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Dell Packs Xeon and Quadro GPU In 4lb Laptop (hothardware.com)

Posted by timothy on from the compare-to-yesteryear dept.

MojoKid writes: To look at the Dell Precision 15 5510, you wouldn't know that it sits in the middle of Dell's workstation lineup. The laptop is thinner and sleeker than you might expect a workstation-class laptop to be and the premium carbon fiber palm rest gives the system a decidedly high-end vibe. Not to mention, like the XPS 15, Dell equipped this machine with its 4K IGZO Infinity Edge display that has almost no bezel on three of its sides. However, the Precision 15 5510 is actually Dell's mid-range mobile workstation that also supports Intel Xeon E3 processors and NVIDIA's Quadro M1000 series GPUs. It's essentially a mobile workstation version of Dell's XPS 15 line but along with an NVMe PCIe Solid State Drive, delivers professional grade performance and the pro app certifications that go with it. Compared to Lenovo's ThinkPad W550 line, the Precision 15 is a more sleek, stylish machine and in testing it packs more punch as well. Lenovo may already have their Skylake Xeon refresh in the works for the ThinkPad W series, however.

75 comments

  1. The Disable Advertising Checkbox... by SeaFox · · Score: 5, Funny

    it seems to be broken!

    1. Re:The Disable Advertising Checkbox... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This.
      Shame on you ./

    2. Re:The Disable Advertising Checkbox... by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      Seems to be working for me. I'm using Chrome, so perhaps it's a browser issue.

    3. Re:The Disable Advertising Checkbox... by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      Works for me too partially still have taboola at the end of the page and sponsored content.

      Takes care of the massive banner ad at the top of the page tho.

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    4. Re:The Disable Advertising Checkbox... by indi0144 · · Score: 1

      I have it disabled so maybe thats why I don't see it as and AD.. of course they are "trying to promote a product" thats self evident, but from that petty attempt of "review" to "Advertising" theres a long way in terms of elaboration and effectiveness. Good that you can pack all that power in there (thats the only bit of news in there), the design itself of the laptop is dull at best.

    5. Re:The Disable Advertising Checkbox... by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Funny

      Whoosh?

    6. Re:The Disable Advertising Checkbox... by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      On AdBlock Plus add filters for "api.stacksocial.com" and "cdn.taboola.com" and that junk should be gone, too.

    7. Re:The Disable Advertising Checkbox... by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Works for me under Chromium on PC-BSD 10.2

  2. As a developer... by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1, Interesting

    As a developer, I want my laptop to have a large, bright screen and shit-tons of battery life so I can do work on a sunny patio instead of the office when it's nice outside. And since I own a backpack, I don't care about weight or how metro I look carrying my electronics. Therefore, I own a Dell Latitude, which can run VS 2015 on a single charge for about 6-8 hours and weighs a lot more than my (used mainly for pentesting) MacBook Pro.

    1. Re:As a developer... by Sax+Russell+5449D29A · · Score: 2

      Just get a long-ass cord and this.

      --
      -SR
    2. Re:As a developer... by castionsosa · · Score: 1

      I also develop, and I wonder how loud the fans are when I have a few VMs running, the GPUs being hammered, and a zbackup process going on in the background to save my home directory files to my NAS. The laptop can support up to 32 gigs of RAM, which is decent. It also can handle a PCIe based SSD, which also is a nice thing to have.

    3. Re:As a developer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a developer, I want my laptop to have a large, bright screen and shit-tons of battery life so I can do work on a sunny patio instead of the office when it's nice outside

      So... what you really want is a transflective screen but don't know about it?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  3. Lenovo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Er, so I don't suppose the not-so-new Lenovo P50 and P70 Skylake workstations have been spotted by Slashdot?

    1. Re:Lenovo by Loconut1389 · · Score: 1

      The P70 is "Starting at 7.56 lbs", so under 4lbs is something special.

  4. Wake me when Dell has power8 based machines. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am not interested in using backdoored hardware.

    1. Re: Wake me when Dell has power8 based machines. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Intel vPro agrees with you.

  5. no Ethernet in a pro workstation? without an dongl by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    no Ethernet in a pro workstation? without an dongle?

    And to block the TB port to use it (I hope it's TB3 but if it's just USB 3.1 then it's dumb next to using an USB 3.0 one)

  6. /. under new management? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this article feels like something I'd have seen in PC Weak

    1. Re:/. under new management? by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      It's nice to see the media acknowledge that there's something to the laptop market beyond pretty little machines meant primarily to demonstrate how much of other people's money you can squander.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  7. False Positive? by Pezbian · · Score: 1

    The idea behind Xeons is running dual. Fail.

