Precision 7530 & Precision 7730 owner's thread

Gotcha. Indeed, I was a bit thrown off when my heatsink wasn't painted black, though it was on my previous 7510. This is what my 7530's heatsink looks like with the P3200:



You can see they at least painted the fin area black to blend in near the vents, but that's the extent of it. Black would've looked nicer, but this is a small detail.

 

Hello all,

I've worked myself into a bit of a conundrum here, and could use some guidance. A little background: I'm replacing a beloved M3800 (1st gen) that has served me well - to the point that I just installed 2 new SSD's and did a clean install of Win 7 (no small feat in this day and age) to eek out a bit more time. What I primarily use is standard Autocad (mostly 2D but some 3D) and MS Office 365. I use 4 external monitors via a Plugable docking station (works great by the way). I carry it between work and home office. Historically I buy the stoutest CPU/GPU is the smallest form factor I can get to future-proof as much as possible.

I was about to pull the trigger on a 7530 with Xeon E-2176M but did a little more research on the Autodesk forum beforehand. I found a thread of someone who did go with a new system with same and they were actually running slower than before. Seems that AutoCAD is for 99% single threaded, and clock speed is of higher importance. With that understanding, I'm wondering if I shouldn't just get an i7 with the highest clock speed. The i9 or Xeon E-2186M seem like ovekill for my needs, and performance wise both seem almost identical - with the i9 actually slightly outperforming the Xeon in single thread rating. Or do I go with one of these for future-proofing?

I also am wondering why there's no love shown for the 5530? No dedicated users thread; very little comparisons to other similar units. Is it the integrated GPU? The P2000 seems adequate, and I question my need of ECC ram. It seems like an updated M3800, which had a strong following here...

1) What is your budget?
+$3K

2) What size notebook would you prefer?
15" - 16" screen
3) Which country will you buying this notebook?
US

4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
a. Like: Long time Dell user
b. Dislike: Apple
5) Would you consider laptops that are refurbished/redistributed?
I've looked...found a refurbed M3800

6) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook?
Standard AutoCad 2D/3D; MS Office; much multi-tasking with multiple displays

7) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places, leaving it on your desk or both?
Both

8) Will you be playing games on your notebook? (If so, please state which games or types of games?)
Nope

9) How many hours of battery life do you need?
Not much, usually have access to power

10) Would you prefer to see the notebooks you're considering before purchasing it or buying a notebook on-line without seeing it is OK?
Not really; went to local store and looked at upping to 17" - way too heavy; don't want/need 10-key

11) What OS do you prefer? Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Chrome OS, etc.
Going to make the jump from Win 7 to 10

Screen Specifics

12) What screen resolution(s) would you prefer? (See further below for explanations.)
1920*1080 FHD

13) Do you want a glossy/reflective screen or a matte/non-glossy screen? (See further below for explanations.)
Matte

Build Quality and Design

14) Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you?
Yes-love the look and feel (and weight) of my M3800

Notebook Components

15) How much hard drive space do you need?
512 for OS/programs; 1-T for data-all SSD
Timing, Warranty and Longevity

16) When are you buying this laptop?
Immanent
17) How long do you expect to use this laptop?
5+
18) How long could you afford to do without your laptop if it were to fail?
I'll have my M3800 as a backup, but not long

19) Would you be willing to pay significantly extra for on-site warranty, or would it be acceptable to you to have to ship the laptop to the vendor for repair with perhaps a week or more outage?
I'll purchase Dell ProSupport Plus

Thanks much and looking forward to you responses.

Best,

JD

 

I guess 5530 is just not that exciting, it basically identical to the 5520 and 5510, and the modern XPS 15 systems, with just refreshed CPU and GPU options. It should be fine but the more restricted heat flow will mean that CPU throttling due to heat will happen more frequently. Otherwise, it sounds like you mostly have it figured out. If you run a single-threaded load, you don't need six cores, just get a CPU with a high clock speed and high single-threaded turbo boost. In any case, unless you are doing very CPU-heavy work (long running jobs at 100% CPU usage?) a difference of a few tenths of a GHz between CPUs isn't going to be that noticeable, it's certainly not going to "future proof" your system significantly.

(CPUs haven't been getting that much faster over the past several years so you might find that it doesn't seem that much faster than your M3800. 8th gen is the most exciting thing that's happened in a while just because of the move from four to six cores, but if your workload is single-threaded then that is not a win. Maybe AutoDesk will implement multi-threading at some point down the line, seems like it would be tremendously beneficial... And if that ever happens [within the lifetime of this machine] then there would be value in getting six cores now.)

I don't think that you need ECC unless stability / crash resilience is of paramount importance to you. RAM faults don't really happen if you have good modules even if they are not ECC.

 

Ordering 2x16GB additional memory to bring the system to 64GB. Actually three sets for the three 7530's that we have at the office. Crucial CT2K16G4SFD8266 (CL19 to go along with the Dell-supplied memory). I'll post back how it goes but I think that other people have already tried these modules without any trouble...

 

Does anyone else have the low bit depth issue? I have attached a gradient 16bit png file to test. You can set it as your desktop wallpaper or view it full screen. It will be obvious if you have the issue...

 

Looks good for me: 7730, FullHD, i9, Intel GPU only, Win 10 1803

 

7530 / 4K display. Looks great.

I can see some vertical banding in the bottom half of your image but I examined it more closely, because you did a straight 8-bit gray scale gradient, there are only 256 colors available so it makes since that you'd be able to pick out the individual bands when they are so wide... The top part of the image looks great.

 

Just got back the dockingstations. They seem to work mostly so far. Let's see if they hold up.
I'm still sceptical. What are the odds that I got 2 defective docks in the same order?

Even while working though... It's a long way from what the e-port was. A long way in the wrong direction.

 

If you look at the image in the browser on an iPhoneX or ipadPro, you shouldn’t see any banding. Since the dell is an 8bit panel, you do. If you look at my previously posted images, you will see I am getting 6bits instead of 8. Sending into repair this weekend, hopefully it can be fixed...if not, I may just go Lenovo P72 since it has a 10bit panel

 

Looking at the bottom part of your image on my iPhone X (in landscape mode) I can see the same banding. You have bands of the same color that are 13 or more pixels wide at 100% zoom, it's not a smooth gradient across the whole image.