to take what comes w/the laptop.

Thanks

 

I'll probably come w/Enterprise installed since that's what our computers here at work generally come with.

 

Just a note. Laptop is running stable since Friday with bios 1.3.7 and gskill 3200MHz memory. Performed also different benchmarks without any issue.

 

Hello together,

my 7730 came last Monday, yet I didnt get a "mobile workstation" but instead either "a mobile" or "a workstation". The Problem is that the performance when on battery is absolute pathetic, even Webbrowsing is a pain as long as the intel didnt get put to maximum boost. Im already in contact with Dell, the support wants to exchange the whole unit.

Can anyone tell me what they get on AC vs Battery when in cinebench R15?
(my performance degredation is in windows and linux as well, sysbench shows the same lowered - I understand that you cant expect the same as on AC but these numbers are just so low, I cant even think of working mobile a bit and I would at least expect a boost for a least 30secs or something);

System: xeon 2186m - 4K - 32GB ECC - AMD 7100WX 8GB

R15 Resuts AC vs Battery (full performance power profile - the results are often jumping, not very consistent as the fans never really want to go up on battery mode):

1303 vs 350 (to 450 - rarely even numbers) - on multicore
200 vs 81 (to 144, often 110 area) - on solo core

the numbers of sysbench in linux are similar, often only a fraction of performance - yet, we get a happy battery life in benchmark of over 3h

I understand that the CPU is 45TDP on max, but on mobile it seems to be stuck at 15TDP.... these numbers are from 1.3.7 BIOS, before it was even worse. Whats also bad is the fact that I type this in Chrome now and I have a lag from the built in keyboard with nothing attached to the 7730 when not on ac after runing 1 benchmark and heating up the system a bit as no fan goes up.... ignoring anything set in windows power profile. Any changes to bios like speedstep etc. is the same.



PS: stumbled upon something special - I noticed the area around the Dell Logo below the screen gets really hot... so I put the display to minimum and waited a bit, did a multi bench and got at 730 score (!) - fastest ever, then maximum display light, bench is donw to 540 on 2nd run and 290 on the third run! - whats going on here? Can anyone with 4k tell me if the screen stays cold or gets hot at that area too?

 

Performed only multicore benchmark:
1301 @ AC
1134 @ Battery (ultra performance profile)
Screen is warm (41C) at Dell logo. Left side is a bit colder and right side keeps at ~41C max 44C.

 

Can you please elaborate on this? I thought installing 3rd party RAM wasn't an issue.

TIA

JD

 

3rd party ram should not be an issue. But as some people reported, updating a firmware on the motherboard, caused issue with third party ram. Fortunately they were able to re-seat the ram and fix the issue. All I'm saying is if a firmware update happens to break the ram, having Dell ram installed is one less troubleshooting headache to deal with vs using 3rd party ram (tech support would most likely tell you to replace 3rd party ram with 1st party ram to rule out the ram being an issue).

 

Gotcha ya - thank you. The reason I asked is that I just replaced the ram and drives in an aging M3800 (which I also unfortunately updated bios beforehand) that I'm trying to nurse along until I can spring for one of these units and have experienced erratic behavior. I guess I'll put original ram back in to see if it settles it down. When I went to my local Fry's to pick up a mSATA drive and was told they didn't have it because "it's old technology", I've been lurking here ever since. Wow-do I have some catching up to do...;/

Thanks again.

JD

 

My new Precision 7730 arrived 8/3/18!! $9,700. The i9 Coffee Lake chip I've been waiting 14+ months for finally showed up int he Dell configurator for the Precision. Interesting to compare the results with the speculation I had about what might be the "7730" last June 2017 in the 7720 thread here, post 568. Back then I was hoping it would all emerge, complete with the as-of-then un-announced Coffee Lake chip, by Black Friday 2017. LOL. Well...14 months later... I guess this is "racing speed" for Dell, Intel, and Microsoft.

