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MagyarDell Precision 5680 review: Ada Lovelace dominates on workstations
The Precision 5680 is the first 16-inch model in the Precision 5000 series to complement the existing 14-inch Precision 5470, 15-inch Precision 5560, and 17-inch Precision 5750. It's a high-end mobile workstation that's thinner and lighter than a Precision 7000 model albeit with fewer integrated auxiliary features.
Our test unit is a higher-end configuration with the 13th gen Raptor Lake-H Core i9-13900H CPU, 75 W Nvidia RTX 5000 GPU, and 2400p OLED touchscreen for approximately $6500 USD. Lesser SKUs are available with the Core i5-13600H, no discrete GPU, and 1200p IPS display for a lower starting price of about $2490.
This also happens to be one of the first workstations to ship with the RTX 5000 Ada Lovelace mobile GPU which shouldn't be confused with the Turing-based Quadro RTX 5000 or Ampere-based RTX A5000.
Competitors in this space include other 16-inch workstations like the HP ZBook Fury 16 G9, Lenovo ThinkPad P16 G1, MSI CreatorPro Z16P, or the Asus ProArt StudioBook 16 series.
More Dell reviews:
Potential Competitors in Comparison
Rating | Date | Model | Weight | Height | Size | Resolution | Best Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 89 % | 08/2023 | Dell Precision 5000 5680 i9-13900H, NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation Laptop GPU | 2.3 kg | 22.17 mm | 16.00" | 3840x2400 | |
| 89.1 % | 12/2022 | Dell Precision 7000 7670 Performance i9-12950HX, RTX A5500 Laptop GPU | 2.8 kg | 25.95 mm | 16.00" | 3840x2400 | |
| 91 % | 06/2023 | HP ZBook Fury 16 G9 i9-12950HX, RTX A5500 Laptop GPU | 2.6 kg | 28.5 mm | 16.00" | 3840x2400 | |
| 91 % | 02/2023 | Lenovo ThinkPad P16 G1 RTX A5500 i9-12950HX, RTX A5500 Laptop GPU | 3 kg | 30.23 mm | 16.00" | 3840x2400 | |
| 84.3 % | 11/2022 | MSI CreatorPro Z16P B12UKST i7-12700H, RTX A3000 Laptop GPU | 2.4 kg | 19 mm | 16.00" | 2560x1600 | |
| 89.6 % | 01/2023 | Asus ExpertBook B6 Flip B6602FC2 i9-12950HX, RTX A2000 Laptop GPU | 2.8 kg | 27.2 mm | 16.00" | 2560x1600 |
Case — XPS Roots
The inspiration for the Precision 5680 design is obvious as it is essentially the 16-inch version of the 15-inch XPS 15 and 17-inch XPS 17. If you've had experience with an XPS model before, then the Precision 5680 should feel instantly familiar. It seemingly precedes a hypothetical "XPS 16" and we wouldn't be surprised to see such a model in the near future with a chassis based on the Precision 5680.
Build quality compares favorably against alternatives like the ZBook Fury 16 G9 or CreatorPro Z16P which also consist mostly of metal alloys for strong first impressions.
At just 2.3 kg, the Precision 5680 is one of the lightest 16-inch workstations available by decent margins. The CreatorPro Z16P and HP ZBook Fury 16 G9, for example, are about 100 g and 300 g heavier, respectively, while also being larger in footprint than our Dell as well. The Precision 5680 is surprisingly portable considering its performance.
Connectivity — Not A Lot For A Workstation
Port options are forward-thinking for better or worse. It's better in the sense that each port is highly versatile when it comes to adapters and peripherals, but it's also worse in the sense that there are no staple ports such as full-size USB or RJ-45. Alternatives like the ThinkPad P1 G4 or ExpertBook B6 Flip each offer a wider variety of ports than our Dell. Be prepared to rely on adapters or docking stations when using the Precision 5680 as a result.
