Precision 7670 & 7770 pre-release discussion (Alder Lake)

[Aaron44126]

Information in this opening post is kept up to date with the latest developments.

 

 

• Alder Lake HX CPUs ("Intel 7" process / 55W base TDP / up to 8P+8E)
• NVIDIA Ampere refresh workstation GPUs (RTX A5500 at the top; GA103S chip with 7,424 CUDA cores; 16GB vRAM; similar performance to GeForce 3080 Ti mobile version)
• DDR5 support — up to 128GB (non-ECC) via CAMM, or up to 64GB (ECC or non-ECC) via SODIMM
• PCIe4 support in all NVMe slots
  • Four NVMe slots in Precision 7770; three in Precision 7670 performance chassis; two in Precision 7670 thin chassis
• Chassis refresh
  • 7670: 16" 16:10
  • 7770: 17" 16:9
• Release date (available to order): July 7, 2022 (now available)

CPUs:

• 4P+8E: Core i5-12600HX
• 8P+8E: Core i7-12800HX, i7-12850HX, i9-12900HX, i9-12950HX
• No Xeon CPUs.  Select Core CPUs support ECC memory.
• Note as of 2022-05-18: 12800HX and 12900HX might be pulled from the lineup.  2022-05-27: 12800HX and 12900HX have been removed from the spec sheet.

 

GPUs:

• NVIDIA Ampere refresh workstation GPUs (see table below), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, Intel Arc A770M (later)

 

Full list of Precision systems confirmed for this generation:

• Dell Precision 3470 • Announced 2022-03-31 • Available to order 2022-05-19 • Spec sheet • Support
• Dell Precision 3570 • Announced 2022-03-31 • Available to order 2022-04-19 • Spec sheet • Support
• Dell Precision 3571 • Announced 2022-03-31 • Available to order 2022-04-19 • Spec sheet • Support
• Dell Precision 5470 • Announced 2022-03-31 • Available to order 2022-04-19 • Spec sheet • Support
• Dell Precision 5570 • Announced 2022-03-31 • Available to order 2022-04-19 • Spec sheet • Support
• Dell Precision 5770 • Announced 2022-03-31 • Available to order 2022-04-19 • Spec sheet • Support
• Dell Precision 7670 • Announced 2022-04-26 • Available to order 2022-07-07 • Spec sheet • Support
• Dell Precision 7770 • Announced 2022-04-26 • Available to order 2022-07-07 • Spec sheet • Support

 

See also: Legacy NBR 7X70 pre-release discussion thread

 

[serpro69]

Do you think it's going to be considerably better than 7x60 to justify the upgrade?

I'm thinking to get 7560 as it pretty much meets my current requirements. But not sure if I should maybe wait till 7x70 models come out. Its probably going to be much more expensive also? Would it actually be worth the wait and extra cost?

[Aaron44126]

Hmm.

Alder Lake is a decent step up from Tiger Lake, and the hybrid architecture is the reason that I have decided to wait one more year before replacing my M6700 (home system, almost a decade old now).  But the new efficiency cores are a bit divisive and certainly add complexity, and as of now, Intel's "Thread Director" hardware scheduling assistant only works on Windows 11.  — I personally think that this will have to change when Alder Lake business systems start rolling out.  Dell has not announced any such systems yet.

 

You can see that Alder Lake performance is a good step up from Tiger Lake.  (More benchmarks here.  More should be available in February when the first Alder Lake laptops launch.)  These are H45 CPUs, and the Precision 7000 series may get H55 (which have been "leaked" but not yet formally announced), so the difference will be even greater.

 

On the GPU side, I expect the Ampere refresh not to be that big of an improvement; 20% tops, probably a good deal less for most workloads.

 

We might get a chassis refresh (Dell has been doing those more or less "every other iteration", so we are due).  That could improve cooling.  I expect them to pay some attention to cooling if we get the Alder Lake H55 CPUs (higher power use & more heat than Tiger Lake).

 

We're also looking at DDR5 support, and possibly PCIe4 support in all of the NVMe slots instead of just one.

 

Who knows what the supply chain situation will be like when it releases.  We just ordered another 7560 with 4K display for the office and it won't be arriving until April.

 

I imagine that they will be modestly more expensive.  Dell typically lowers the Precision price slowly over the course of the year and then it is "reset" when a new model releases.