This bad boy has (vs. what I was hoping for back then):

* The i9-8950HK Coffee Lake processor. 2.9 GHz, 6 cores, 12 MB. All the stuff I wanted back then, almost. I was hoping for 3.5GHz base, these new guys dropped the clock. Back then I was hoping for a new Xeon version of the Coffee Lake too. Well guess what? Happened! In fact I bought it at first, the E-2186M. Exactly the same specs as the i9-8950HK, with the exception of supporting the ECC that I wanted and a couple of "corporate" functions I would never use. Plus the P630 graphics, with the certified drivers I don't need since I'm paying thousand(s) for the P4200 chip with certified drivers. I placed the order at first - and paid! - with the E-2186. Then then day after I'm sipping on a nice espresso, reviewing my order, and what do I see? 64 GB of ECC DDR4-2400MHz. WHAT??? 2400MHz AND NOT THE DDR4-2666GHZ THE CHIP IS SPECIFIED FOR BY INTEL? WHAT TREACHERY IS THIS??????? I hadn't noticed when I placed the order. Called Dell and canceled the order immediately, in utter disbelief of the situation. I checked, DDR4-2666GHz ECC does exist and is for sale out there. Dell clearing out old stock (the previous Xeon chip DID use 2400)? Motherboard (or Intel chip!) issue that is currently unable to support DDR4-2666MHz ECC? You decide. But I'm not playing that game, paying nearly $10K for a laptop "crippled" (well, slightly, but hey I'm paying TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS here) by a memory bus running at 2400MHz. With no assurance putting in ECC 2666 would solve the problem, if the issue is with the chip, or motherboard, or support logic. So at this point I resigned myself to wait a few more months for the correct ECC DDR4-2666 MHz memory to appear in the configurator.

Fast forward 2 days. Some collateral damage showed up in the configurator with that Xeon 6 core E-2186M, namely the requirement to use MS Windows 10 Pro ***Workstation***. WTF. Some new version of Win10 Pro apparently launched in the fall, presumably to deal with the licensing discrepancy the new 6 core chip presents. Anything more than 4 Xeron cores was previously a "server" and needed the server version of Win10. Ahhhh.... what are the chances of ever getting any of my software to run correctly on this "special" version of Windows 10 for the Xeon, the Workstation, that will likely sell 1 copy for every 10,000 copies of normal Win10 Pro, and therefore probably not have MS' undivided attention for fixes and udpates. Software chills went down my spine. I just saved me from myself in cancelling that Xeon E3-2186M order. (and I even read that officially the E3 are not released yet, even though they are shipping. More chills...)

So all of a sudden I start warming up to the nice, friendly, high-sales-volume i9-8950HK chip that does about 98% of the Xeon E3-2186M. Yes, I will have to give up my beloved ECC and hope I don't get an alpha particle hit on the memory at a crucial point during the year. But then again the cat could, and likely will, walk across the keyboard with a much higher rate. Such is life. Lets order that i9-8950HK with 64 GB of the non-ECC DDR4-2666Mhz correct-speed-for-the chip memory. Which I did. emailed my friendly (and quite good, I was very impressed with his knowledge, seriously) Dell sales rep likely in India and re-placed the order. With the MS "normal" version Win 10 Pro (not Jerkstation) which even saved $100 or so. Downgrading to the i9 from the E3 saved a hundred or so. Hmmm... what better way can I spend that money on... I know! The Dell docking station. Bought that too.

* Windows 10 Pro, NOT 10 Pro Workstation, thank heavens, changing to the i9-8950HK from the Xeon E3-2186M. See above. Saved $100 too. Docking station here I come...

* 64 GB of non-ECC DDR4-2666MHz memory. See above with the chip for all the gory details in the decision to downgrade the chip and mem from ECC to non-ECC to get the correct 2666Mhz speed on my memory bus. The size decision... do I need 64GB? No. Is there any application even remotely on my horizon that would use 64GB. No. Do I ever, in this lifetime, wish to open up the back of the laptop and possibly have to remove the keyboard to insert more memory chips, plus having to hope and pray the specifications of said chips (the REAL measured specifications, not the ones published in the memory chip's data sheet) will match my existing two sticks? H*LL NO!! It is not even remotely worth $500 (64 GB vs. 32 GB) to experience that terror years down the road that is memory upgrading and actually having the thing work properly afterward. 64GB means never having to say to one's self "ah gee I should have bought that additional memory for program xxxxxx here".

