Precision 7680 / Precision 7780 pre-release discussion (Raptor Lake, 2023)

[Howard N]

The 2400 rows are very important for mundane things like reading emails or just reading PDFs and looking at websites and spreadsheets without excessive scrolling. It is a critical limitation.

[SvenC]

Display resolution for 18" seems debatable but the ratio 16:10 seems to be preferred.

 

Seems that 1920 x 1200, 2560 x 1600 and 3840 x 2400 are on the wishlist of people.

 

My preferred one would still be 1920 x 1200 with enough brightness to work outside some of my time and with least power usage if working without direct sunlight. I read multiple times that modern displays with QHD+ and UHD+ hardly use more power than FHD+ - well, I still think that a modern FHD+ will use less power than QHD+ and would have less needs for a more capable GPU - but I guess I would go with that if that gets us 16:10 on 18" 🙂

[Ionising_Radiation]

As long as they give us options... that would be good. Ideally resolutions themselves shouldn't be the bar for quality; if we can get OLED 1200p, 1600p, and 2400p displays at a high refresh rate and high colour depth and width, that would be great. 

[1610ftw]

9 hours ago, SvenC said:

Display resolution for 18" seems debatable but the ratio 16:10 seems to be preferred.

 

Seems that 1920 x 1200, 2560 x 1600 and 3840 x 2400 are on the wishlist of people.

 

My preferred one would still be 1920 x 1200 with enough brightness to work outside some of my time and with least power usage if working without direct sunlight. I read multiple times that modern displays with QHD+ and UHD+ hardly use more power than FHD+ - well, I still think that a modern FHD+ will use less power than QHD+ and would have less needs for a more capable GPU - but I guess I would go with that if that gets us 16:10 on 18" 🙂

 

2560 x 1600 should be a compromise everybody can live with and it also still makes sense for higher refresh rates so I hope we will keep this as a default from now on. My issue with 1920 x 1200 is that it really does not work very well for two side by side windows as the resolution for each window is just too small. With UHD+ I can increase DPI to 150 and get a similar look as QHD+ but if the resolution isn't there to begin with that problem cannot be solved.

[SvenC]

2 hours ago, Ionising_Radiation said:

As long as they give us options... that would be good. Ideally resolutions themselves shouldn't be the bar for quality; if we can get OLED 1200p, 1600p, and 2400p displays at a high refresh rate and high colour depth and width, that would be great. 

Do you want "OLED only" or "OLED as a choice"?

 

Is OLED image burn in not an issue any more?

[the_professor]

Longevity issues aside, as long as OLED flicker is present it's not suitable for a workstation IMO.

[Aaron44126]

6 hours ago, SvenC said:

Is OLED image burn in not an issue any more?

 

@Dell-Mano_G has made statements indicating that they are not worried about OLED burn-in anymore, but I kind of want to wait and see what a system is like 3+ years into its life before we can really be sure about that.  They did offer OLED in Precision 5000 some years back and ended up removing it in later systems because of quality issues like image retention.

 

(I think that microLED is supposed to address many shortcomings of OLED but that technology being ready for laptops is still some years out...)

 

Dell typically doesn't offer a huge number of display panel choices... so we aren't going to see, for example, 1200p/1600p/2400p each offered in your choice of LCD or OLED.  They aren't even offering a non-OLED high-DPI display on the Precision 76X0 systems right now.  And, for their business laptops Dell seems to avoid offering a choice between FHD and UHD, so I sort of doubt that we'll see a 1600p option at all.  I do think that 18" 16:10 could make an appearance whenever the refresh the chassis again.

 

Personally, I prefer that 4K or 2400p sticks around so that I can run at 200% DPI scaling, as I can see an improvement (vs 1440p/1600p) in static content and I have some applications that behave better at 200% than they do at non-integer scaling ratios.  Though for gaming (or other types of "dynamic" full motion content), I've been experimenting on my Precision 7770 and found that I can't really tell any difference between 1440p and 4K, so I've stopped trying to run games at 4K to save ≈50% on the GPU load (unless maybe DLSS is an option and it performs decently).

[SvenC]

58 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

(unless maybe DLSS is an option and it performs decently).

Man, yet another abbreviation in the ever evolving GPU wonderland- "Deep Learning Super Sampling" - deep and super and learn - must be good 🙂

 

And nice to read that someone else says 1440p is (or should be) enough for gamers to save about 50% GPU load compared to UHD - when the kiddies out there fight for their right to play nothing less than 4K 😉

[Aaron44126]

1 hour ago, SvenC said:

when the kiddies out there fight for their right to play nothing less than 4K 😉

 

I mean, I'm sure 4K looks really cool on a nice external 27"+ display, but on a laptop 17" it seems to be overkill.

