Precision 7560 & 7760 Owners' Thread

Here it is...
If it doesn't look like the NVIDIA GPU is powering off, try running this and see if it helps.

 

Alright! Here's an update after using my 7760 for a few days and performing a few additional benchmarks. Overall, I'm really impressed with this laptop in almost every way. I wrote a lot here and hope to offer even more feedback on my experiences as I use the laptop in the future. Hopefully, this is helpful for others who are either looking to buy one of these laptops or just other enthusiasts.

My system specs are in my signature now (I hope), so I'll refer everyone there so I don't keep repeating them.

This laptop was an upgrade to my current (now former) personal workstation, a Precision 7730. I've always preferred a laptop vs. a desktop for my primary computer given the mobility, which I absolutely need. I generally used my Precision 7730 and now the 7760 for the following purposes:

• Software development, using primarily C#, ASP.NET, Java, Docker.
• Virtualization, usually using VMware Workstation for most of the VMs.
• Machine learning, AI research/development
• Other research/experimentation in software dev, IT related fields.
• Gaming

With that in mind, I figured I'd touch on a few of the above aspects based on my experiences so far.

One caveat to the below info... I upgraded to Windows 11 and use it on almost all of my Windows PCs at this point. Given it's still in early release mode, some of these results could be different if you're running Windows 10. I also have at this point installed a few different pieces of software that may have some impact to performance - most notably is docker. I did shutdown docker and any other services before running any of the benchmarks or any of the games I discuss below.

With the above stated, given the results I've found so far, if any of this had a negative impact, then I'm even more impressed as the results I've seen so far are about or even above what I was expecting.

Benchmarks

• 3DMark Time Spy: 10577
  • This is a significant improvement from the mid-9000s I got before upgrading my RAM.
• Geekbench 5 Single Core: 1658
• Geekbench 5 Multi Core: 9634
  • Uploaded results: Dell Inc. Precision 7760 - Geekbench Browser
• Geekbench 5 OpenCL: 134838
  • Uploaded results: Dell Inc. Precision 7760 - Geekbench Browser
• Cinebench R23 Single Core: 1619
• Cinebench R23 Multi Core: 12166

I didn't post any screenshots. If anyone would like me to grab a few, I can post those as a follow-up.

Gaming
While I didn't buy they laptop only to play games, it definitely was one of the factors I wanted in this laptop as I want to be able to play games anywhere I am and not need to be tethered to a desktop or have to bring multiple laptops with me. Below is just some anecdotal experiences so far...

I picked 2 of the more resource intensive games from my library to initially try out. I figure the results from these 2 games will more than likely be pretty indicative of most games.

Cyberpunk 2077:

• 1080P High settings - low 100s FPS
• 1440P Ultra settings - 60s FPS
• 4K Ultra settings - 30 FPS (vsync enabled, so I wasn't able to see the highest FPS, but it never dipped below 30 during gameplay from what I saw.)
• 4K w/ Medium Ray Tracing - 30 FPS (same caveat as #3)

During the gameplay I noticed the GPU hit about 120.9W and didn't go over that at all. However, the GPU was using over 9GB and close to 10GB of VRAM at certain points, which may be a factor in potentially better performance over the RTX A4000.

Red Dead Redemption 2 - I played this on 4K with near max settings. I didn't measure the FPS yet, unfortunately, however, based on my experience playing this game a lot, I would wager it never dipped below 30 FPS, though it also never was well above 60 FPS. It was in a good enough range for this type of game, IMO. I never noticed any stutters/hiccups as I played.

I plan to play a few other games in the future and may post results on those as well if anyone's interested. I still have yet to try Flight Simulator 2020, which is another one on my list to try soon.

Software Dev
Building the same docker images on my 7760 takes about 60% of the time it took on my 7730. This is probably geared towards the improvements of the 11th gen Intel i9 over the 8th gen Intel i9 I had in my Precision 7730 in addition to the 2 extra cores I now have.

