Aaron44126

Yes. I’ll do another run later and see what CPU temps and power draw looks like…

Cinebench: Single core (optimized) – 1776 Single core (performance) – 1800 Multi core (optimized) – 14823 Multi core (performance) – 15029 (Also added to first impressions post above, with screen shots.)

[Edit] Update: Display panel was replaced August 23, no more stuck pixels. Sat down to take a photo of the display defect... and found two more. The one that I saw originally is in the middle and I found two more off to the right. (center) (right side) The brighter spot here looks like it might actually be panel damage and not just stuck pixels. Just got off the phone with ProSupport; they did want me to send over photos, but in the end they agreed to replace the panel but warned that it is "barely outside" of the acceptable manufacturing defect criteria and they might not replace it a second time. (...In which case, as much as it pains me, if the second panel had issues and they refused to replace it, I'd probably have to return the entire system, reorder, and wait for the replacement. I'm not going to take visible display issues in a machine this expensive.) Panel replacement should occur on Tuesday as long as the part shipment and tech availability goes as planned. [Edit] Just got notice of a part delay. Probably won't be swapped out Tuesday. [Edit 2] @Conan11 pointed out below that Dell's Premium Panel Guarantee guarantees zero bright subpixels in Precision Mobile Workstation systems with 900p or better resolution. (This doesn't square with what the rep told me on the phone but I will certainly point it out later if I need to...)

Sorry, didn't realize this but I see now if I check from a different browser. The results are not marked "hidden" when I log in from my account, but maybe 3DMark doesn't want to make them public because it can't recognize the 7770's GPU yet? (It says "unknown/generic GPU" on these results.) Anyone know if there is some button I need to click to make these public? I'll just include the results files here, you can open them right in 3DMark. https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsIwJHFk4EFdqMcIYBj-2OPxTSBXNg Here it is compared to the old PA-9E 240W, which was used in M6600-7720, and I think might still be included with docks that have 240W PSU. The one from @yslalan‘s photo above was included with 7730-7760. They "should" have a local inventory of parts so they can dispatch one to my location and then a tech can just swap out the display panel on-site. I realized that ProSupport Plus is available 24/7 so I will be calling them today, no need to wait until Monday. (But the soonest I think that they'll be able to swap out the display is Tuesday.)

Pretty sure it will be happy to activate multiple parallel instances on the same hardware with the same product key, as long as you install the same Windows "edition". (Windows 10 and Windows 11 can be activated with the same product key.) I believe you can install Windows in VMs on the same hardware using the same product key as well without license grief. ...In my case here, Windows 11 Pro was provided by Dell with the system, but the Windows 10 install is Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC and I brought that license along myself.