    --
    In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
    1. Re:False Positive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Excuse me? Except that Xeons typically have more PCIe lanes, support larger memory, ECC, bigger caches, more memory channels, and usually have instruction set extensions before the Core CPUs do. There's more than one "idea" behind most things.

    2. Re:False Positive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well considering Intel has a whole line of Xeons, the E3-1200 http://ark.intel.com/products/series/53495/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E3-1200-Product-Family#@All

      That are only single socket capable that's really not true.

      The above parts share dies with Intel's main consumer line but they have different feature configurations that aren't available on even core i7s. They'll have all the visualization goodies turned on, will have more cache (Due to high binning. Most of the die area on a modern CPU is cache so the dies are made with extra cache and have defective cache turned off or just have it turned off for cheaper parts), and may come with the internal gpu disabled (Power, thermal savings) They'll also be compatible with boards that have chipsets with server oriented features.

      Looks like this new laptop comes with Xeon branded mobile part, which is a pretty new thing for Intel. Same as above. Different features, enabled, higher binning, more cache. - Stuff not available on the lower tier i7 parts.

    3. Re:False Positive? by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      In that case it's same cache, same CPU, same everything, the one big difference is ECC is disabled on core i7, enabled on Xeon E3 (funnily ECC is enabled on Pentium, i3 and even the new desktop Celeron)

  8. Nothing special - slower thank my 1 year old Zbook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nothing special - Quadro M1000M is slower than my 1 year old Zbook 15.

    Sure - Zbook is heavier and has shorter battery life but it is one year old and K2100M is better - I can play Witcher 3.

    Though NVie is a bit slow - I got only 800MB/s read on Zbook - same disk in NUC gives 1.2GB/s

  9. Still only 16 GB of RAM! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For those of us that have to run virtual machines, that's a serious problem. I've been stuck with my 16 GB MacBook for four years. I want to upgrade and have the budget at work to do it, but the company only buys Dell or Apple. Sager makes one with 32 GB, but I can't get that approved.

    1. Re: Still only 16 GB of RAM! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the 6 cell battery uses the 2.5" harddrive bay so you can either have a large SSD/harddrive or decent battery life, but not both.

    2. Re: Still only 16 GB of RAM! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plus you don't want the Xeon unless you need it for server compatibility or some other rare reason. The i7 2.7GHz one is $70 cheap and slightly faster at Java compiles than the Xeon ones we have.

    3. Re: Still only 16 GB of RAM! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plus the docking station for this model is $250! That's a hell of a lot more expensive than the $30 new on eBay ones you can buy for Dell Latitudes.

    4. Re:Still only 16 GB of RAM! by notequinoxe · · Score: 1

      Dell makes the m6600 m6700 and m6800, all capable of 32 gigs. Heavy as fuck tho.

    5. Re: Still only 16 GB of RAM! by Loconut1389 · · Score: 1

      It looks like you can opt for a PCIe SSD instead and keep the 6-cell. Still it has the worst battery life amongst its competitors. You sacrifice a lot to fit under 4lbs.
      http://hothardware.com/reviews...

      The Lenovo P70 is a much more worthy competitor if you can handle the double sized weight. Plus it has the 5000M with up to 8gb memory instead of the 1000M and up to 64GB memory.

    6. Re:Still only 16 GB of RAM! by rthille · · Score: 1

      I just configured it to 32GB...

      --
      Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
    7. Re:Still only 16 GB of RAM! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't see that option. Of course, since we spend so much with Dell, they limit our configuration options. It sucks having to have employees buy things personally and reimbursement because Dell won't sell the same configuration to us.

    8. Re: Still only 16 GB of RAM! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My rare reason is I hate crashes. No ECC means a few crashes or weird events per year at least.

    9. Re:Still only 16 GB of RAM! by sethstorm · · Score: 1

      The P50 & P70 support 64GB, come with better warranty options (no ownership transfer needed, Atlanta call center for everyone, 5YR onsite NBD) and don't have unsightly curves.

      --
      Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    10. Re:Still only 16 GB of RAM! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't see that option! I hate how Dell shows different configuration options to different customers. We're a small business so sometimes we can't even see the same options that even home users have. Dell became famous for configurability so it sucks to see them give-up on that.

    11. Re:Still only 16 GB of RAM! by notequinoxe · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but he said his company only buys Dell or Apple, that's why I suggested him that

    12. Re:Still only 16 GB of RAM! by sethstorm · · Score: 1

      A bad company, even worse if it's a staffing agency or other benefit-dodger entity.

