Dell Precision 3510 Workstation Review

The case of the Dell Precision 3510 Workstation is similar to that of the current Latitude 5000-series and therefore offers excellent business features. Black and gray colors create the restrained design many business customers want, so you can fully concentrate on the next project.

The base unit is quite torsion resistant, the palm rest is firm, and the display hinges keep the screen firmly in position. The stability of the lid is above average, because you can just slightly twist it with moderate pressure. At 2420 grams (~5.3 lb), the weight is pretty moderate and thanks to the long battery runtimes, you do not have to carry the power adapter (610 grams/~11 oz) around all the time.

One highlight in this price range is certainly the full-fledged Thunderbolt 3 port. However, currently it is not available in combination with i5 processors which is an unnecessary limitation for some users. You can attach fast Thunderbolt 3 drives with up to 40 GB/s at this port, as well as USB 3.1 drives with up to 10 GB/s. External 4K monitors can be driven at 60 Hz in their native resolution.

Dell's new Thunderbolt docks obviously work with the device as well, and these docks will probably replace the traditional proprietary docking stations (which can still be attached at the bottom) in the future. Otherwise, you still get a VGA port and HDMI, which is very popular for consumer devices.

The comprehensive and well-positioned port selection is complemented by three USB 3.0 ports, one UHS-II card reader and the combined 3.5 mm stereo jack.

Realtek provides the UHS-II card reader, which is attached via the PCIe interface. We can determine very good results in combination with our memory card from Toshiba. At more than 200 MB/s read and 122 MB/s write, the theoretical performance of the Toshiba Exceria Pro UHS-II 64 GB is utilized very well.

As with the corresponding Latitude series, Dell offers a comprehensive lineup of accessories. A small battery, old proprietary and new Thunderbolt 3 docking stations as well as generic accessories, which not only can  be used with Dell devices, but also other companies.

As it is usual in this segment, the warranty period is 36 months (Basic Support) by default and can be expanded if necessary. An extension to a 4-year ProSupport with On-Site service, for example, is available for around 330 Euros (~$362).

You should be able to expect a display with a decent quality when you pay almost 2000 Euros (~$2196) for a notebook – especially when you buy a mobile workstation. Unfortunately, this is not the case for the test model. Dell only implements a TN panel from LG Philips, which can easily be found in the cheapest entry-level notebooks for less than 500 Euros (~$549). The biggest problem is not even the low resolution of just 1366x768 pixels, but all the characteristics together, which are clearly below the average.

The system performance of the review unit benefits from the balanced components. There are no bottlenecks in terms of the processor and graphics card. 16 GB of DDR4-RAM is provided by two memory modules in a dual-channel configuration.

Particularly fast response times are ensured by the fast solid-state drive. However, the capacity could have been larger since you cannot integrate a secondary drive. Overall, the benchmark scores are high enough to beat the established rivals. 5258 points in PCMark 8 Work is a very good result.

Besides the fixed graphics card, the storage equipment is another important point where the Dell Precision 3510 differs from other alternatives. Even though there is a slot for an M.2 drive and space for a 2.5-inch drive, you cannot use both options at the same time. Because of the limited space inside the chassis, the two areas are overlapping, so you have to decide between one or the other. If you want to increase the storage capacity at any point, you either have to replace the existing drive or switch to external solutions.

Our review unit is equipped with the Samsung SM951, which supports the NVMe protocol and is attached via PCIe. Transfer rates of almost 1900 MB/s and short response time ensure an excellent subjective performance impression with quick application launches, and fast moving of folders or copying of files.

More comparisons are available in our comprehensive HDD/SSD benchmark list.

In addition to the integrated Intel HD Graphics 530 processor, all configurations of the mobile workstation are equipped with a dedicated professional graphics card. These chips clearly differ from the consumer Radeon GPUs by special BIOS versions, certified drivers and optimized hardware.

AMD's FirePro W5130M is a mainstream professional GPU and primarily competes with the Quadro M1000M from Nvidia. According to the specification sheet, the GPU can reach a core clock of up to 925 MHz and has 2 GB of GDDR5 video memory. The latter is attached via 128-bit interface and runs at up to 1000 MHz.

We check the performance of professional GPUs with the benchmarks SPECviewperf 11 and SPECviewperf 12. They mainly cover the CAD, CAM, geology and medical MRI application ranges. Most sequences use OpenGL optimizations that benefit from the special professional drivers. Professional GPUs can usually clearly beat their consumer counterparts (Radeon and GeForce) in these scenarios. We also included the Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M in the diagrams for a better comparison.

Within the professional group, the results show that the AMD FirePro W5130M in the Dell Precision 3510 is clearly beaten by the Nvidia Quadro M1000M in all test sequences. Nvidia took a big step with the switch to the Maxwell architecture and increased the performance, but the AMD FirePro in the Dell Precision 3510 often cannot utilize its full potential, either.

The clocks we see under load are often far from the maximum at 925 MHz. The clock will drop to 625 within a few seconds during our stress test, before it is further reduced to just 475 MHz. Even this precaution only keeps the temperatures in check for about one hour before the CPU clock will also drop below its base clock of 2600 MHz.

It seems Dell has implemented some safety limits for the quite slim Latitude chassis to keep the thermals and therefore also the noise development under control. The performance is still sufficient to beat the AMD FirePro W4190M in the HP ZBook 15u G3, but Nvidia's Quadro M1000M is often twice as fast in SPECviewperf 12.

Besides OpenGL-optimized applications, the main usage scenario also includes DirectX software, where the picture is similar to the professional tests. The performance clearly falls behind the competition from Nvidia. Depending on the test sequence, we determined between 15 to 60% less performance. 3DMark Cloud Gate, for example, determines only 14502 points, while Nvidia's Quadro M1000M in the slim Dell Precision 5510 manages 23777 points.

Even though the AMD FirePro W5130M is definitely  not a gaming GPU, the performance is actually sufficient for some occasional gaming between meetings. The screen of our test model only has 1366x768 pixels, so it might be possible to increase the settings slightly. Otherwise, the performance of the professional GPU is sufficient for medium and in some cases high quality settings. We performed the Full HD tests with an external monitor.

More benchmark results for the AMD FirePro W5130M and Nvidia Quadro M1000M are available in our gaming benchmark list.

The bottom of the device stays quite cool under light workloads, where we can only measure up to 31.5 °C (~89 °F) in the center. The slim chassis can reach its limits at some spots under maximum load, because the maximum temperature will be up to 59.4 °C (~139 °F) at the bottom. We even measured 66.9 °C (~152 °F) directly at the fan exhaust. Besides the indicated CPU temperatures by HWiNFO, this is another indicator for reaching the thermal limits of the case and the cooling system. There does not seem to be any headroom for more powerful components.