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

[pintie]

what is the difference between hight / hight front and rear ?

i get front and rear - but just hight is the biggest figure ?!

 

what Raid's will be possible in the 7670 ?

RAID 0 with 3 Disks ?

or one System Disk and RAID 0 on the other two ?

 

this System really gives a lot of possibilities.

 

 

[yslalan]

7 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

Any hint as to when the systems will be available to order?

The order ETA is still May 10th in China Market with no change, I believe this will also be applied globally.

[Aaron44126]

1 hour ago, pintie said:

what Raid's will be possible in the 7670 ?

RAID 0 with 3 Disks ?

or one System Disk and RAID 0 on the other two ?

Past systems have allowed for configs like this.  You do not have to have all drives in the array, you can do two in and one out, or all three in if you choose.  If you want to do a split config then just order the system with individual drives and set up RAID after you receive it.  (Or you can order the system with one drive and add more aftermarket.  Dell includes all of the NVMe heatsinks even if you do not order it with drives in all slots.)

[Aaron44126]

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.  I have a few followups.

 

21 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

7. Will the SODIMM interposer be available for purchase separately?  (If not right off of the web site, then through the spare parts dept.?)

14 hours ago, Dell-Mano_G said:

7. Not right away, no.

 

Will the SODIMM interposer be available for purchase separately later on?  (I.e. I know that only configs with CAMM modules will be offered at launch, so, maybe after Dell starts allowing SODIMM configurations at order?)

 

21 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

8. What is the maximum boost power level of the GPU in the 7670 and 7770?  Assuming top-spec GPU.  (NVIDIA's GPU spec sheet shows RTX A5500 maxing out at 165W.)

9. Are power limits the same between the RTX A5500 and the RTX 3080 Ti?

14 hours ago, Dell-Mano_G said:

8. I can reveal this info after we launch.  

9. I can reveal this info after we launch.

 

Definitely interested in this so I will be poking back at launch...  I want to order one ASAP but the answer to these questions could impact which GPU I select.  🙂

(Also have a CPU question which can't be addressed yet...)

 

21 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

12. NVIDIA Dynamic Boost 2.0 supported?  (It looks like this was not initially supported in Precision 7X60, but it was added with the 1.8.x BIOS update.)

15. Does the Precision 7770 4K/120Hz panel support FreeSync or any other dynamic refresh rate mechanism?  (...I saw that the Alienware M17 R5, which launched recently, has a 17" panel that includes this.)

14 hours ago, Dell-Mano_G said:

12. I will check but I think it is already in there. 
15. Not sure, I will check.  I'm pretty sure it is the same panel Alienware is using. 

 

Also interested in these when you have a moment to investigate (...but I do not think it would impact which config I order).  On the second point, confirmation that you are using the same panel as the Alienware M17 R5 would be enough.  (If you are using the same panel that was used in last year's 7760, then it probably does not have it.)

 

21 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

18. Are those "lines" on the very front of the sides of the system WLAN antennas, or what?

14 hours ago, Dell-Mano_G said:

18. Close, wireless antennas.

 

... Does that mean WWAN antennas?  Were the WWAN antennas moved out of the display enclosure?  If so, does that mean WWAN+IR camera configurations can be ordered now?

 

Thanks again.

[SvenC]

@Dell-Mano_G Do you see a chance that we get more options to combine faster CPUs with iGPUs or at least a low level entry GPU?

 

As a developer I am looking for CPU, RAM and storage but GPU is not relevant. Convincing the management to get a higher i7 or i9 gets more and more difficult with the currently available combinations.

[Dell-Mano_G]

16 hours ago, pintie said:

what is the difference between hight / hight front and rear ?

i get front and rear - but just hight is the biggest figure ?!

 

what Raid's will be possible in the 7670 ?

RAID 0 with 3 Disks ?

or one System Disk and RAID 0 on the other two ?

 

this System really gives a lot of possibilities.

 

 

7670 thin will support no RAID, RAID 0, RAID 1.

7670 Performance will support no RAID, RAID 0, RAID 1, & RAID 5.

7770 will support no RAID, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, & RAID 10.  

[Dell-Mano_G]

15 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.  I have a few followups.

 

 

Will the SODIMM interposer be available for purchase separately later on?  (I.e. I know that only configs with CAMM modules will be offered at launch, so, maybe after Dell starts allowing SODIMM configurations at order?)

 

 

Definitely interested in this so I will be poking back at launch...  I want to order one ASAP but the answer to these questions could impact which GPU I select.  🙂

(Also have a CPU question which can't be addressed yet...)

 

 

Also interested in these when you have a moment to investigate (...but I do not think it would impact which config I order).  On the second point, confirmation that you are using the same panel as the Alienware M17 R5 would be enough.  (If you are using the same panel that was used in last year's 7760, then it probably does not have it.)

