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

[Aaron44126]

3 hours ago, serpro69 said:

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

 

Not really sure, I think we will hear something from Dell pretty promptly once Intel formally unveils HX.  No telling when that will be though.  Maybe late April or sometime in May?

[rzamz]

13 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

Not really sure, I think we will hear something from Dell pretty promptly once Intel formally unveils HX.  No telling when that will be though.  Maybe late April or sometime in May?

 

I believe the 7750 and 7760 were announced in May 2020 and May 2021 respectively so hopefully the trend continues. I am buying a new laptop in the next few months and deciding between the 7770, Lenovo P16, and Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 7. 

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by rzamz
announced, not released

[Aaron44126]

35 minutes ago, rzamz said:

I believe the 7750 and 7760 were announced in May 2020 and May 2021 respectively so hopefully the trend continues. I am buying a new laptop in the next few months and deciding between the 7770, Lenovo P16, and Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 7.

 

Yeah, I was hoping it would be a little bit quicker this year because it seemed like Alder Lake H was going to be turned around more quickly than typical for Intel... but with them saving HX until later it seems like it might be on around the same schedule as the past few years after all.

[Aaron44126]

And this just popped up today!  Seems like Intel might be gearing up to distribute HX test kits to OEMs.

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-12th-gen-core-alder-lake-hx-mobile-cpu-series-to-feature-16-cores

[Aaron44126]

Found this.

Link

 

Hello?  Precision 7770 and 7670?  If they decided to change the model number in this way, that tells me that a form factor shakeup may be coming (maybe finally bringing us 16:10 displays...).

 

I dug around some more and ran into this which appears to be the bottom panel for the Precision 7670.  Doesn't quite look the same as the Precision 7X60 with SSD door.

 

Model number Precision 7670 is clearly visible.  A little bit worried about that notch thing in the top right.  Is that where the Ethernet port is?  I really liked having it on the back...

 

 

Ok, with this one you can see where most of the ports go, it looks like there are none on the back.  Blah.  I do like that they have a mixture of USB A and C on the sides though, instead of having all USB C on the left and all USB A on the right.

 

Anyway... Things are happening.  (Maybe.)

[Aaron44126]

Found the one for Precision 7770.

https://www.taobao.com/list/item/664909765380.htm

 

Port arrangement is similar to 7670.  I'm not sure where mDP is.  I guess the rectangular ports (one on the left and one on the right) might be mDP or USB A, and it's possible that mDP is fully omitted and they just expect you to use USB-C.

 

Also with the placement of the HDMI port, I am guessing that it is not directly attached to the dGPU card anymore?

 

It looks like there are speaker grills on the front, so I am suspecting that they moved the speakers and they're not above the keyboard / right under the screen anymore.

 

Also found this one with the display enclosure.  Can't really discern if it is 16:9 or 16:10.

 

 

 

 

But yeah.  I am not liking that they took ports off of the back that have been there for over a decade.  It's so much cleaner for cable management if power, Ethernet, etc. are not hanging off of the side of the system.

[serpro69]

23 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

But yeah.  I am not liking that they took ports off of the back that have been there for over a decade.  It's so much cleaner for cable management if power, Ethernet, etc. are not hanging off of the side of the system.

 

Damn it, I don't like that at all. I wonder what would be the reasoning behind that kind of move.

 

Thanks a lot for the updates. Looks like we're going to see some more stuff soon as you predicted :)

[Aaron44126]

19 minutes ago, serpro69 said:

I wonder what would be the reasoning behind that kind of move.

 

I was thinking about it, and I guess, they have moved from two heat exhaust ports on the back to three.  This was probably done as part of a cooling system improvement to accommodate the new higher TDP of the Alder Lake HX CPUs (and maybe to bump up the GPU power as well).  Really curious to see what the heatsink/fan assembly looks like.

 

So I guess the back ports had to go?  I don't like it but I would rather have the ports on the sides than heat exhaust ports on the sides.

[serpro69]

Just now, Aaron44126 said:

I was thinking about it, and I guess, they have moved from two heat exhaust ports on the back to three.  This was probably done to accommodate the new higher TDP of the Alder Lake HX CPUs (and maybe to bump up the GPU power as well).  So I guess the back ports had to go?

Yeah, that could make sense.