* Hard drives...1TB "class 50" SSD for C:. 2TB "class 40" SSD for D:, 2TB "class 40" for E:, and resisted the extreme urge to put yet another 2TB in for F: (yes, I LOVE this laptop, it will take 4 SSD sticks!!!!!!!!!!!!!). OK, so why would I pay $1000 for a Dell "class 50" (lol, yeah, it has to be fast it is a class 50 right? Whatever the heck that is. Oh, but I get it, faster than a Class 40! Well that makes it worth all the money right there! Who needs actual specifications? This way Dell can easily switch SSD vendors LMAO, the joke is clearly on me). So why did I do it? Too much coffee? No enough sleep? Love telling myself for the next 3 years "I coulda had a Samsung!". The answer: see above in the memory write-up about NEVER wishing to take the back off and - worse - NEVER wanting to find out that SSD memory stick model xxxx works fine 95% of the time but, occasionally, will lock the disk bus. No, you see the reason I buy a Dell is that presumably it is ***tested*** as a system to work. At least through the warranty period, lol (which is 5 years in this case, I bought the extended warranty). Even more importantly than being fast, or impressive, I need my laptop to actually *work* and work damn reliably for what I do on a daily basis. So if it means paying 50% more than lovely Samsung (I do like their SSDs! have them in the old Sony) for half the capacity, that is fine if it is tested and will work reliably in all situations. Having said that, one of these days I may take the risk and slip a samsung 4TB stick in that open slot for F:, once the latest version of M2 Samsung Pro is out in 4 TB (right now it is only 2 TB, which is another part of the decision). Then wait for the disk bus to mysteriously start locking up once every 4 weeks, right in the middle of editing an extremely important spread sheet.

Side note: In my write-up last year I was hoping for a "class 60" by now. Yes, there really should be one, just look at the Samsung M2 NVme specs now vs. a year ago. Dell? Hello?? Is there anyone out there??? (love that song).

* The UHD (almost 4K) full color gamut display panel, of course. In my writeup last year this was the BIG thing I was waiting for. Coffee lakes supports 4K and UHD natively. For what I do I need 4K. (that is why the big SSD storage above, forgot to say, video). And... WOW am I impressed with this display! Even when I have to temporarily back it down to 1080p because stupid peice of software xxxxxx doesn't respond to the 250% GUI scaling properly. Or the video in question is only 1080p and having a base resolution of UHD would result in file sizes bigger than the Pentagon budget, for no reason.

A side note, a year ago I was hoping for a 18.4 inch panel. Still am!! Makes me so sad those went the way of the dodo. I would buy one in an instant.

* The NVIDIA Quadro P4200 graphics chip. Drivers are certified for business stuff I use, like Autocad. Spent a bit a time comparing the P5200 and the P4200. Regarding the 5200 I kept saying to myself "what??". The P5200 seems like one of those chips that got release even though it does like 10% more at 30% more power dissipation and power usage just because they could. vs. the P4200 the gains appear to be marginal, but the likely already taxed thermal system would start taking out a life insurance policy.

Side note: In my writeup last year I was expecting "Intel Useless Graphics Pro" GPU on the Coffee Lake. Well... not so useless! The graphics GPU on the i9 is actually useful, especially for video transcoding. Quick Sync seems optimized for it in fact. A couple of programs here provide the hardware acceleration option between the Quick Sync on the i9 and the NVENC on the P4200 card. Very little difference in performance, so far anyway, in video transcoding! Color me impressed. Good work Intel.

* It was made in Tennessee (shipping label) outside of Nashville, not Austin TX? No, stop laughing, I am actually being serious here. Yep, Grand Ole Opry, hottest wings at the KFC, some amazing country music, if you are into that. And Dell laptop assembly. I raced to the keyboard and Google. Well wadaya know. A number of years back Dell apparently opened a plant (not for laptops) in Tennessee due to the wonderful climate, workforce, and the usual eye-popping multi-year tax abatements if I'm reading that right. The plant has done an expansion since, just like popcorn in the microwave, and is apparently building these laptops. Now THAT is globalization! Ordered in India, money likely processed in Austin, built in Tennessee, and shipped to Texas.

SO - TO SUMMARIZE - All in all I'm extremely happy so far with my brand new Dell 7730 that cost as much as a new pimped-out Yugo (Google, young folks out there) but is far more reliable. Met or exceeded many of those things on my wish list in the 7720 thread post 568 in June of 2017.

Good job, Dell!