 

 

... Does that mean WWAN antennas?  Were the WWAN antennas moved out of the display enclosure?  If so, does that mean WWAN+IR camera configurations can be ordered now?

 

Thanks again.

At this time, no the SoDIMM interposer will not be made available separately.  This might change but at this time no. 

 

I'm pretty sure the 17" is the same as the Alienware.  

 

WWAN antennas are only included in the system when WWAN is ordered.  

[Dell-Mano_G]

8 hours ago, SvenC said:

@Dell-Mano_G Do you see a chance that we get more options to combine faster CPUs with iGPUs or at least a low level entry GPU?

 

As a developer I am looking for CPU, RAM and storage but GPU is not relevant. Convincing the management to get a higher i7 or i9 gets more and more difficult with the currently available combinations.

I don't restrict what CPU's you order without a discrete GFX.  You can order any CPU without discrete GFX.  I have been allowing this for multiple generations.  

[Aaron44126]

35 minutes ago, Dell-Mano_G said:

I don't restrict what CPU's you order without a discrete GFX.  You can order any CPU without discrete GFX.  I have been allowing this for multiple generations.  

@Dell-Mano_G I believe @SvenC is referring to Precision 5000-series, not 7000-series.  5000-series (and XPS) seem to have a CPU/GPU restriction.  If you try to get a better CPU then it forces a better GPU on you as well.

 

@SvenC Maybe Precision 7670 "thin chassis" is something to look at...

[Aaron44126]

54 minutes ago, Dell-Mano_G said:

7670 thin will support no RAID, RAID 0, RAID 1.

7670 Performance will support no RAID, RAID 0, RAID 1, & RAID 5.

 

That is interesting; can you only put two NVMe drives in the 7670 "thin" chassis?

[win32asmguy]

@Dell-Mano_GAny chance we might see a 32-64GB CAMM XMP module as the tech matures?

 

Is the palm rest and keyboard temperature still relatively uniform with the new cooling design?

 

Is the AX211 Wifi a modular card or soldered to the system board?

 

Will discrete graphics direct output mode for the TB4 ports still be an option?

 

Any chance these models can support traditional S3 Standby in addition to Modern Standby?

 

Thanks!

[AL123]

Hi @Dell-Mano_G

 

Can I also jump in with a couple of questions on memory support? 

 

1.Will ECC Ram be supported for the 7000 series laptops (with so dimm interposed) 

 

2. Are ECC CAMM modules under development/consideration for the future.

 

For CAE simulation workloads we have previously specified xeon CPUs with ECC RAM. For 12th generation precision 3660 desktops ECC ram is coming post launch with i5-i9 CPUs but I'm not sure about laptops 

 

 

[Aaron44126]

12 minutes ago, AL123 said:

1.Will ECC Ram be supported for the 7000 series laptops (with so dimm interposed)

 

The spec sheet indicates that ECC RAM up to 64GB will be supported via the SODIMM interposer.  (Not right at launch, though; this is a "coming soon" item.)  Xeon is not required.  Intel is now supporting ECC via the Core i5/i7/i9 CPUs, if you have a workstation chipset/PCH in the system.

[serpro69]

Wow, very interesting to read the last few pages...

I think I'm pretty happy with having to return my 7560 and deciding to wait for 7x70 instead of getting a replacement right away.

 

So the 7670 has two chassis, thin and performance? That's not the case for 7770, which only has performance? 

Is there any noticeable differences (apart from the size of course) between thin and performance if we don't consider heavy load on the graphics card? Let's say that display size and number of ssd slots aside between 7670 and 7770. Would it make sense to get 7770 instead of 7670, both with top CPU and either integrated or A1000 graphics card?

 

I'm basically thinking about the same as @SvenC, I want max CPU, enough memory and storage, but I probably will not go for too powerful graphics if it's going to be out of my budget.

[Aaron44126]

13 minutes ago, serpro69 said:

Is there any noticeable differences (apart from the size of course) between thin and performance if we don't consider heavy load on the graphics card? Let's say that display size and number of ssd slots aside between 7670 and 7770. Would it make sense to get 7770 instead of 7670, both with top CPU and either integrated or A1000 graphics card?

 

...I am suspecting 7670-thin gets only two SSD slots instead of three; waiting for @Dell-Mano_G to weigh in.  (This is based on his comments of which RAID modes are supported with each chassis.)  So, if that matters to you and you're also wanting a low-end GPU, you might have to get the 7770.