 

7670, is that a hint to a 16" display? I wonder if it's going to be bulkier than 7560, or maybe they managed to keep same dimensions/weight by reducing the bezel on the bottom.

[Aaron44126]

5 minutes ago, serpro69 said:

7670, is that a hint to a 16" display?

 

That's what I gathered from the model number change and that is what makes me think that we are looking at 16:10 panels now.... (maybe).  But if that's the case, I wonder how big the difference between 16" and 17" will really be...

 

[Edit] If this thing actually works then I don't care so much about the power connector being on the side at least.

[Ionising_Radiation]

@Aaron44126, very interesting finds. 

 

The dimensions of the chassis covers do look like they're (finally) moving to 16:10 panels. Here's also hoping that they use 10-bit HDR high-refresh-rate non-PCM panels. 

[Aaron44126]

The more I think about it, the more I want to know what the heatsink/fan assembly is like.  Are they going for three fans?  How else does it make sense?  What are those cutouts on the left/right of the back for?  Precision 7X60 doesn't have that.  Seems kind of big for hinges.  Maybe, though, the display enclosure also seems to have cutouts in the same place.

[iieeann]

Still 7 series? that means the lousy keyboard layout and without independent power button will continue zzz...

I hope the LAN port is a full port without spring jaw. Simply stupid and the port hook will stuck when taken out. Anyway from the pic it seems the LAN port is still spring jaw type at upper left of the laptop zzz...

I hope the audio port is moved to left side or upper portion from current idiot location.

I hope 240V USB-C charging is implemented while still keeping the power jack.

I hope GAN charger is given so that i can no longer kill people with current brick.

I hope better cooling is designed rather than slimming the laptop. The pic's bottom case suggest bigger vent i think (?)

I hope bottom cover can be opened easily like earlier 7 series.  7760 is simply stupid.

 

I believe the design must have been completed by now.  Let us see what 7770 will bring us.

[iieeann]

This is the link for 7770 front cover.  is it possible to identify whether it is a 16:10 or 16:9 screen?

 

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?&id=665377254831

 

[iieeann]

9 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

[Edit] If this thing actually works then I don't care so much about the power connector being on the side at least.

 

Of course it works, I have them working perfectly with 240W brick, directly to laptop and also dock station.  Works with smaller laptop too.

[Aaron44126]

8 hours ago, iieeann said:

Still 7 series? that means the lousy keyboard layout and without independent power button will continue zzz...

I hope the LAN port is a full port without spring jaw. Simply stupid and the port hook will stuck when taken out. Anyway from the pic it seems the LAN port is still spring jaw type at upper left of the laptop zzz...

I hope the audio port is moved to left side or upper portion from current idiot location.

I hope 240V USB-C charging is implemented while still keeping the power jack.

I hope GAN charger is given so that i can no longer kill people with current brick.

I hope better cooling is designed rather than slimming the laptop. The pic's bottom case suggest bigger vent i think (?)

I hope bottom cover can be opened easily like earlier 7 series.  7760 is simply stupid.

 

I believe the design must have been completed by now.  Let us see what 7770 will bring us.

 

They've changed the 7000-series keyboard before.  (7X30/7X40 layout was fine.)  ...Not really holding out hope but I'd love to see it addressed.  I don't especially care about the power button not being separate, but not having dedicated Home/End and PgUp/PgDn keys is quite obnoxious...

 

LAN port has a spring jaw (you can see it in the pictures of the bottom panel).  I haven't had an issue with it getting stuck, but I find it a bit tedious to connect (without looking) and also I'm worried about the spring jaw sort of loosening up over time if you use the Ethernet port a lot.

 

Audio port is in roughly the same spot, on the right side of the laptop.  I've just started using a right-angle adapter for it as well so that it is less obnoxious.  (Cord pointed straight towards the front rather than sticking out to where the mouse goes.)

 

I think opening the bottom cover is going to be roughly the same as 7X50/7X60.  Looks like it has captive screws and the whole thing will come off in one piece.  It "wraps around" to the sides and covers up all of the ports.

 

The design process is about two years so they would definitely be at the tail end of it by now.  One of the bottom panel photos shows an October 2021 manufacture date.

