Precision 7730,5530,7530 (Coffee Lake) pre-release

Bokeh, any benchmarks you can give us on the 7730? Looking to switch from MacBook Pro to a fully loaded 7730 for 4K video editing and compositing that will last me a few years. Thanks!

 

As you and someone else mentioned earlier, it is also the same for RAM. This is something which really, really annoys me as it is such a waste, plus it gives us extra work to do which quite frankly we should not have to bother with. Having to reinstall/clone Windows onto the new SSD etc, very annoying.

I am sure people would pay a little extra to have the convenience of the SSD shipping with exactly what they want without having to open it up, clone OS to new SSD, remove old SSD and insert new SSD. At least with RAM its plug and play, but even then you are left with a silly little module that you can't do much/anything with. But when the savings are as big as they are, it would be foolish to pay Dell such a premium.

 

You really do not get the idea of a business machines, do you? Of course, memory or storage from Dell are slightly more expensive, but cover by the warranty and support. You can get NBD memory or storage repair, you can keep your storage (with ProSupport Plus) or even get accidental damage repair for memory and storage (like the whole machine).

Do not be cheap, just buy a proper configuration which is tested and cover by warranty and support. Buying cheapest drive or memory and buying new separately may save you small amount, but you do not get any help from Dell for those parts.

 

You also usually do not need help from Dell for those parts - ram failure is easy to diagnose yourself and pretty much all vendors offer lifetime warranties. Storage is also straight forward if a failure happens or is imminent and most vendors and simple to use warranties for an RMA. Paying Dell their ridiculous mark-ups is for lazy businesses and buyers. Better parts can be had cheaper - end of story. ESPECIALLY for individuals buying these laptops, as many on this forum are - not businesses making large volume deals.

 

Sorry, but it is just not true. With current generation the premium for Dell parts is like 15-30%. It's totally worth it to purchase parts from Dell for proper support and guaranteed compatibility. Especially with ProSupport Plus.

 

A quick check of the product specifications shows that all of the processor options (including the E-2176M and i9) only support 64GB of memory. Is this just a case of Intel not updating their specifications for the release of 32GB DIMMs? For best future 128GB support, what processor would be the best? I’m particularly concerned about the non-Xeon processors supporting the additional memory.

 

Does anybody have a photo of the black 5530? I'm curious to see how the brush texture looks since its advertised as black onyx.

 

I mentioned in an earlier post that Dell is asking $1600 to add a 2TB NVMe SSD as a second drive. Samsung 970 EVO 2TB is available for $800. That's not a cheap-o drive, either, it will likely perform better than whatever Dell is offering at class 40. So, there's a 100% markup from Dell.

This is an extreme case, I agree with you on RAM, I think that their SSD prices are a bit steep though.

Anyways, for those purchasing a single machine as an individual and not a bunch of machines as a business, I totally get wanting to save some money and buy the parts separately. RAM and SSD are components that are rather unlikely to cause warranty issues.

(If you're OK dropping down in performance some, you could get the Samsung 860 EVO 2TB which is available for $550, this is what I'm going to be doing for secondary storage in my 7530. Totally can't justify spending an extra $1000+ to have the drive covered under Dell's warranty.)

If you're planning to upgrade to 128GB I think that you would be best served waiting until we have additional information... Neither Dell or Intel have provided any guidance on this yet.

 

Yes, I agree with you, for unknown reason 2TB is ridiculously expensive, but all other options are reasonable.

Actually, Samsung 970 EVO will not perform better than Dell Class 40. As a class 40, Dell uses Samsung PM981 which is faster than 970 EVO and 960 PRO, but slower than 970 PRO.

 

I picked up a 970 PRO 512GB last week for just under $200. Dell wants nearly $400 (plus giving up the base 500GB HD) to get it in a 7730. It’s not just the higher capacity models that are overpriced.