My system specs Core i9-12950HX 128GB DDR5-3600 CAMM module GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 16GB 4K 120Hz display panel Impressions Positive Good build quality, as expected, the system is very solid. The display is a tremendous upgrade from the M6700. 120Hz makes some regular desktop stuff noticeably more slick/smooth. The colors pop a lot more as well (though I wouldn't say color is any better than the 4K panel in the 7560). It's brighter as well. I always kept my M6700 panel at max brightness, but with this one I can be happy at about 80% brightness. Variable refresh rate support from the 4K 120Hz panel is an unexpected plus. Coming from the Precision M6700, performance is very much improved as one would expect; things that my M6700 struggled with "just work" on the 7770. (I know there were a few other members in the pre-release thread looking to upgrade from older systems.) I like having a mix of USB-C and USB-A on both sides of the system. Zero stability issues so far. Everything just works. 8TB NVMe drives appear to work fine despite not being "supported" by Dell. They have redesigned the NVMe slot that goes under the "SSD door" compared to the Precision 7560. (Even though I do not actually have an SSD door, I am referring to the one in the middle of the system.) I was able to swap out the drive without having to mess with that plastic caddy/holder thing. Meh ...That keyboard layout... Dedicated Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys should be a basic requirement for a pro laptop. 😕 Also bummed that replacing the keyboard now requires pretty much a complete system disassembly. I hope that it lasts well... Fan behavior is similar to the 7560, but there is an unfortunate change. I can't hear when my 7560 fans switch from "off" to "on" (low speed). When the 7770 fans kick on, they rev up to a high level before quickly settling back down to silent. It's very quick, less than a second, but you can definitely hear it. When I have a light workload going (turbo boost disabled) the fans hang out around 1000-1400 RPM, pretty much inaudible. The Ethernet jack is very tight, unlike the similar "jaw"-type connector on the Precision 7560, I had some difficulty unplugging a cable here a few times and have learned that you have to sort of lift the cable "up" as you try to take it out. (Maybe it will loosen up with use. That's often the case with the Precision ports.) Also, the bottom cover is much more difficult to remove than it is for me on the Precision 7560. On the 7560, I can pry from the SmartCard slot with just my hands, but with the 7770, I have to use a flathead screwdriver to carefully pry around the system (also starting from the SmartCard slot) and release some of the plastic clips before I can pull the whole panel off. (Really miss the M6700's two-screws-and-slide-off bottom cover.) I left the system on with the lid shut for a while yesterday. When I opened it back up, the screen would not go to high brightness. It was stuck at around 40% and pressing the "brightness up" button on the keyboard would not make it go higher. I was able to "drag" the slider higher in Windows but the screen was still dim. After having the system open for a while, it was happy to go back to max brightness. I wonder if the panel maybe got too hot? The system does get quite warm even when under low load. More experimentation needed. I did go and disable the "automatically adjust brightness" option in the Intel graphics control panel. Also... The entire touchpad physically "clicks" when you press down on it (sort of like older MacBook touchpads before they switched to haptics). By default, "clicking" in the lower right corner of the touchpad performs a right-click. As much as I like having the speakers above the keyboard / under the display (M6700, 7560)... the speaker grill up there does tend to accumulate dust and debris which is difficult to clean out, and that's not an issue when the speakers are located in the very front of the system like they are here. I noticed the battery light turn on while I was running the Final Fantasy XV benchmark which is a bit more CPU-intensive than 3DMark. I think there may be circumstances where the system will draw from battery power if both the CPU and GPU are under load. I do really like Alder Lake. It's the reason I held out for the 7770; I've been ready to upgrade from the M6700 for a couple of years now. I've been working with Process Lasso to make sure that background processes are stuck on the E cores, which seems like it should help with power use / noise / heat, and also leaving the P cores idle and fully available for "real work". Pretty good success. (I have a fair amount of background stuff that lightly uses the CPU; built in Windows services, game clients like Steam/Epic/GOG, Discord, file sync clients like OneDrive and iCloud, Adobe's random background crap, .....) Benchmarks These were run with stock settings on the Windows 11 image included on the system. (No tricks like undervolting, CPU power limit adjustments, etc.). Optimus enabled. 3DMark Fire Strike "Optimized" power profile – 17414 – https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/77960522? "Performance" power profile – 18526 – https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/77960816? 3DMark Time Spy "Optimized" power profile – 10851 – https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/77960850? "Performance" power profile – 11064 – https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/77960871? The NVIDIA control panel shows that the max power for the GPU is 150W, but according to HWiNFO64, the max power draw was 130W while running the 3DMark tests. GPU-Z shows that the GPU is connected via PCIe4 ×8, not ×16. Cinebench: Single core (optimized) – 1776 Single core (performance) – 1800 Multi core (optimized) – 14823 Multi core (performance) – 15029 Screen shots, in order, right here: Photos I feel like there are already enough photos of the system itself, so for now I just have these, but let me know if there is anything that you are interested to see up close. Bottom cover open, all NVMe slots populated (with heatsinks off), 128GB CAMM card present. No issue fitting a "double-sided" NVMe drive into any of the slots. Left side Ethernet and power jacks. I was a bit concerned about having these on the left and not the back. I do have a "right angle" adapter for the power jack that points the cord backwards which I use at my desk. Here on my couch folding table, I find that the cords bend around under the table well enough that I don't need to do any more trickery. I actually do like that these ports are right next to each other. I'm working on an in-depth review which will be posted separately in the future. Though for now, happy to do Q&A while others are still waiting for their systems to come in. (I have a few outstanding questions already that I will try to hit this weekend.) [Edit] Did just notice a small cluster of stuck pixels on the display, so I guess I'll be calling to have it swapped out next week. Similar things happened with the last two personal laptops that I purchased, just my luck...

