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

[win32asmguy]

2 hours ago, Kataphract said:

Hoho.. that is solid result. That is the absolutely outlandish looking one with cooling extended past display right? Is that kinda the pro version of the GE67?
That kind of performance puts it into different light.. those are crazy differences. Really makes me think whether it's something I will consider. Even ugly things can become loved after certain time.

I wonder how their Z17 would fare.

 

Its the pro version of the GT77. No light bar on the back and the keyboard is membrane instead of mechanical so its very quiet. It also has a decent three year onsite warranty included for the price which is great as the previous MSI workstation laptops were mail in only. Of all the workstation devices this one has the best bios as everything is accessible via the advanced unlock. Oh, and it also has modular wifi, and the ethernet is 2.5g. Also it supports S3 sleep which is less likely to randomly wake while traveling or otherwise.

[1610ftw]

18 hours ago, Kataphract said:

That is pretty brutal review.. Gaming laptops (particularly one as massive as the MSI GE67) have quite often better cooling, but to be able to score as much as 40perc. faster in throttle loop of CB23 is well.. something. 

 

In CB R23 it is more like 50% faster, it looks like the MSI is using a different CPU generation:

 

https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Intel-Core-i7-12800HX-is-insane-MSI-Raider-GE67-HX-12UGS-laptop-review.632780.0.html

 

And to add insult to injury the GE67 is by no means massive, in fact even the "slim" 7670 is heavier than the GE67 by about 10% (2.724 vs 2.469) and possibly also a bit taller.

 

I assume that one of the reasons for the added weight is that MSI is all BGA and this will save some weight. Personally I would prefer more weight and socketed hardware but what do I know. In any case more weight and significantly worse performance is rather disappointing.

 

The X17 probably is a bit lighter than the 7770 but it also is a lot deeper. As for the Z17 it stinks, stay away if you want proper performance.

 

[1610ftw]

double post, @Recieverplease delete

 

[Kataphract]

Well since I already have 7670, I am "staying" from others already :- ). I wondered about the Z17 because that is their slim laptop, so I wonder how it would fare. It's possible they still paid better attention to cooling so it will still perform better than Precisions. 
It also gets bested by RazerBlade17 with 2 less cores, I have 10th gen of that laptop, and it's just so thin compared to 7670 performance chassis. And still lost..
It's just not a great look for Dell.

[1610ftw]

4 hours ago, Kataphract said:

Well since I already have 7670, I am "staying" from others already :- ). I wondered about the Z17 because that is their slim laptop, so I wonder how it would fare. It's possible they still paid better attention to cooling so it will still perform better than Precisions. 
It also gets bested by RazerBlade17 with 2 less cores, I have 10th gen of that laptop, and it's just so thin compared to 7670 performance chassis. And still lost..
It's just not a great look for Dell.

 

Sorry, I did not want to rub it in, I thought that you were thinking of returning the 7670 🙂

To be fair from what I am reading max performance seems limited out of the box but it can be improved and is of course not all that counts.

 

The MSI Z17 performs better with two P-cores less but it is quite a bit worse than its smaller brother Z16P which is disappointing:

 

 

https://www.notebookcheck.net/MSI-Creator-Z17-Laptop-review-What-are-creatives-and-gamers-getting-for-around-4-000-Euro.657318.0.html#toc-5

 

 

 

[operator]

On 10/7/2022 at 1:17 PM, Aaron44126 said:

Need more data!

 Indeed!

 

On 10/7/2022 at 2:31 PM, alaskajoel said:

The notebookcheck review of the 7670 reports

 

Despite the facts of this review and the downsides of the cooling - I'm also very disappointed that the screen is that much reflective and at the same time the brightness with 350cd is not very satisfying according to the review.

 

 

[EDIT] BTW. Dell was able to process my order earlier than expected. Marked as shipped in China 3 weeks before the schedule. Since I ordered the Laptop on day 1 when SODIMM was "ready-to-order", I still don't understand, why there are people here that already received their Laptops with SODIMM when mine at that point didn't even reach "in production". Its an inscrutable process Dell is following. 