From what I can tell, most everything in my dev environment seems more snappy. Plus running test scenarios at load is much faster than it was previously - though I don't have too many concrete numbers to back this up yet - I'd wager at least a 30%+ improvement from my 7730. This is *very* anecdotal, so take this statement with a grain of salt.

Overall
In the first few days of owning this laptop, it has definitely been everything I'd hoped for. I have yet to see it stumble on a task I've thrown at it - which for this type of investment, I'm pleased about that experience.

I thought I would actually notice the differences in the keyboard more - however, this was not that big of a difference from the 7730 as I would have imagined. The keyboard is actually much nicer to type on for some reason, I can't quite put my finger on it though...

The size / form factor make the 7760 almost feel more like a bulky 15" laptop rather than a 17" laptop. I've used it quite a bit just on my lap vs. on a table. Dell definitely put "mobile" back into the "mobile workstation", IMO.

The other aspect that has made me use this more like a laptop is the trackpad. The glass surface is extremely smooth and reminds me other other glass trackpads I've used on devices like the Surface Book 3 or even MacBooks (though Apple still wins in this category, but it's just barely now).

The thermals are also very impressive. Even playing Cyberpunk 2077 - the CPU was around high-70s to mid-80s.

 

One other thing I want to note, when I played Cyberpunk 2077, I initially played it using my WD19DC dock. However, I noticed immediately performance was horrid and looking at the wattage for the GPU, it would never go above 35W. When I took it off the dock and plugged my 240W adapter directly to the laptop, the GPU wattage went up to a max of 120.9 and hovered around 110/115W at peak. I can only think of two things that would cause this:

1. The dock is defective and I should get a new one (it has occasionally given messages about not enough power for the laptop).
2. Using a dock, period, is not a good idea as it doesn't give enough power to the laptop - given it uses part of the 240W to do other things.

One thing I haven't tried, but I want to soon, is to connect another power adapter to my 7760 and see if that helps at all.

Has anyone else experience issues like this? Is it just a defective dock? Or is it just a limitation of the dock itself?

 

Is it the higher actuation force making it more snappy while allowing you to type hard?

 

I got 9792 with my A4000. Looks like for gaming (not representative of other use cases), the different is very minimal considering the price difference.

 

@jctierney does your GPU properly power off (no power consumption) on battery when not running any programs on it with the iGPU enabled?

 

Agreed, I imagine you'll ultimately see similar results to mine in gaming. The main reason I upgraded mine was for the hopes for better results in AI/ML type work rather than gaming - though I did have some slight hopes it would provide a better gaming experience as well.

 

I disabled the iGPU the day I got the laptop - so I do not have much experience with this, unfortunately. I may reenable it at some point to gauge what this experience is. If I do, I'll post it here.

 

I disabled Discord from starting on Windows startup, and it looks like the GPU is going in between now being used (0W) and being used (32W) every 10-15 seconds. Running HiddenOpenGL didn't fix the behavior. It's quite annoying having the dGPU on when on battery since battery life is horrible.
I think I will contact Dell in case they have any solutions.

 

If you haven't figured this out yet, go to NVIDIA control panel and select "Desktop → Display GPU activity icon..." from the menu. An icon will appear in the tray. If it is colored, the dGPU is on, and if it is grey, the dGPU is off (...maybe). You can click the icon to see what app is using the dGPU.

There are two options to attempt to force an app to use the iGPU.
1. Go to NVIDIA control panel "Manage 3D settings" → "Program settings", create a profile for the app, and set it to use integrated graphics.
2. Go to Windows Settings, System → Display → (scroll down) Graphics settings. Browse for an app and then set it to use the "power saving" GPU. (I had to do this to get the Epic Games launcher to stop using the NVIDIA GPU. Setting it through NVIDIA control panel didn't work.)

This might help you keep the Discord app from engaging the dGPU.

I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to work out a fan control solution once I have a system in-hand. I'm a little OCD about this so I'm pretty motivated to work on it.