Announced: April 19, 2022 Release date (RTO): July 7, 2022 12th gen Alder Lake CPUs NVIDIA Ampere refresh GPUs, up to RTX A5500 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti option also available (through sales rep only in most territories) Up to 128 GB DDR5 non-ECC memory (via CAMM module), or 64 GB DDR5 ECC or non-ECC (via SODIMM) All NVMe slots support PCIe4 Full driver support for Windows 10 & Windows 11 Spec sheet: Precision 7670 • Precision 7770 Driver RSS feeds: Precision 7670 • Precision 7770 Pre-release thread (NBT) Pre-release thread (NBR) ———————————————————————— Opportunities for CPU performance improvement Here, I am collecting some information from the first several pages of this thread to hopefully make it easier to find in one spot. NOTE — BIOS update version 1.8.0 has corrected these values. A manual fix for IA AC/DC loadline is not needed anymore; just update the BIOS. (You still may want to unlock undervolting, though...) If you received a Precision 7770 with the heatsink that contains Delta fans, have Dell replace the heatsink and hopefully you get the one with Sunon fans, which performs better. (Unfortunately, you must remove the heatsink to check and see which fans you have.) See this post by @MyPC8MyBrain for suggestions for reinstalling the heatsink. The original Delta fan heatsink will thermal throttle out of the box. Repasting can eliminate the thermal throttle, so that you can use ThrottleStop to raise PL2 and increase performance of the CPU. Perhaps the biggest CPU performance gain that can be had is by fixing the IA AC/DC loadline values, which are set incorrectly on this system. Visit this guide and look at steps 5-7 for directions on how to get to an environment where you can edit some EFI variables. These commands will correct the IA AC/DC loadline values (thanks @win32asmguy). I got a ≈20% boost in the 10-minute Cinebench score from fixing these... setup_var CpuSetup 0x132 0xAA # set IA AC LoadLine LSB to 170 (1.7mOhms) setup_var CpuSetup 0x133 0x0 # set IA AC LoadLine MSB to 0 And these commands will enable overclocking/undervolting, if you wish to mess with that: setup_var CpuSetup 0x10E 0x0 # Overclocking Unlock setup_var CpuSetup 0x43 0x0 # CFG Unlock Additional tuning with ThrottleStop (undervolting, etc.) can further improve performance. @MyPC8MyBrain has some settings in this post. ———————————————————————— Opportunities for GPU performance improvement The GPU power level can be increased by following these steps. This process has been confirmed to work with MSI Afterburner 4.6.5 beta 2, NVIDIA graphics driver 527.56, and Dell's 1.8.0 BIOS. It may work with other (newer) versions as well. Download a GeForce GPU driver from NVIDIA. (Visit this page and select GeForce 3080 Ti laptop GPU, and download a current driver. You can install a GeForce driver even if you have a pro RTX GPU.) A GeForce driver is required; the Enterprise drivers will not allow you to change the GPU's power limit. In Device Manager, disable "NVIDIA Platform Controllers and Framework" under "Software devices". Alternatively, you can visit "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvpcf" in the registry and set "Start" to 4. This will effectively disable the NVIDIA Platform Controllers and Framework driver but not have it appear disabled in Device Manager. Reboot to apply the change. Install MSI Afterburner. In MSI Afterburner, locate the setting for the power limit. It may have a nonsense value. Drag the slider down to 1% and then up to max, and apply the changes. The NVIDIA GPU should now be able to operate at a higher power level. Thanks to @win32asmguy for figuring this out!

Not yet. I will run a few benchmarks and kick off the "owner's thread" with some photos, numbers, and first impressions this evening.

The 120Hz display panel appears to support variable refresh rate! Going to have to mess with this, too... I wondered if it might be the same panel as the recent Alienware 17 (AMD) systems that support VRR on a 4K/120Hz panel. @Dell-Mano_G mentioned that he thought they were using the same panel in the 7770. (I don't think it supports G-SYNC, so you have to use it through the Intel GPU + Optimus as described here. I'll try later and see if I can enable G-SYNC or not.)

It's not Thunderbolt, but I just noticed this. Flash drive is plugged into left-side USB-A port. Samsung SSD is plugged into left-side USB-C port (which is also a Thunderbolt port). The ports are right next to each other, but attached to different USB controllers. I also have a drive labeled "Sabrent SCSI Disk Device", visible above, which is plugged into the right-side USB-C port and it attaches to the same USB controller as the left-side USB-A port.

I do have a TB18DC dock lying around that I could try. Should be able to tell whether it is through the PCH or not by where the ASMedia USB controller shows up in the topology. [Edit] Just confirmed that the GPU is just connected at PCIe4 ×8 (just like Precision 7X60).

I ran CrystalDiskMark on the RAID0 array. These are all PCIe4 drives. Haven't confirmed the drive architecture/layout in the 7770 yet but I believe that these are all behind the PCH. The speed goes a little higher than what you would expect from a single PCIe4 drive in some circumstances (first write speed listed here) but not anywhere near 2× PCIe4 bandwidth. Currently copying my old data over to the array but that's coming in from USB-attached SATA drives so I'm not really expecting that to be "fast".