 

[Edit] Oops, included a desktop CPU benchmark chart; found a mobile one and switched it out.

[Rinconmike]

I am looking at getting another 7560 and with the UHD if ordered now ETA is end of April.  I asked about the 7570 and sales rep thinks it will be out in May, but no other information.  Once thing I noticed is it does not look like the price dropped on the 7560 from the one that I ordered last July and received in September.

 

[Aaron44126]

I don't know if a review embargo just lifted or what but I saw some new information on Alder Lake laptop performance pop in this morning from multiple sources.

 

Here, Ars Technica compares a MSI system with Core i9-12900HK against a HP ZBook Studio G8 with Core i9-11980HK (and also MacBook Pro with M1 Max, in some of the tests).

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/testing-intels-12th-gen-alder-lake-laptop-cpus-many-cores-make-light-work/

 

Here, Tom's Hardware is testing the new Alienware x17 R2 with Core i9-12900HK, and the same MSI system as Ars, against the prior-gen Alienware system with Core i7-11800H and an Asus ROG system with Ryzen 9 5900HX.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/alienware-x17-r2-tested

 

Tests along these lines are likely as good as we are going to get until we get some information on the S-BGA "H55" Alder Lake CPUs...  Not really expecting to hear anything from Intel for another couple of months, perhaps.

 

Dell could announce a Precision 5570 or 5770 (with Alder Lake H45 CPU) perhaps a few months before the 7000 series.  An XPS-style Precision was demo'ed (very briefly) at Intel's CES press event earlier this month.

[Aaron44126]

On 1/25/2022 at 10:22 AM, Aaron44126 said:

An XPS-style Precision was demo'ed (very briefly) at Intel's CES press event earlier this month.

 

Well, I was curious so I went to look back at the video.  You can find it here.  Time code 16:50.

 

 

I thought it was XPS-style system (5000 series) because of the glossy display.  Looking more closely though, it seems too thick and it has ports that are clearly not USB-C on the right side.  Seems like it is 3000-series, it looks a lot like the Precision 3560/3561.

 

Only hint of a business Alder Lake system from Dell so far, as far as I know.

[Aaron44126]

Some chatter on & pictures of NVIDIA’s new GA103 GPU chip, which will presumably be used in GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (mobile version) and also some of the high-end Ampere refresh mobile workstation GPUs.

 

 

 

 

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-ga103-graphics-processor-pictured-features-496-mm%c2%b2-die-area
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ga103-pictured

[Ionising_Radiation]

On 1/25/2022 at 11:22 PM, Aaron44126 said:

Ars Technica compares...

By golly; the new CPUs are crazy. I am regretting my 7560 now...

Edited January 29, 2022 by Ionising_Radiation

[serpro69]

2 hours ago, Ionising_Radiation said:

By golly; the new CPUs are crazy. I am regretting my 7560 now...

A few years from now you will not want to touch 7570 with a 10ft. pole :)
That said, the numbers do look impressive, but unless you can afford to get a new laptop every year - who cares and why even bother regretting what you have now. 

I myself am actually more interested to see if they will introduce some design changes, the current chassis has been around for long enough now. DDR5 support and PCIe4 (in all slots) would be a nice step up as well. But I'm still probably going with 7560 now and not waiting for the next 7570 to come out. 

[Ionising_Radiation]

1 minute ago, serpro69 said:

I myself am actually more interested to see if they will introduce some design changes

I've got my usual wishlist...

• 16:10 144 Hz 1440p 10-bit 15.6" display option
• GeForce RTX GPU options to complement the Core i CPU options (they already have RTX 3080 as a 'secret' option; but make it configurable openly)
• AMD Ryzen + RX/Radeon Pro graphics options (not likely; Ryzen has been out for 5 years now and Alder Lake has blasted past Zen 3 and even Apple M in terms of efficiency; I saw this coming)
• Make the palmrest aluminium/magnesium as well
• Bring back the 7530/7730 keyboard layout
• Bring back the 7530/7730 hinge design, which allowed the display to fold back to > 180°

[Aaron44126]

On 1/29/2022 at 9:44 AM, Ionising_Radiation said:

I've got my usual wishlist...

There was a time when I would say that they'd never go back to 16×10, but now they have on a number of product lines, and with a chassis refresh potentially coming in, who knows...  I hope that they keep the 4K/120Hz option (or even better, add a dynamic refresh rate option).  ...1440p seems like a stretch to me, other than some Alienware models they seem to be going for FHD or UHD with nothing in between.

