New Precision mobile workstations support PCIe 4.0 and pack the latest NVIDIA GPUs and Intel processors.
Dell has sponsored this post.
Of the handful of laptops I reviewed last year for engineering.com, my favorite was the Dell Precision 5550. Not only did it look great—Dell proudly claimed it as the world’s smallest and thinnest 15-inch mobile workstation—but it had an excellent display, an even better battery, and processors that hit the mark for a mid-tier machine. I was surprised at how much I liked it, and I was excited to see what Dell would bring to the table next.
Well, Dell has now set the table, and it brought out the fine china. The latest Precision mobile workstations may look the same on the outside, but the insides are all new, according to Matthew Allard of the Dell Precision product team.
“Normally these refresh cycles are increases in processor and GPU capability within the existing chassis,” Allard told us. “These [new Precision mobile workstations] are much more significant this time. While the chassis remains the same, the entire innards are different. It’s not simply new processors and new NVIDIA Ampere GPUs, it’s actually new motherboards and new designs internally.”
We’ve yet to get our hands on one of the new workstations to put them to the full test, but in this article, we take a look at what’s new with the Precision lineup.
A Refreshing Mobile Refresh
Dell Precision mobile workstations are grouped into three series: Precision 3000, Precision 5000, and Precision 7000. The higher the number, the higher the performance, with the mid-tier 5000 series targeting the premium sweet spot between style and strength that I appreciated in last year’s 5550.
All three Dell Precision series have been updated as follows:
3000 series
- 15-inch: Precision 3550 → Precision 3560
- 15-inch: Precision 3551 → Precision 3561
5000 series
- 15-inch: Precision 5550 → Precision 5560
- 17-inch: Precision 5750 → Precision 5760
7000 Series
- 15-inch: Precision 7550 → Precision 7560
- 17-inch: Precision 7750 → Precision 7760
Of course, it’s more than just the Dell Precision model numbers that have changed. Though the I/O ports across the Precision laptops look the same as last year, all Thunderbolt 3 ports have been upgraded to Thunderbolt 4, doubling the bandwidth of those connections. In fact, there’s a lot of bandwidth doubling going on in the new Precision mobile workstations.
PCIe 4.0 Brings Double the Bandwidth
One of the biggest upgrades from last year’s Precision mobile workstations is support for PCIe 4.0 across all models. The peripheral component interface express standard sets the limit on how quickly a hardware component can exchange data with the rest of the system. Today, the common PCIe 3.0 interface has a range of 985 MB/s to 15.75 GB/s, depending on the number of data lanes (1, 4, 8 or 16). PCIe 4.0 doubles that, with a top speed of 31.51 GB/s for 16 lanes (in one direction; total bidirectional throughput is double).
Doubling the potential bandwidth of components such as memory, storage and graphics cards is clearly a good thing, but keep in mind that not all users will notice the improvement. PCIe 3.0 was already pretty fast, so unless you’re dealing with huge datasets on a regular basis, PCIe 4.0 won’t necessarily be a game changer. But if you do happen to be dealing with huge datasets on a regular basis…
“PCIe 4.0 provides higher performance and more bandwidth for folks that need that bandwidth and higher performance,” Allard explained. “For something like loading a really complex model with a lot of geometry, it could make a difference. Something where you’re streaming a lot of real-time data at high resolution, such as video workflows, it totally could make a difference. For folks that are pushing the limits, [PCIe 4.0] is a big deal.”
Even More Speed: 3466MHz, 120Hz, 5G and 6E
Higher speed is a theme of the new Precision mobile workstation, especially the high performance 7000 series. All of the new laptops have faster 3200MHz memory, compared to 2933MHz in the previous generation. The 7000 series steps it up even further, with both the 7560 and 7760 offering the option of 3466MHz SuperSpeed RAM. The only drawback is that 7000 series machines configured with SuperSpeed are limited to 64GB of max memory, whereas configurations with 3200MHz RAM can go all the way to 128GB. With the exception of the entry-level Precision 3560, all of the mobile workstations can be configured with error correcting code (ECC) memory.
The 17-inch Precision 7760 is the first Precision mobile workstation to offer a high refresh rate of 120Hz—on the 4K HDR400 display with 100 percent Adobe RGB coverage. High refresh rates are usually sought by gamers, and we will be curious to see whether engineers flock to the option as well. The Precision 7560 supports a 4K 60Hz HDR600 display with 100 percent Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 color coverage. Both models also offer FHD screen options with 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage, though only the Precision 7560 offers a touchscreen option.
Lastly, the Precision 7000 series hops on board the 5G train with an optional Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G modem on board—good for both millimeter wave and sub-6GHz 5G, plus all the lesser Gs in case you’re still trapped in a locale lacking the latest. The 3000 and 5000 series have optional 4G LTE support, and all Precision models support the latest Wi-Fi 6E.
Latest Intel CPUs and NVIDIA RTX GPUs
Finally, no refresh is complete without a spec bump to the latest CPUs and GPUs. For the former, unless you decided to start making your own processors, that means Intel’s 11th-gen Core or Xeon CPUs. In the top-of-the-line Dell Precision 7760, the top-of-the-line CPU is the Intel Xeon W-11955M, an 8-core chip with a 24MB cache and a top speed of 5GHz.
As for graphics, the new Precision mobile workstations are packing the latest NVIDIA RTX professional GPUs based on the NVIDIA Ampere architecture. The new architecture improves upon everything offered in the previous generation of RTX, including new RT Cores for real-time ray tracing, Tensor Cores for AI acceleration and CUDA Cores for general graphics processing. This is a particularly big jump for the Precision 5000 series, which last year did not have RTX graphics at all (meaning no access to either RT or Tensor Cores). The entry-level 3000 series still does not offer RTX graphics, but has been bumped up to the latest mobile Turing cards (the predecessor to Ampere). At the top end, the Precision 7760 can be maxed out with an NVIDIA RTX A5000 with 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM.
Here are the max specs for the new Dell Precision mobile workstations:
Dell has made other changes to the design of the Precision mobile workstations that will allow them to get even more out of the new processors, according to Allard. “The way that this motherboard is built, we’ve gotten better communication between CPU and GPU, so that gives us another little performance bump,” he said.
Another bump is due to improved thermal design, which Dell has always focused on as a means of increasing the power available to the processors. Higher power means better performance but also more heat, which is why the thermal design is so crucial. For example, the Precision 7560 and 7760 have the same GPU options—up to the NVIDIA RTX A5000—but the bigger form factor of the 7760 is better for cooling, so it can accommodate more power for the graphics card—115W compared to 90W in the 7560.
“We’re increasing the wattage on the graphics from gen to gen,” Allard explained. “That allows us to operate those graphics even faster and for elongated periods of time. Adding the right kind of thermal design has allowed us to ramp up the power on these machines to go even further.”
Dell Precision Desktop Workstations
The significant upgrade to the Precision mobile workstations is complemented by a similar refresh for the Precision desktop workstations. The new desktops, which include the Dell Precision 3450 and Precision 3650, have also received PCIe 4.0 support, 3200MHz RAM, optional Thunderbolt 4, and the latest processor options (including AMD graphics in addition to NVIDIA). The Dell Precision 3650 can support up to 350W graphics including the latest NVIDIA RTX A5000.
To learn more about the latest Dell Precision workstations, visit Dell.com.