 

Mostly, 7770 vs. 7670 is basically down to preference.  You can look at photos from the previous page (in spoiler blocks) and get a feel for the difference in the chassis size between the two.  (Look at how much space there is to the left and right of the keyboard, for example.)  You are right that 7770 does not have a thin chassis version.  7770 gets four NVMe slots.  7770 has a 16:9 panel (LCD) while 7670 has 16:10 (...OLED, if you get the UHD one).  Typically, the 17" system has had slightly better cooling and higher GPU power limits, but that's less of a concern if you're not going for a high-end GPU.  (GPU power limits on these new systems has not yet been confirmed.)

[AL123]

3 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

The spec sheet indicates that ECC RAM up to 64GB will be supported via the SODIMM interposer.  (Not right at launch, though; this is a "coming soon" item.)  Xeon is not required.  Intel is now supporting ECC via the Core i5/i7/i9 CPUs, if you have a workstation chipset/PCH in the system.

Hi which version of the spec sheet is that? All the ones I've seen here for the 7770 shows non ecc CAMM upto 128gb. Non ECC only up to 64gb for so dimms

e.g.

64GB, 2 x 32GB, DDR5, 4800MHz, non-ECC, SODIMM (coming soon)

I'm hearing not that soon also 😞

 

 

Main issue for me other than that with CAMM is for companies upgrades are a potential issue now. We would usually leave slots free if possible for upgrades but now you would have to take 1 CAMM module out to upgrade to another. Maybe Dell can do a trade in program, as for companies selling spares parts on ebay etc  just isn't worth the effort most of the time, for individuals less of a problem. 

 

However innovation both on the cooling and RAM is definately nice to see I'm hoping we will see even thinner versions of both chassis next time, usually after a few generations we get a complete upgrade 🙂

 

Thanks for continuing to post the info you uncover. I get updates direct but what I find on here often goes into alot of depth that don't feature in dell's presentations! 

 

 

 

[Aaron44126]

2 hours ago, AL123 said:

Hi which version of the spec sheet is that?

Apologies, I guess I mixed that up. The spec sheet just shows support up to 32GB ECC with SODIMM.

 

 

I saw 64GB ECC in one of the spec leaks.  (Very first CAMM reference, AFAIK.)

 

 

Seems like there’s no reason that it would not work, but I haven’t seen anything specific about what DDR5 SODIMM ECC capacities will actually be available.  Maybe Dell won’t be able to offer it (at first?) if no one is making 32GB ECC modules.

 

I guess we can put it to @Dell-Mano_G.  Sometimes the spec sheets are off.  Will Dell offer/support 64GB ECC?

[AL123]

53 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

Apologies, I guess I mixed that up. The spec sheet just shows support up to 32GB ECC with SODIMM.

 

 

I saw 64GB ECC in one of the spec leaks.  (Very first CAMM reference, AFAIK.)

 

 

Seems like there’s no reason that it would not work, but I haven’t seen anything specific about what DDR5 SODIMM ECC capacities will actually be available.  Maybe Dell won’t be able to offer it (at first?) if no one is making 16GB ECC modules.

 

I guess we can put it to @Dell-Mano_G.  Sometimes the spec sheets are off.  Will Dell offer/support 64GB ECC?

Thanks I must have completely missed the 32GB ECC as I skimmed over it so let's call that 1-1 😛

 

 

Certainly spec sheets are often off to start with or waiting on list launch items, seeing some ECC ram listed gives me hope! 

[alittleteapot]

This is a pretty interesting thread.  Since I'm a heavy Hyper-V user, I have some thoughts to share.

• It's hard for me to find much information about efficiency cores with Hyper-V.  Hyper-V is often a primary justification for getting one of these mobile workstations, and client Hyper-V is perfectly fine when you're doing software development.  The best case scenario seems that the efficiency cores could run the host OS background things and make the VM-assigned cores run faster / less context switching.
• If I understand correctly, each NVME drive getting dedicated PCI 4.0 lanes is probably the best feature.  Slap in four 4 TB Sabrent Rocket drives in RAID 10, and you'd have blindingly fast burst performance 8 TB RAID drive ... depending on how well these drives are cooled.  Or, install some flavor of Unix that allows it to be a 12 TB RAIDZ1 pool.  This makes a lot more sense compared to the previous generation, where it has one set of PCI 4 lanes for one drive, and one set of PCI 3 lanes shared for three drives.

 

 

[Aaron44126]

18 minutes ago, alittleteapot said:

If I understand correctly, each NVME drive getting dedicated PCI 4.0 lanes is probably the best feature.  Slap in four 4 TB Sabrent Rocket drives in RAID 10, and you'd have blindingly fast burst performance 8 TB RAID drive ... depending on how well these drives are cooled.  Or, install some flavor of Unix that allows it to be a 12 TB RAIDZ1 pool.  This makes a lot more sense compared to the previous generation, where it has one set of PCI 4 lanes for one drive, and one set of PCI 3 lanes shared for three drives.