 

I think that AMD is going to have a hard time competing at the high end for the next few years, until they get a CPU with big/little architecture out.  They have a laptop CPU refresh incoming as well but early benchmarks are looking like it doesn't catch up to Alder Lake.  (I think one could argue that Apple M1 Max still holds the power efficiency crown.  Alder Lake beats it in performance by drawing a good deal more power.)

 

Don't know if you've seen an Alder Lake die shot.  I think it's pretty cool.  This is a desktop CPU, you can see the eight "performance" cores and eight "efficiency" cores, and you can see that basically four E cores fit in the space of one P core.  (The whole idea is that eight E cores brings notably better multi-threaded performance than the two P cores that you could have put in their place.)

 

Spoiler

On 1/29/2022 at 9:37 AM, serpro69 said:

A few years from now you will not want to touch 7570 with a 10ft. pole 🙂

 

Writing this from my M6700 which is 9.5 years old.  🙂  PCs really can last a long time these days.  Really, other than some newer game titles, there isn't much that I try to do on my M6700 which I feel that it has any trouble with.  For the last few days I have been running multiple VMs to help with the NBR archive effort, and still enjoying smooth 60fps gameplay in the evenings while those jobs are running...  (admittedly not running that complicated of a game right now).  I guess it'd be nice if it could do video encodes faster, I guess... and I would really like a 4K display panel.

 

When I got the M6700, I figured that it would be good for perhaps 6 years.  A GPU upgrade helped stretch that out longer.  Honestly, I was ready to upgrade this past year but knowing what was coming down the pipe with Alder Lake made me want to stick it out for one more year.  The 7770 may be similarly long-lived for me.  I'll be going for top spec and I can't throw that kind of cash at a PC very often.

[Reciever]

Does Dell still officially support Ubuntu or is that systems specific? 

 

[iieeann]

The new cpu architecture looks interesting, but usually next generation cpu will be more refined, but that will mean next year.

For me if i get this coming precision, it will last me until when TB5 is available.

[Aaron44126]

On 1/30/2022 at 1:40 AM, Reciever said:

Does Dell still officially support Ubuntu or is that systems specific?

 

I think it is system specific but it is supported on the entire Precision line.  ...Sometimes Linux support is not available until a few months after the system launch.  I feel like they've been pretty good at having it available right away in the last generation or two.

 

On 1/30/2022 at 5:25 AM, iieeann said:

The new cpu architecture looks interesting, but usually next generation cpu will be more refined, but that will mean next year.

 

Already some info on the next few generations.  It looks like 13th gen "Raptor Lake" will be a pretty minor iteration over Alder Lake.  (Thinking similar to 9th→10th gen on the mobile side.)  On the desktop side they will add a 8P+16E configuration but I will be a little surprised if that makes it into the mobile side.  14th gen "Meteor Lake" will feature a node shrink and be a bigger update.

[serpro69]

On 1/30/2022 at 7:40 AM, Reciever said:

Does Dell still officially support Ubuntu or is that systems specific? 

 

Been running Ubuntu an all my Dell laptops (XPS and Precision) and good Linux support in general is one of the reasons I tend to go with Dell.

[Reciever]

On 1/30/2022 at 6:38 AM, Aaron44126 said:

I think it is system specific but it is supported on the entire Precision line.  ...Sometimes Linux support is not available until a few months after the system launch.  I feel like they've been pretty good at having it available right away in the last generation or two.

Already some info on the next few generations.  It looks like 13th gen "Raptor Lake" will be a pretty minor iteration over Alder Lake.  (Thinking similar to 9th→10th gen on the mobile side.)  On the desktop side they will add a 8P+16E configuration but I will be a little surprised if that makes it into the mobile side.  14th gen "Meteor Lake" will feature a node shrink and be a bigger update.

Been debating a system to give Linux a full time shot, probably helps to have basic support so I dont rip my hair out.

1 minute ago, serpro69 said:

Been running Ubuntu an all my Dell laptops (XPS and Precision) and good Linux support in general is one of the reasons I tend to go with Dell.

