Dell Precision 5530 (Xeon E-2176M, Quadro P2000) Workstation Review

[Redaktion]

Refinement. The Precision 5530 is, in many ways, what the Precision 5520 should have been. While the updated machine still struggles with thermal throttling, CPU stability and performance are improved. The GPU has also been upgraded without much sacrifice to heat output. The overall experience is much better.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Precision-5530-Xeon-E-2176M-Quadro-P2000-Workstation-Review.324572.0.html

[M2018]

Just a pure idiot will buy this - too noisy, no numpad and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overpriced!!!!!!!

[KillerDiller]

Thinkpad P1 review please asap, thanks.

[William Thompson]

I don't really understand why Adobe RGB in 4K display is so bad. I remember Precision 5510/XPS 15 9550/9560 have very good result

[Kumapedia]

For checking the display colour space coverage, I have a question. Did you turn off the "Accurate color" (or whatever it's called) option in the intel graphics control panel? Please retest the display with this option DISABLED. I believe this option purposely restricts the colour space to cover just sRGB so that colours look "normal". With my Dell XPS 9570, which I believe has the same exact panel, my Adobe RGB coverage was around the same UNTIL i disabled that option. Running DisplayCAL with the color management option disabled in the intel graphics control panel gave me a score of 100% Adobe RGB coverage.

Please retest the display characteristics, if you did not already disable the option I have stated.

[Kumapedia]

I don't really understand why Adobe RGB in 4K display is so bad. I remember Precision 5510/XPS 15 9550/9560 have very good result

It's probably because they forgot to disable the default display calibration in the intel graphics control panel. The calibration restricts the colour space to sRGB. I had my XPS 15 9570 with 4k panel show nearly identical results until i disabled the option. After that, DisplayCAL + Xrite i1 Display pro showed 100% Adobe RGB coverage. This was my experience with the 9570 at least. Lets see if they retest it with the option disabled.

[PA]

There is a mistake in the article.  The weight is not 1.78kg.  It is the model with the 56Wh battery that weighs 1.78kg.

The review model has a 97Wh battery, so this machine has a weight of around 2 kg.  Could you update the article with the actual weight of the review unit?

[fmyhr]

No way to order with ECC RAM? What's up with that, Dell?  :(

[RCT2014]

Thanks for this test. Regarding Power limit throttling, can you please provide power settings: PL1, PL2 duration for "turbo boost power max"?

[Matt K]

Compared to the XPS 15 2018 with i5-8300H, the battery life for load vs wifi v1.3 is about the same vs less than half respectively.  Assuming this is a single threaded task, how do we explain this discrepancy?

[Dee]

Just a pure idiot will buy this - too noisy, no numpad and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overpriced!!!!!!!

Actually, some of us don't want the keypads. To me the lack of the num keypad in this laptop is a bonus. 

[miha]

where's the LATENCY MON results? Woundn't this be a must test for a workstation? Could anyone else post it?

[RAK]

is this a good machine for the architects who indulge in lots of heavy 3D modelling and rendering works using revit, vray , 3Dsmax, maya?

[Tom_1st]

Please add the bios version to your test.
Some of the negative points may be fixed with a newer version (currently 1.7.0)...

[Jonathon Vought]

My company purchased this laptop as a replacement for my old workhorse - a Dell Latitude e6430. Knowing about the older Dell Precision M-series I was excited to receive this latest Precision offering.

I've never been as disappointed with a computer as I am with this laptop. When it's running it works great. It boots up fast and performs great. As long as I never leave my desk.

The problems? Docking & undocking is a hit or miss proposition. There are few things worse than preparing for a meeting, undocking, and then getting to the meeting, only to find you have no network until the laptop is rebooted. Or else returning from a meeting and then spending 5 minutes trying to get the thing to dock. Efforts to then try rebooting it often result in it "locking up", where I finally "force" it to reboot (if it doesn't first bluescreen) - where it then performs flawlessly for the rest of the day (unless I have another meeting - where it might work fine). Very frustrating.

Another annoyance is the WIFI connection. I've resigned myself to always manually connecting the machine to my home WIFI. Attempts to have the laptop automatically connect will more often than not result in it NOT connecting, and then "blue-screening" when "trouble-shooting" the connection issue. Of course, when the machine finally reboots, it runs flawlessly (sorry about all the apps you had running and the files you had open, and the emails you were writing).

Otherwise, it would be nice if Dell had simply covered the basics - like 1 or 2 LED's that provide at least a smidgen of information about the status of the machine: is the hard-drive active? is it asleep, is it running - or maybe hibernating? it's hard to know without.a.single.power.indicator. Oh, there is a light that lets you know it's charging - but that is it.

And speaking of charging, if you're getting ready to head out, make sure you unplug it BEFORE putting it to sleep. Unplugging it after putting it to sleep, will wake it up! Which of course is annoying when you're rushing to leave and would like to put the laptop in its case while it's not running.

FYI: I'm running Windows 10 Pro