[Howard N]

I just to say that without 2400 lines on the screen the use of outlook or spreadsheet work is so severely constrained for me as to be painful. There just isn't enough vertical real estate in outlook to show any number of lines and the body of a message to even scan the email to know that you want to open it. As a result, the workflow shifts from scanning the index and seeing enough of the email detail in the preview window to decide what is going on - to having to click and close one line at a time to do work. For spreadsheet the difference of an additional 50% (1600 x 1.5=2400) of vertical information is also massively important. The difference changes the usefulness of the laptop tremendously.

[yslalan]

 

Is it possible to order a GPU daughter board of 7x80 from Dell? Does anyone have some experience in ordering parts from Dell directly?

[Aaron44126]

7 minutes ago, yslalan said:

Is it possible to order a GPU daughter board of 7x80 from Dell? Does anyone have some experience in ordering parts from Dell directly?

 

In most territories, they will not sell these directly.  @Ionising_Radiation has been able to get them from Dell Singapore ...

[yslalan]

50 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

In most territories, they will not sell these directly.  @Ionising_Radiation has been able to get them from Dell Singapore ...

Having a quick chat with Dell sell advisor, they can order GPU board of 7x70 directly. btw, I am in Canada. Let me ask about 7x80 spare part.

 

Update:

Dell Canada can order the GPU card up to RTX 5000 Ada Gen for 7x80, and the bad news is 4090 laptop GPU is not seperately sold.  I guess Dell Canada share the same store info with US.

 

** "this model" refers to Precision7x80, not finally confirmed by Dell that 7x70 can support Ada Generation card

[iieeann]

Just placed an order for 7780, an upgrade from my existing 7720.  For 6 years I am hoping to see some changes but there is not much.  I still don't prefer the keyboard layout with tiny up/down arrow keys without dedicated pgup/pgdn & volume control keys; components not running at maximum speed because of undersized power supply; no 2.5/5/10 GBE on laptop/dock my 13-yr old NAS is 10GBE.

 

However i love the pro support, almost everything in 7720 has been replaced over the years including accidental damage.  10yr old power brick still can be used on new precision.

 

About the RAM, is it only 2 sodimm slots available in 7780?  I look for 32x1 GB but the sales rep said the system returned error with such selection and i ended up with 16GBx2 and thinking of adding another 2pc later.  However with interposer, it seems like only max 2 sodimm?

[Aaron44126]

35 minutes ago, iieeann said:

About the RAM, is it only 2 sodimm slots available in 7780?  I look for 32x1 GB but the sales rep said the system returned error with such selection and i ended up with 16GBx2 and thinking of adding another 2pc later.  However with interposer, it seems like only max 2 sodimm?

 

Correct, since Precision 7X70 you have to pick between CAMM (up to 128GB but no ECC) or SODIMM (ECC is available, but only two modules, so 64GB max).

 

Word is coming out that JEDEC is "blessing" CAMM as the replacement for SODIMM so we will likely see other manufacturers adopt it.  Hopefully it will be possible to find modules from other sources (at a reasonable price) within the next few years.

[iieeann]

Thanks for explanation.  I see in CAMM module the memory speed keep sliding down from 5600Mhz at 32GB to 3600Mhz at 128GB, but with Sodimm non-ECC it is 5600Mhz all the way.  I wonder if it is the limitation of the CAMM connector speed? If so will sodimm 5600Mhz be 'downgraded' to lower Mhz in actual running.

 

i i have requested Dell to quote for 32x2 and see what is the difference in price.  Dell's memory price is exceptionally high, if the new price is higher than i go buy new 32x2 from road side corridor corner stall, then i might as well just leave it first.

[1610ftw]

With regard to memory for people who do not need 128GB the new 48GB SO-DIMMS may wortk well especially when higher memory speed is a goal while still allowing to go up to 96GB memory.

 

So far over here in Europe none of them have been released but I am curious if maybe they will even allow for 192GB memory in the top MSI, Lenovo and HP chassis.

[win32asmguy]

Got some initial benchmarks of the Precision 7780. This is with 64GB Kingston Fury at DDR5-5200 CL38. ADA 4000 laptop GPU shows as 145W in Nvidia Control Panel and was 135W observed under load in Optimus mode.

 

This config was about 3600usd before tax (only including 8GB SODIMM and 256GB storage). A similar config with the 4090 mobile instead was quoted at 4400usd which did not seem to be as good a value.

 

The cooling system indeed no longer has the "grinding" startup/shutdown noise and is quieter than the 7670 with 3080ti mobile while also being 50% faster.