I have an XPS 9365 , nice little machine. I have Manjaro on it right now iirc

[TheQuentincc]

On 1/29/2022 at 3:37 PM, serpro69 said:

A few years from now you will not want to touch 7570 with a 10ft. pole 🙂
That said, the numbers do look impressive, but unless you can afford to get a new laptop every year - who cares and why even bother regretting what you have now. 

I myself am actually more interested to see if they will introduce some design changes, the current chassis has been around for long enough now. DDR5 support and PCIe4 (in all slots) would be a nice step up as well. But I'm still probably going with 7560 now and not waiting for the next 7570 to come out. 

Well, the thing is, if you have a 7540 with a 9880H+ or a 7550 with a 10875H+ or a 7560 with a 11800H+, you are getting pretty much the same CPU performance. However with 12th gen the difference in performance is HUGE, I have a 12600K in my desktop, with E-core disabled it's faster than the 11900K while having two core less, now if you had the benefit of the E-core, you are well above an overclocked 10900K (which is a "real" 10 core) in term of raw CPU performance. The IPC gain betwen "Skylake++++++++++++++++++++" and 12th gen is about 30 to 40% on the P-core alone...

The current chassis started with the 7x50 series, so already two generation in total... I hope the chassis will not change, that way we could still upgrade GPU of older laptop to newer GPU 😉

[Ionising_Radiation]

10 hours ago, TheQuentincc said:

The current chassis started with the 7x50 series, so already two generation in total... I hope the chassis will not change

There are noticeable regressions with the current chassis compared to 7X10/20/30/40 generations, though; one big disadvantage is not being able to tilt the display back all the way. 

I am hoping Dell finds a way to update the chassis without messing with the DGFF form factor. I would also really like a 16:10 display; there is so much bezel space wasted at the bottom of the lid.

On 1/30/2022 at 12:35 PM, Aaron44126 said:

Don't know if you've seen an Alder Lake die shot.  I think it's pretty cool.  This is a desktop CPU, you can see the eight "performance" cores and eight "efficiency" cores, and you can see that basically four E cores fit in the space of one P core.

As a computer architecture nerd, this is so cool. Only thing is that it's so surprising that big.LITTLE took more than a decade to come to desktops after ARM introduced it back in 2011 (I recall wondering if my HTC One X would have it). 

On 1/30/2022 at 12:35 PM, Aaron44126 said:

I think one could argue that Apple M1 Max still holds the power efficiency crown.

From what I see on Reddit and on the various benchmark posts, the Alder Lake CPUs perform almost similarly at 75 W as they do at 115-130 W; coupled with the drastic boost in single- and multi-threaded performance, the conclusion is that yes, Alder Lake narrowly beats Apple M1 in terms of efficiency, too. 

Either way, this decade has started out very well for advancements in computing (notwithstanding COVID). 

[SvenC]

Yes, 16:10 would be really nice.

I am leaning to 57xx or XPS 17 but dislike that those do not offer a single USB-A which would force me to always carry a Dock or dongle as I prefer cable mouses which don't rely on battery and I have a little USB-A stick for data transfer of my good old Garmin Forerunner. That stick is so small,I always leave it in my 7740 to not loose it.

[serpro69]

16 hours ago, TheQuentincc said:

Well, the thing is, if you have a 7540 with a 9880H+ or a 7550 with a 10875H+ or a 7560 with a 11800H+, you are getting pretty much the same CPU performance. However with 12th gen the difference in performance is HUGE, I have a 12600K in my desktop, with E-core disabled it's faster than the 11900K while having two core less, now if you had the benefit of the E-core, you are well above an overclocked 10900K (which is a "real" 10 core) in term of raw CPU performance. The IPC gain betwen "Skylake++++++++++++++++++++" and 12th gen is about 30 to 40% on the P-core alone...

The current chassis started with the 7x50 series, so already two generation in total... I hope the chassis will not change, that way we could still upgrade GPU of older laptop to newer GPU 😉

That is true, there's no arguing about the performance jump in the 12th gen.
But have you seen the rumors about Nova Lake that's supposed to come in 2025/2026:

Quote

Nova Lake (Panther Cove [tentative]/ Darkmont) 2025 - This will mark the biggest architectural change in CPU architecture since the Core architecture is introduced in 2006. Intel is working to build entirely new architecture from the ground up much like Ryzen with up to 50% CPU performance improvement from the lunar lake. This is also the reason why Glenn Hinton returned.