 

Thanks for the info on the right angle adapter.  I'll pick up some of these.  I guess that I was just worried that it wouldn't work with 240W, or it wouldn't support passing through the info that the laptop needs about the PSU's capacity.

[Aaron44126]

Core i7-12650HX has appeared on UserBenchmark.  6P+8E, like desktop i5-12600K.  First "in the wild" spotting of a HX CPU, AFAIK.

 

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/50932654

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/alder-lake-hx-cpu-spotted-specs-disclosed

 

[Edit]

Updated top post with what is known so far about CPUs and GPUs for this generation.  I'll try to keep that up to date as more information becomes available.

[iieeann]

Seems like no Xeon from 12th Gen for mobile 🥱

[Aaron44126]

9 hours ago, iieeann said:

Seems like no Xeon from 12th Gen for mobile 🥱

 

Where did you get that from?  (Just curious...)  Xeon CPUs usually show up some weeks after the rest of them.

 

If they support ECC on the i7/i9 then it makes no difference.  Or, maybe ECC support from the CPU is now not so important since DDR5 requires ECC as a matter of spec?  (Though this ECC required by DDR5 can fix errors on the memory module, but not errors in transmission between the memory module and the CPU.)

[iieeann]

Err, what I mean is no yet seen any 12th gen Xeon for mobile till now. Not even seen for desktop too.

[Aaron44126]

Mobile Xeon is usually just for workstations so I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see those until ≈6 weeks after Alder Lake HX actually launches.  (Intel hasn't even acknowledged HX to the public yet.)  Not sure about the desktop side.  I did notice that there are no Xeons yet but I'm not sure what the normal timing for those is.

 

Timing could be off from what a "normal" generation looks like because there are a lot of unusual things going on with this generation.  I'm a little bit wondering about if there are process scheduling changes coming to Windows 10 in the near future that will be timed with when Alder Lake business systems (that Xeons would land in) become more broadly available.  Both OEMs and MS must know that the vast majority of larger businesses aren't ready for Windows 11 yet.

[Aaron44126]

Found this leaked block diagram and commentary regarding Alder Lake workstation CPUs.  It looks like Intel might be changing up the branding and not using the word "Xeon"... or at least raising the bar on what it takes for a CPU to be considered a "Xeon", and just calling the "regular old Core CPUs with ECC memory support" (that we see here in the MWS space) something like "Core for Workstation".

 

https://hothardware.com/news/intel-alder-lake-xeon-server-cpu-w680-block-diagram

(This is for the desktop workstation CPU/chipset.)

 

There are lots of articles discussing the W680 chipset (for desktops) over the past month or so, so it seems that Alder Lake workstation CPUs are indeed in the queue and coming "soon", regardless of what they end up being named.

 

[Edit]

I wonder if the 2.5Gb Ethernet will make it down to the mobile platform...

[Asleep]

On 3/2/2022 at 1:09 PM, Aaron44126 said:

But yeah.  I am not liking that they took ports off of the back that have been there for over a decade.  It's so much cleaner for cable management if power, Ethernet, etc. are not hanging off of the side of the system.

Oh no, that's a 100% deal-killer for me. I must have power and ethernet on the back of a laptop.

 

Like you I've been on an M6700 from original purchase when it was released. Just got word from my tech that it's going to crap out at any moment now, so I have to replace it. I wanted to wait for the new Intel chips to make it into a Precision Mobile Workstation but that's dead now since they're moving everything off the back. Now I guess it's MSI or Asus or whatever. I hate to loud clickity keyboards they're putting into their top gamer units. 

 

I guess I could buy a 7760 but it didn't seem to overwhelm anybody with its greatness. Sigh.

 

 

[Asleep]

I see MSI has a 17" 16:10 now, I wonder if all 17.3s are going to that combination now?

 

Virtually the same area: http://www.displaywars.com/17-inch-16x10-vs-17,3-inch-16x9

 

 

[Aaron44126]

7 hours ago, Asleep said:

I see MSI has a 17" 16:10 now, I wonder if all 17.3s are going to that combination now?

Technically, based on this, the 16:10 displays are 17.0” and not 17.3” (even though 16:10 has slightly more total display area).  Anyway, I think we will see a mix of 16:9 and 16:10 for a while, with a lot of gaming-focused systems staying on 16:9.