Samsung 980 Pro if capacity 2TB or less is good with you. (Samsung 970 EVO Plus, if you want to save some money and don't need PCIe4 speed.) There is some discussion on the last few pages of this thread about options for high capacity drives (4TB and 8TB). I went with Samsung 980 Pro 2TB for my system/Windows drive, and Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus for data drives because it is the only TLC/PCIe4 8TB drive available right now. ———— 7770 is working fine so far. I am still in the setup stage. I have installed the NVMe drives that I bought for it, migrated my old Win10 install over and gotten all of the drivers situated, and now I am working on migrating stuff from my data drives (probably about five hours for that data transfer once I kick it off). Still haven't had time to actually "check it out" other than that.

Also seems happy to throw them in one big RAID array.

Here are all of the parts related to 3080 Ti.

Box is a little bit bigger than I envisioned... Right now, just trying to capture an image of the included SSD before booting up Windows for the first time. Can't do much more with it until later, after workday and household obligations are taken care of. But I'll spin up an "owner's thread" and start digging in soon...

@win32asmguy@AL123 This guy reports PL2 157W and PL1 85W. A3000 has 115W TDP and boost power potentially up to 130W. He does mention running the GPU at 115W for ten minutes before hitting the 55W limit later....? Did the 55W GPU limit only pop up when he tried to load the CPU and GPU at the same time? GPU单烤10分钟左右，可以看到其功耗稳定在115W，温度可以控制在75度以内，堪称表现良好。 The GPU is baked for about 10 minutes, and it can be seen that its power consumption is stable at 115W, and the temperature can be controlled within 75 degrees, which is a good performance. He also mentions that the Windows installer can't see drives if the system is set to RAID mode, but I'm rather sure he just didn't try manually loading the RAID driver from the installer (I'll be trying this out later today hopefully).

1.9.8.1 is what I have. Haven't been able to find a newer one (but haven't looked recently). It works fine for what I need, even with later NVIDIA driver versions.

Almost 30 hours between the FedEx "picked up" scan and any further progress on the tracker... I was getting a bit antsy, but as I understand it, if you select FedEx Express "two day" service then you will get your package in two days (they will go out of their way to not deliver it in one day). Given the short distance, it probably would have been faster to use FedEx Ground. Anyway. It's at the sort facility in my metro area and I expect that it will be in the "out for delivery" step here in the next 2-3 hours. [Edit] Credit card charge for the laptop came through overnight. [Edit 2] (1.5 hours later) Package was scanned this morning at a FedEx facility about two miles away and is now marked out for delivery.

Yes, Dell Fan Management / "consistency mode" is not set up to accommodate this sort of behavior. You can disable EC fan control and use SpeedFan. (Dell Fan Management GUI app also supports the same command line parameters as DellFanCmd. It will not invoke the GUI if you include command line parameters when running it.)

For consistency mode to work the fan must be running above zero and below the RPM threshold. The idea is to set this up so that the fan becomes locked in at the minimum speed that the EC would normally run it at. It doesn't sound like the EC in your system wants to keep the fan at a speed between 0 and 2400. Your RPMs actually seem really high. I wonder if there is a difference in how they should be measured for this system...

Consistency mode has to wait until the EC lowers the fan speed and then lock it in. It will follow the "natural" system behavior until the thresholds are met. Run the system with a light load until it lowers the fan speed below 2400. (If this never happens for whatever reason, consistency mode will not work, at least not without changing the thresholds.)

Huh, never seen that one before. It's trying to load the file "irrKlang.NET4.dll", which should be in the same location as the main program, and getting an error. Check and make sure that you have the file and that it has not been messed with or corrupted, I guess? The MD5 hash is e52968028c3c4c1b94576eae48ffe411. ...I tested on Windows 11 and didn't run into this, but it has been nearly a year since I have done so, and I don't have any (non-VM) Windows 11 machines sitting around currently. If my Precision 7770 shows up tomorrow as planned, it will have Windows 11 preloaded and I'll give this a try again.

Earlier @Dell-Mano_G answered this question with "summer time"... Not sure if the situation with the 7X70's delayed launch has affected things but I would expect within the next ≈2 months. ———— I was thinking that FedEx might get my package over today and not tomorrow but it does not look like that is the case. It did not move out of Chicago last night. Dell did mark my order "shipped" about five hours after handing it over to FedEx. I haven't been charged for the system yet, but I imagine that will sort itself out in short order... So it looks like 17 days from "In production" to delivery in my case. If Dell is going to hit these August 22ish dates for the bulk of people's orders, seems like we'll have to start seeing them enter production by the end of next week at the latest...