      --
      Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
  10. Damn that Dell premium by OzPeter · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Look at that price .. $2600 for that. Only Dell fanboys would pay the Dell hardware premium for that overpriced piece of hardware.

    Oh, wait

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    1. Re:Damn that Dell premium by honestmonkey · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I read the story as "Expensive laptop is expensive."

      --
      Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
    2. Re:Damn that Dell premium by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look at that price .. $2600 for that. Only Dell fanboys would pay the Dell hardware premium for that overpriced piece of hardware.

      Oh, wait

      Can't think of any competitors that offer a Xeon processor in a laptop so what's your point? Even Lenovo's Thinkpad Ws use regular Core i7s.

    3. Re:Damn that Dell premium by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      Is there much of a big difference in terms of what you get? The only real advantage is ECC RAM support for Xeon processors, otherwise the usual higher system memory limitations or dual-socket advantages don't come into play with a notebook. I suppose the Xeon doesn't waste silicon on integrated graphics if you're going to get a professional grade GPU in the system, but that also means more power draw even if you're not actively using the discrete GPU for any purpose beyond driving the display.

    4. Re:Damn that Dell premium by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For that kind of price, I'd start thinking Falcon Northwest.

    5. Re:Damn that Dell premium by DivineKnight · · Score: 1

      He's right. Let's hold out for the E7-v3.

    6. Re:Damn that Dell premium by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can't think of any competitors that offer a Xeon processor in a laptop so what's your point? Even Lenovo's Thinkpad Ws use regular Core i7s.

      Eurocom mobile server

    7. Re:Damn that Dell premium by unrtst · · Score: 1

      The only real advantage is ECC RAM support for Xeon processors...

      And that's not strictly a Xeon thing.
      Go to ark.intel.com
      Click on any processor family.
      Click on Feature Filter.
      Clear the "Family" setting. Change "ECC Memory Supported" to "Yes", then click search.
      Observe Xeon's, Celeron's, Core i3, i5, and i7's, Pentium's, Quark SoC, and even Atom processors (ex. E3805 from Q4'14).

      AMD also has extensive ECC support, but that's almost an entirely different topic.

      Now... if someone could tell me what consumer level motherboard I can get for a reasonable cost that'll support ECC with an inexpensive late model Celeron that supports ECC, I'd love to know. I was recently looking at the Celeron G3920 (2.9GHz, Q4'14, HD graphics 510, 14nm process, ECC support, FCLG1151), and I *think* there are supermico's that will work with it, but I'm not really thrilled about having to spend server-level prices to support a $50 processor. AFAICT, AMD still has the low-end ZFS server setup crown.

    8. Re:Damn that Dell premium by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Yeah, for that price, one could get a Surface Book Pro

    9. Re:Damn that Dell premium by jaklode · · Score: 1

      ThinkPad P50, P70 do, those replace the W series.

    10. Re:Damn that Dell premium by toddestan · · Score: 1

      The mobile Xeon's are a relatively new thing, only coming out with Skylake. Before that, any Xeon "laptop" had a regular workstation/server processor crammed into it which is why they were pretty rare (and heavy). Lenovo has their P series out, and my guess is in the next few months there will be some more options to choose from.

  11. Lacking by Teun · · Score: 1

    Sorry but it's lacking a trackpoint so the next one will be another Thinkpad.

    --
    "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    1. Re:Lacking by mattventura · · Score: 1

      But Lenovo has the awful chiclet keyboards now. Keyboards used to be one of their strong suits. I'm looking at a Dell M4800 since it has a trackpoint, non-chiclet keyboard, and good expandability.

    2. Re:Lacking by armanox · · Score: 1

      The new Dells (that replace the M4800) use the chicklet keyboards too. I'm going to be complaining to my Dell rep when I speak to her tomorrow :(

      --
      I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
    3. Re:Lacking by SNRatio · · Score: 1

      Eh, the keyboard on my yoga 2 pro was easy to get used to. The malware they install as system utilities, now THAT is a pisser.

  12. It may looks stylish, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But can it keep the innards cool? My MackbookPro looks stylish but I regularly peg the CPU at 100C with the cooling system struggling to keep the CPU from throttling too much.

  13. Hot Hardware by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    Now, THAT is some Hot Hardware!

  14. Why I'm a ThinkPad guy... yeah. by Pezbian · · Score: 1

    My Precision machines ran hot, but I blamed that on being about a mile up. Guess I was wrong.