I doubt that this is happening.  Alder Lake has 20 PCIe4 lanes off of the CPU and the rest are off of the PCH.  There are limits to how these 20 lanes can be split out, too.  I would imagine 16 are for the dGPU (even if it is just using an x8 connection) and the remaining four could be used for a single NVMe drive.

 

Anything connected to the PCH basically shares a PCIe4 x4 link back to the CPU (if I understand properly).  Probably, this is laid out similarly to last year’s systems with one NVMe drive connected directly to the CPU (at PCIe4) and the rest connected to the PCH.  The difference here is that the Tiger Lake PCH capped out at PCIe3, while the Alder Lake PCH does have enough PCIe4 lanes to hook up the remaining NVMe slots at that speed.  They’ll just have shared bandwidth back to the CPU.

 

Will be able to confirm the architecture once someone has a system in hand.  The 20 lanes off of the CPU can be split out as 8-8-4, so technically there could be two NVMe drives directly connected (assuming that they use x8 for the dGPU and not x16)…  But given the motherboard layout with three NVMe drive slots grouped together, it would be odd if those were not all connected to the PCH.

[alittleteapot]

2 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

I doubt that this is happening.  Alder Lake has 20 PCIe4 lanes off of the CPU and the rest are off of the PCH.  There are limits to how these 20 lanes can be split out, too.  I would imagine 16 are for the dGPU (even if it is just using an x8 connection) and the remaining four could be used for a single NVMe drive.

 

Thanks for your insight, as always.  In other words, the drives are not vastly different than the current generation of technology, except that the 3 NVME drives that share the PCH lanes can run twice as fast now (assuming they were all equipped with the PCI 4 drives).  So, the 1 boot/OS drive + 3 RAID5 (or RAIDZ1 or Parity Spaces) drives is actually pretty close to the ideal configuration.

 

This means the RAID10 configuration doesn't make too much sense... all drives would be speed-locked as if they were all sharing the same set of lanes, mitigating a lot of the benefits from that configuration.

[SvenC]

17 hours ago, Dell-Mano_G said:

I don't restrict what CPU's you order without a discrete GFX.  You can order any CPU without discrete GFX.  I have been allowing this for multiple generations.  

 

Sounds good for the 7xxx line.

 

Can you say the same about the 5xxx line?

 

I am interested in a 5770 as I would prefer 17" and 16:10 over 16" 16:10 or 17,3 16:9.

With those small bezels I would even go for a 18" 16:10, which should fit my current 7740 backpack 🙂

[Aaron44126]

4 hours ago, alittleteapot said:

In other words, the drives are not vastly different than the current generation of technology, except that the 3 NVME drives that share the PCH lanes can run twice as fast now (assuming they were all equipped with the PCI 4 drives).

 

There could also be benefits if you have only PCIe3 drives installed in the "shared bandwidth" slots...  Since bandwidth between the PCH and CPU is also doubled, maybe you could run two of them at full speed now?  (Will require some testing.)

 

Anyway, I am planning on a Storage Spaces array for three drives in those slots, similar to the configuration you describe.  A performance boost would be nice, but really just getting them grouped into one huge volume for simplicity of data management is my main goal.

[pintie]

i guess the performance of the SSDs is not the bottleneck.

 

i will try to get a 7670 and put 3 Samsung 980 Pro 2TB drives in it.

 

if there are only 4 lanes directly from the CPU i will use one drive as system drive, an the two other as on 4TB drive.

if all drives a linked over the chipset i will try to use a big Raid 0 with 6TB.

 

 

hope there will be a complete spec list soon. And most importantly - it will be able to be shiped (in europe)

 

would be nice if it supports 5G mobile ...

 

[win32asmguy]

2 hours ago, pintie said:

i guess the performance of the SSDs is not the bottleneck.

 

i will try to get a 7670 and put 3 Samsung 980 Pro 2TB drives in it.

 

if there are only 4 lanes directly from the CPU i will use one drive as system drive, an the two other as on 4TB drive.

if all drives a linked over the chipset i will try to use a big Raid 0 with 6TB.

 

 

hope there will be a complete spec list soon. And most importantly - it will be able to be shiped (in europe)

 

would be nice if it supports 5G mobile ...

 

Technically Alder Lake S Desktop chips have 8 lanes of Gen4 equivalent bandwidth for the DMI link, 15.6GBps total. That should carry over to the mobile WM690 chipset as well.

 

It should have a single x4 M.2 Gen4 slot connected to the CPU, just like the 7560/7760. It was actually a very nice upgrade for the storage situation with Tiger Lake in general, had there not been the buggy disconnect switch issue.