Edited October 10, 2022 by operator
added updated shipping info

[Kataphract]

I wonder if the brightness of OLED is artificially limited a bit. I have few other OLED laptops (like Razer Blade) and they are 400 NITs. I don't think there are any 500Nit ones though.
Someone posted a rumor in this thread that Dell ran into issue with these particular panels so maybe this is one of those resulting tweaks.
I do not find the glossy surface to be any more reflective than other glossy panels I've seen. Glossy + 350 Nits on OLED is still extremely well readable in every condition with exception of outside. And my 500 Nits Glossy IPS on different Razer Blade isn't any more readable.
I don't use laptop outside at any point and I kill for glossy panels.

[keks2k]

On 10/10/2022 at 2:27 PM, operator said:

[EDIT] BTW. Dell was able to process my order earlier than expected. Marked as shipped in China 3 weeks before the schedule. Since I ordered the Laptop on day 1 when SODIMM was "ready-to-order", I still don't understand, why there are people here that already received their Laptops with SODIMM when mine at that point didn't even reach "in production". Its an inscrutable process Dell is following. 

I ordered a 7770 in early September and the expected delivery date went through the roof (to 2 months) after my purchase, despite being labelled "available quickly", so I contacted the sales rep and she told me that it was due to delivery problems of the bottom cover with the maintenance flap (to access the primary SSD without disassembling the case).
She offered to cancel my first order and replace it with a new one, this time without the flap => and there we go: it arrived only 12 days later.
The part in question was "354-BBFJ" which got replaced by "354-BBFI".

..now I have to fight bad thermals, which I'll join the discussion in the other thread here for. 🤬

[operator]

1 hour ago, keks2k said:

She offered to cancel my first order and replace it with a new one, this time without the flap => and there we go: it arrived only 12 days later.
 

 

7670 buyers do not have that choice. Once you get the performance chassis, you'll get the SSD door - if you want it or not.

[Light]

How are people using the SSD door?

 

Are you using the slot under the door for an ssd that holds video files or some such where it's fast to swap in and out the ssd vs. moving files digitally?

Are you swapping OS drives so frequently that the door is handy?

[win32asmguy]

21 minutes ago, Light said:

How are people using the SSD door?

 

Are you using the slot under the door for an ssd that holds video files or some such where it's fast to swap in and out the ssd vs. moving files digitally?

Are you swapping OS drives so frequently that the door is handy?

 

Also useful for M.2 eGPU adapters. It has great bandwidth with none of the latency overhead of thunderbolt and easy access with the door.

[Kataphract]

13 hours ago, operator said:

 

7670 buyers do not have that choice. Once you get the performance chassis, you'll get the SSD door - if you want it or not.

What do you mean? I have 7670 in my hands, Performance Chassis and no door. I kind of forget to specify it.

[pintie]

i have the door - and i could not (un)select it. (i don't want it). but there was no way to configure it.

I guess all 7670 with a i9 + A3xxx+ do have the big chassis with door.

 

pretty useless in my opinion.

[Aaron44126]

I think there was an option for no door *if* you got the SmartCard slot (or fingerprint reader), but that option seems to be gone now.

[pintie]

nope. i have the smart card reader.

in fact i have everything maxed out - only thing that was not possible was WWAN. (no option with the OLED UHD).

 

if there would have been the option - i would have liked it without the door.

(i ordered in the first week when it was possible).

[operator]

1 hour ago, Kataphract said:

What do you mean? I have 7670 in my hands, Performance Chassis and no door. I kind of forget to specify it.

 

I did not want the door, but my Dell rep said, he cannot unselect it with performance chassis. I'm glad it was possible on your machine. Another inscrutable process from Dell. 🤔

 

33 minutes ago, pintie said:

if there would have been the option - i would have liked it without the door.

(i ordered in the first week when it was possible).

 

On my first order on day1 (July) I could not get rid of the SSD door and also on my second order in September, this was still the case. 😞

 

[Light]

20 hours ago, win32asmguy said:

 

Also useful for M.2 eGPU adapters. It has great bandwidth with none of the latency overhead of thunderbolt and easy access with the door.