    --
    In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
  15. Not a workstation for me by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

    With that silly excuse for a pointing device I'll wait for Lenovo to come up with a real mobile workstation with the same (or better) specs. Nobody can do real work with a silly touchpad, especially one that has no buttons.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:Not a workstation for me by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      oh it has buttons they are just under the touchpad, and they are god aweful as you have this enormous thin semi flexible plate teetering over two of the shittiest tactile switches ever made, and they dont even put those in a sane place, its where the buttons normally are with shitty printouts on said plate

      its horrid to use

    2. Re:Not a workstation for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lenovo P50 then (the P70 is a bit too much of a beast).

    3. Re:Not a workstation for me by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Is buying a mouse or trackball too expensive for your budget?

      No one uses trackpads, but touchpoints are just as hard to use.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    4. Re:Not a workstation for me by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

      Is buying a mouse or trackball too expensive for your budget?

      No, but I am opposed to paying for a shitty pointing device when there exist laptops on the market that have really good pointing devices. Besides, if I buy a laptop and then an additional pointing device to go with it, I then have to find a place to set said additional pointing device when I am using the laptop, which means I likely won't be able to use it on the bus, train, or airplane. The weight and space savings of their design has also just fallen dramatically when the hardware selection is so awful that I am obligated to carry something else with me to make it a productive machine.

      --
      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  16. Meh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1 in 40 buys will actually use what's under the hood. The rest will use it to make up for a small dick, being short or both.

  17. No trackpoint by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No trackpoint, no three button mouse: gay.

  18. no numeric keypad by Osgeld · · Score: 1

    why do you pile on the workstation crap in a widescreen formfactor and give us a retarded keyboard?

    1. Re:no numeric keypad by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Look at the 7510, then.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  19. Re:Nothing special - slower thank my 1 year old Zb by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

    - I can play Witcher 3.

    What if I told you people did more with their machines than play games?

  20. It does top out at 32 GiB by dlenmn · · Score: 1

    I don't see that option.

    The 32 GiB option is there. I'm looking at it right now: "32GB, DDR4-2133MHz SDRAM, 2 DIMMS, Non-ECC [add $170.00]"

    1. Re:It does top out at 32 GiB by dlenmn · · Score: 1

      I should add, that $170 is the premium over 16 GiB, not over the base 8 GiB (I think).

    2. Re:It does top out at 32 GiB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These specs make for a laptop with typical laptop performance, but look at the cool display.

  21. Total slashvertisement but cool machine by dlenmn · · Score: 1

    Yeah, the summary is a total slashvertisement, but it actually looks like a cool machine. If you customize the build, you can choose Ubuntu as the OS and save $100 over the Windows price. It also can take up to 32 GiB of Ram, whereas many small laptops now top out at 8 or 16 GiB GiB (that are soldered to the motherboard, of course).

    That said, the machine does cost an arm and a leg and has super shitty battery life.

  22. Re:no Ethernet in a pro workstation? without an do by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

    No Ethernet. Less storage then a desktop. Lame.

  23. I just purchased the 7710 (17" version) by PortHaven · · Score: 1

    I haven't finished configuring it. But am excited. I would say this is a pretty high end laptop. And perhaps rivaling and surpassing the XPS line in many ways. On top of the option for Xeon processors and ECC RAM (which I didn't feel I needed - I went with a quad-core and standard RAM), the 17" version of this machine offers the option for RAID5 using NVMe M.2 drives. Note, for this, you need a special interposer connector and caddy. (Mine should arrive this week, and then I hope to have three Samsung Pro 950 drives.

    But there is more to this than just internals. The laptop is a noticeable notch or two higher than my old 17" Dell workstation. First off, the bottom are made of thin but strong metal plates. Button slides, battery plate comes off. Slide a lever to remove the battery.There is your 2.5" drive bay easily accessible as well. It all feels of very high build quality and engineering. Lots of metal as opposed to plastic. Very nice...

    Remove two screws, and a second larger plate is able to be slid off. Wow...beautiful. About 10 different module bays. Two bays for NVMe M.2 drives, two easily accessed memory slots, bays for WLAN cards, WiFi, and a host of others. Very nice having such easy access rather than having to remove keyboards, disconnect monitors, etc. This is a very nicely engineered machine.

    Can't wait to run my new 17" laptop with 4K screen, and RAID 5 NVMe drives. This is my first new workstation purchase in 10 years. My last was in 2006, also a Dell. It was replaced in the fourth year under warranty. Replacement is now 6 years old. So I figured it was time...

  24. Re:no Ethernet in a pro workstation? without an do by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    The lack of dual 32" monitors is a real dealbreaker for the laptop.

  25. Hackintosh? by ArcadioAlivioSincero · · Score: 1

    Anybody know how well this can be Hackintoshed?

  26. Re:no Ethernet in a pro workstation? without an do by edtice1559 · · Score: 1

    http://slashdot.org/story/01/1...