 

 

[Aaron44126]

23 minutes ago, win32asmguy said:

The cooling system indeed no longer has the "grinding" startup/shutdown noise

 

My Precision 7770 replacement fans still make a noticeable startup noise (even if it is maybe not as bad as the original ones).  If these really have a quiet start then I might look at trying to source one of these heatsinks and install it in the 7770.

 

(My idle fan RPMs are lower now that I'm on Linux as primary and I'm back to dynamically adding CPU load to keep them from powering off.  I actually sort of like that it is contributing to Folding@Home instead of just doing junk work like I had before, though, so maybe I will just keep this setup.)

 

Questions:

• Can you get the heatsink part number?  (You should be able to go to dell.com/support, put in your service tag, and pull the parts list.)
• What power level do you see the CPU running at when you do a Cinebench test?

Feel free to start an "owner's thread" ... I haven't seen anyone else show up with one of these new systems, or even mention that they had ordered one.

[jimmypops]

1 hour ago, win32asmguy said:

This config was about 3600usd before tax (only including 8GB SODIMM and 256GB storage). A similar config with the 4090 mobile instead was quoted at 4400usd which did not seem to be as good a value.

 

How were you able to get that machine for 3600 ?  On the website the same spec machine looks to be about $1000 more.

[Aaron44126]

2 minutes ago, jimmypops said:

How were you able to get that machine for 3600 ?  On the website the same spec machine looks to be about $1000 more.

 

You can virtually always get a better deal than the web site shows by going to a sales rep directly.

[jimmypops]

2 hours ago, win32asmguy said:

Got some initial benchmarks of the Precision 7780. This is with 64GB Kingston Fury at DDR5-5200 CL38. ADA 4000 laptop GPU shows as 145W in Nvidia Control Panel and was 135W observed under load in Optimus mode.

 

This config was about 3600usd before tax (only including 8GB SODIMM and 256GB storage). A similar config with the 4090 mobile instead was quoted at 4400usd which did not seem to be as good a value.

 

The cooling system indeed no longer has the "grinding" startup/shutdown noise and is quieter than the 7670 with 3080ti mobile while also being 50% faster.

 

Does it seem to behave better under sustained load than the 7770?  Are you seeing any throttling?

[win32asmguy]

2 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

My Precision 7770 replacement fans still make a noticeable startup noise (even if it is maybe not as bad as the original ones).  If these really have a quiet start then I might look at trying to source one of these heatsinks and install it in the 7770.

 

(My idle fan RPMs are lower now that I'm on Linux as primary and I'm back to dynamically adding CPU load to keep them from powering off.  I actually sort of like that it is contributing to Folding@Home instead of just doing junk work like I had before, though, so maybe I will just keep this setup.)

 

Questions:

• Can you get the heatsink part number?  (You should be able to go to dell.com/support, put in your service tag, and pull the parts list.)
• What power level do you see the CPU running at when you do a Cinebench test?

Feel free to start an "owner's thread" ... I haven't seen anyone else show up with one of these new systems, or even mention that they had ordered one.

 

The heatsink/fan assembly part number is 204PH.

 

The CPU draws about 130W with thermal throttling (157W PL2) until it reaches PL1 which is limited to 85W at 90C average core temperatures. I do not think this has a vapor chamber either despite some marketing material I saw from Dell and Chinese sites.

 

4 minutes ago, jimmypops said:

How were you able to get that machine for 3600 ?  On the website the same spec machine looks to be about $1000 more.

 

15% coupon from signing up to the Dell newsletter. It is also eligible for Rakuten cashback and will get 2% Dell Rewards as well, which can be used to buy a spare power brick or similar.

[Ionising_Radiation]

Now that @win32asmguy has a XX80 device, maybe it's time to start an Owners' Thread proper? @Aaron44126, thoughts?

[Etern4l]

On 11/1/2022 at 8:13 PM, Aaron44126 said:

The CPU upgrade looks kind of "meh" as you said.  (Maybe this is why Intel launched 13th gen with a press release rather than a full video presentation.)  But, Dell might also have a surprise in there for us.  (Past unexpected "nice surprise" examples would be things like the aluminum back display enclosure for Precision 7740, or the 120 Hz 4K display panel in the Precision 7760.)

 

Single score performance doesn't really scale much anymore, but for multicore Raptor Lake blows Alder Lake out of the water: +33-40% on the desktop side, and seeing similar if not larger improvements with the mobile chips:

 

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i9-13980HX-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.675757.0.html

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i9-12950HX-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.618743.0.html

 

CBR23 Multi 20K vs 31K median. Amazing.