Interesting - had not realized that was a connection option. Interesting.

 

I suppose with the door if you had two identical precisions, you could bring only the SSD back and forth to work or when traveling between two locations on a plane instead of the entire laptop, but I'd worry about the fragility of removing and inserting the SSD every day or damaging it while out of the laptop.

 

I thought about having multiple SSDs for editing, especially when they were so expensive that 2 TB was max and 1 TB was affordable, but now pricing is coming down, I worry more about damage removing and inserting them many times.

[Reshen]

I'm still waiting for my 7670 😞

 

Dell South Africa is not covering themselves in glory... amongst the worst service I've ever had.

 

All these issues about the thermal issues have really dulled my enthusiasm. Sadly, even a "lowly" 7550 would have been and excellent upgrade for me.

 

OK, enough self pity 🙂

[Frosty]

It's pretty quiet in this thread.

I've been working my 7770 for the last few weeks and so far I've been happy with the purchase (despite the high cost).

Compared to my 7730, it's smaller, Windows Hello is a nice feature, and most importantly, my work with Adobe Lightroom is considerably faster.  It's been a good change for me.

[Aaron44126]

27 minutes ago, Frosty said:

It's pretty quiet in this thread.

 

This is the pre-release thread (...which you are welcome to continue posting in...).  There is a separate owner's thread which is a lot more active.

[Frosty]

Oh.  I don't think I knew that.  Thanks.

 

[maels]

On 5/25/2022 at 7:40 AM, Ionising_Radiation said:

The original panel was a BOE NV15N4R with absolutely rubbish PWM. The newer one is an AUO B156HANsomething.something (I don't remember exactly), and I can't detect the PWM at all (either it uses DC control, or a very high PWM frequency). 

 

My only gripe about the panel is that it's not 16:10, and that it's still 60 Hz. Even the 7670 still has a 60 Hz panel. Grr. 

 

Digging up some old stuff, but how exactly did you manage to get it replaced? What reason did you give? Did you notice the flickering itself with your own eyes or did it make you feel not well in any way? What did you tell Dell about it?

 

I've recently bought a 7550 with a BOE display, still under warranty. Using my smartphone I can notice flickering in low brightness but other than that it looks stunning. The other AUO displays are far worse than BOE, when it comes to gamut, contrast and brightness, so I'm a bit confused if I should replace mine in one way or another.

 

Thanks

[Ionising_Radiation]

On 12/29/2023 at 1:08 AM, maels said:

Digging up some old stuff, but how exactly did you manage to get it replaced?

I think the display stopped working within the first month or so of me owning the 7560, so I requested a replacement. 

 

On 12/29/2023 at 1:08 AM, maels said:

Did you notice the flickering itself with your own eyes or did it make you feel not well in any way?

A bit of both. I usually set my display brightness to not much more than 30%, given I mostly work indoors, and merely waving my hands in front of the display gave a stroboscopic effect. I also got a bad headache after using it for a couple of hours—something I've never experienced with my LG monitors. I'm very sensitive to PWM flicker, I've found—sometimes even car tail-lights and dim bathroom lights cause problems for me. 

  

On 12/29/2023 at 1:08 AM, maels said:

but other than that it looks stunning. The other AUO displays are far worse than BOE, when it comes to gamut, contrast and brightness

I personally feel that all these displays are a bit crap—they're still 6-bit, bog-standard 16:9 1080p 60 Hz LED IPS panels, which were standard on gaming laptops 10 years ago. 

 

IMO every workstation going forward should come with the AUO B160ZAN as standard—3840×2400, 120 Hz, 500-nit, 100% DCI-P3, 10-bit input.

 

This is at least an option on the HP ZBook Fury 16 G10, but still not available on the Precisions. It is a real pity that the starter displays on all these so-called high-end workstations are still lousy 45% gamut TN panels, when Apple uses superb panels across their MacBook line, regardless of price point.