Sure, it's some years ahead and it's just "rumors", but still... I'm pretty sure 2-3-4 years from now there will be a much more interesting workstation than Precision 7x70, even if the latter does look really promising right now :) 

[Aaron44126]

38 minutes ago, serpro69 said:

That is true, there's no arguing about the performance jump in the 12th gen.
But have you seen the rumors about Nova Lake that's supposed to come in 2025/2026:

Not saying it won't happen, but anything this far out for Intel falls squarely in "I'll believe it when I see it" territory.  ...Just look at how long it took them to get 10nm off the ground.  It was always a year or two away, but in the end it took them way longer than anticipated.

[serpro69]

4 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

Not saying it won't happen, but anything this far out for Intel falls squarely in "I'll believe it when I see it" territory.  ...Just look at how long it took them to get 10nm off the ground.  It was always a year or two away, but in the end it took them way longer than anticipated.

Completely agree with that, I'm not really getting my hopes up until at least this becomes more than a mere rumor. But it doesn't hurt to dream :)

[Aaron44126]

Was just poking around and I noticed that TechPowerUp has an entry for a mobile NVIDIA RTX A4500 GPU.  I can't find any upstream source or leak for this so I have no idea where this came from.  They don't seem to have any other Ampere refresh MWS GPUs in the database yet.

 

The specs are notably different than the desktop RTX A4500 GPU so it doesn't look like it was an accidental or speculative copy/paste.

 

Laying it out against existing other Ampere MWS GPUs:

RTX A4000 = GA104, 5120 CUDA cores, 8 GB vRAM

RTX A4500 = GA104, 5632 CUDA cores, 12GB vRAM (speculative, from TechPowerUp data)

RTX A5000 = GA104, 6144 CUDA cores, 16GB vRAM

RTX A5500 = GA103S, 7680 CUDA cores, 16GB vRAM (speculative, my own guess based on new mobile GeForce GPUs and NVIDIA's typical behavior)

 

If the specs are accurate, A4500 slots nicely between A4000 and A5000.  Upgrading to 12GB vRAM is a bit of a welcome surprise.  I wonder if there is any chance for a vRAM bump for the A5500?  I had seen previous rumors of 20GB for GA103S, but none of the GA103S GeForce GPUs released so far go above 16GB, and the core may not support higher vRAM amounts.

 

A4500 might launch in systems before A5500.  If we see mobile workstations with Alder Lake H CPUs, it might make sense to include A4500 as a choice but not A5500 which could be saved for when Alder Lake H55/S-BGA CPUs drop.  (Also just speculation on my part.)

 

[Edit]

Based on these specs, A4500 is the same as GeForce RTX 3070 Ti (mobile), except with 12GB vRAM instead of 8GB.

 

I noticed that there is a A4500 "embedded GPU" in the PCI IDs database.  I wonder if this could be in reference to that.  The specs don't line up though.  The embedded A4500 has 16 GB vRAM and 5888 CUDA cores.

[Aaron44126]

Still poking around.  Ran across this recent post at AnandTech and came to realize that the marketing name for Alder Lake S-BGA is Alder Lake HX.  Found some existing rumors about this pointing to second quarter 2022 release.  Alder Lake HX looks like it will use a CPU die derived from Alder Lake S (desktop CPU) in a BGA package, with a separate PCH (like Tiger Lake H, but unlike Alder Lake H), and push the TDP higher than Alder Lake H.  (This basically as expected from S-BGA rumors that have been floating around for nearly a full year now.)

 

Wondering what this means for the laptop space in general moving forward.  Both OEMs and press seem to be largely ignoring Alder Lake HX, and even acting like the Alder Lake lineup is complete since P and U series CPUs were revealed the other day.  Flagship gaming notebooks have already dropped using Alder Lake H.  So it seems like HX is going to be a niche CPU for the high-end MWS space (or maybe a few beefy gaming notebooks)?  Even ignoring the potential CPU performance difference between Alder Lake H and HX, Alder Lake H seems like a step back from Tiger Lake H to me because of the much more limited PCIe configuration and cut down to 64GB max RAM.

 

...Anyway, we'll see what happens over the next several weeks.  Not that much longer.

[serpro69]

5 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

...Anyway, we'll see what happens over the next several weeks.  Not that much longer.

 

Do you think that dell will announce new Mobile Precision series that soon?