Precision 7740/ 7540 specs / release date

One wonders if Intel has run out of non-Lake codenames.

From 2007 to 2014, we had: Core, Penryn, Nehalem, Westmere, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, and Broadwell.

From 2015 to 2020, we have had, and will have: Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake, Whiskey Lake, Cannonlake (the original 10 nm 'tick'), Ice Lake, Tiger Lake.

Well done, Intel.

 

If they run out of lakes they could go for Some Hill or planet names - should be a lesser problem for CPUs than us, when we run out of lakes...

 

While digging around for details on the new WD19 generation of docks, I ran across this article.
https://techn4all.com/dell-will-provide-latitude-laptops-with-carbon-fiber-lids/
It mentions details from an internal Dell document which states that NVIDIA is working on mobile versoins of the Quadro RTX graphics cards, which will land in the Precision laptops in "third quarter". (Timeline about as expected given Intel's recent launch of 9th-gen mobile CPUs.)

 

Just discovered this page which "leaks" new models a few weeks before they become available for order. No sign of new Precision 7X40 systems yet, but, I am now watching it and will raise a flag here when they show up...

 

Time to complain about the keyboard!!



This is the new Dell Precision 3541. I looked up pages for the new Latitude 7400 and it appears to have the same keyboard (with no numeric keypad), and also it appears to be the same with the new Latitude 3500. All three of these systems were unveiled today. It seems that this is Dell's new business laptop keyboard.

The Precision 7X10 and 7X20 keyboards took a beating on this forum because the "Home" and "End" keys were made "Fn"-combo keys and not given dedicated keys. If you're in text or code a lot (you know, "computing") and you do things like Shift+End (select to end of line) or Ctrl+Shift+End (select to end of document), then adding an extra "Fn" combo in there is cumbersome, and it also throws off muscle-memory between the laptop keyboard and a regular keyboard. Dell took this feedback and corrected it with the Dell Precision 7X30 (kudos @Dell-Mano_G). Now, it is not certain that this is the keyboard that will be used in the Precision 7X40, but Dell does like to use the same keyboard across the Latitude and Precision lines of a particular generation (except for those models that are XPS-derived), so, we'll see...

Anyway, the layout is very similar to the one used in the Precision 7X30. The differences that jump out to me are on the top row of keys:
- The media keys in the top right (previous track, play/pause, next track) have been replaced with, I dunno, two calculator buttons (CE, +/-) and a "Back" button? About equally useful/useless as before I suppose.
- For the keys F1-F12, they have made these keys a little bigger, taking one key away between Esc and Delete. They appear to be making these "secondary" and giving "primary" functions to things like volume control. Anyway. They promoted "Insert" back to its own key and are making "Home" and "End" share with "F11" and "F12". This seems fine, except for if you leave the keyboard in the mode where the "natural behavior" of the F1-F12 keys is default (as I would like to do, I use those keys regularly)... Home and End once again require a Fn press. And if you leave it in the other configuration, things like Alt+F4 will require a Fn press. Ugh.

If I end up with one of these keyboards, I guess I'll see about remapping CE and +/- to Home and End. Seriously, just putting those keys over there would solve the problem. I've never heard anyone say "Gee I wish I had a dedicated CE key, for when I'm using the Calculator app and can't be bothered to hit Esc twice."

 

@Aaron44126, hold onto your trousers, because there are been roadmap leaks here!

I copied the images over to Imgur, just in case the article gets taken down, and the relevant Precision images are here:



Looks like there will be no real external changes; even the mass is about the same, for both Precisions.

 

Still waiting for a come back of 16:10 display options for 17" like ASUS did for their StudioBook w700.

Seems that somebody is able to produce those screens, still or again.
For me 1920x1200 preferred, to save some power, which can be used for outside work brightness of 400+ nits.

I understand CAD, video and photo workers need or like UHD, not sure how they think about 16:10 vs 16:9?

Maybe 7750 or 7760 and by that time the TB docks should be more solid as well ;-)

 

Check out the new WD19DC dock, it is USB-C, but other than the lack of a Thunderbolt port on it I'm not seeing any downside to it. Going to try to get one in the not-too-distant future, but based on my previous experience of WD15 vs TB15/16, I suspect that it will have basically no issues...

Anyway, good catch @Ionising_Radiation. The 7540/7740 is basically exactly what I expected, including the July launch timeframe (lines up well following Intel's recent 9th-gen mobile CPU releases, just a little behind where 8th-gen launched last year). Basically, everything is the same (including the chassis, from what I can make out in that tiny picutre), except for the upgraded CPUs and GPUs. Nice to see Quadro RTX coming but of course that was expected as well. I guess the "SuperSpeed RAM" option is interesting, maybe they'll be actually "supporting" DDR4-3200 and up this time around.

Not getting one of these, of course, I just got the 7530 and I'm hanging onto the M6700 for my home machine for a few more cycles yet.

 

I'm inclined to believe the lag is primarily because of the lack of Xeons as of yet, and the Quadro RTX GPUs. I'd like to see how a ~90-100 W Quadro RTX 4000 performs. It should ideally be roughly similar to the performance of an RTX 2070.

Given there is no current Quadro equivalent for the RTX 2060, I am curious to see what NVidia brings to the table.

 

Indeed, I've been watching several generations and a 2-3 month delay between the mobile chips first appearing and the Precision refresh being ready is just how it has always gone. Xeons probably play a part in that, but it was like that even before they offered Xeons in these systems.