SD Card Reader
XPS and Precision models have some of the fastest integrated SD card readers and this continues to hold true for our Precision 5680. Read rates are over 2x faster than on the ZBook Fury 16 G9 or ThinkPad P16 G1 and so it would take just 5 to 6 seconds to transfer 1 GB of data from our UHS-II test card to desktop.
| SD Card Reader | |
| average JPG Copy Test (av. of 3 runs) | |
| Dell Precision 5000 5680 (Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II) | |
| Dell Precision 7000 7670 Performance (Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II) | |
| MSI CreatorPro Z16P B12UKST (AV Pro V60) | |
| HP ZBook Fury 16 G9 (PNY EliteX-PRO60) | |
| Lenovo ThinkPad P16 G1 RTX A5500 (Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II) | |
| maximum AS SSD Seq Read Test (1GB) | |
| Dell Precision 7000 7670 Performance (Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II) | |
| Dell Precision 5000 5680 (Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II) | |
| HP ZBook Fury 16 G9 (PNY EliteX-PRO60) | |
| MSI CreatorPro Z16P B12UKST (AV Pro V60) | |
| Lenovo ThinkPad P16 G1 RTX A5500 (Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II) | |
Communication
An Intel AX211 comes standard for Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity. Transfer rates would be steady when paired to our Asus AXE11000 6GHz network.
WAN options are unfortunately not supported unlike on the competing ZBook Fury 16 G9.
Webcam
Dell has upped the webcam from 1 MP on the Precision 5550 to 2 MP on our Precision 5680. Even so, there is annoyingly still no integrated privacy shutter.
Maintenance
The bottom panel is slightly more difficult to remove than expected since the edges of the metal plate are both sharp and tightly latched much like on the XPS 15 or XPS 17. A Torx screw and flat edge are recommended when servicing the system.
Both the WLAN and RAM modules are soldered unlike on most other workstations of this screen size. Both the highly integrated modules and limited port options are likely drawbacks to the otherwise sleek design and relatively low weight.
Accessories And Warranty
The retail box includes a small USB-C to USB-A adapter to make up for the fact that there are no full-size USB ports on the system.
A base three-year limited manufacturer warranty with on-site repair applies if purchased in the US.
Input Devices — Slightly Different Than XPS
Keyboard
The keyboard may appear identical to the keyboards on the XPS 15 or Precision 5550 at first glance, but there are a couple of important changes. Firstly, the top row of function keys are now larger as some XPS 15 owners have been complaining about them being too narrow. And secondly, a few of the keys along the edges are now slightly shorter including the Backspace, Enter, Shift, Tab, Ctrl, and Shift keys. The typing experience otherwise remains the same for a familiar XPS feel.
Touchpad
The clickpad is actually smaller than the clickpad on the 15-inch Precision 5550 (13.7 x 8.5 cm vs. 15.1 x 9 cm) despite our larger screen size. Even so, it still feels spacious with smooth and reliable gliding properties much like on an XPS 15.
Unfortunately, feedback when clicking on the haptic clickpad is almost nonexistent. In fact, there is almost no travel or audible feedback at all. A mouse is highly recommend for more accurate drag-and-drop actions.
Display
Dell employs the same Samsung 160YV03 OLED panel for both its 16-inch Precision 5680 and 16-inch Precision 7670. Thus, both models offer the same visual experience down to their similar response times, full DCI-P3 colors, and even brightness levels as shown by the comparison table below. Hopefully we can see some higher refresh rate options in the near future.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Brightness Distribution: 98 %
Center on Battery: 345.7 cd/m²
Contrast: ∞:1 (Black: 0 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 3.59 | 0.5-29.43 Ø5.1, calibrated: 0.99
ΔE Greyscale 3.1 | 0.57-98 Ø5.3
97.5% AdobeRGB 1998 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
100% sRGB (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
99.9% Display P3 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
Gamma: 2.13
| Dell Precision 5000 5680 Samsung 160YV03, OLED, 3840x2400, 16.00 | Dell Precision 7000 7670 Performance Samsung 160YV03, OLED, 3840x2400, 16.00 | HP ZBook Fury 16 G9 BOE0A52, IPS, 3840x2400, 16.00 | Lenovo ThinkPad P16 G1 RTX A5500 LP160UQ1-SPB1, IPS, 3840x2400, 16.00 | MSI CreatorPro Z16P B12UKST B160QAN02.N, IPS, 2560x1600, 16.00 | Asus ExpertBook B6 Flip B6602FC2 AU Optronics Model: AUOE495, IPS, 2560x1600, 16.00 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Display | 0% | -5% | -7% | -4% | -5% | |
| Display P3 Coverage | 99.9 | 99.9 0% | 97.4 -3% | 82.9 -17% | 97.6 -2% | 97.9 -2% |
| sRGB Coverage | 100 | 100 0% | 99.9 0% | 98.9 -1% | 99.9 0% | 99.89 0% |
| AdobeRGB 1998 Coverage | 97.5 | 98.1 1% | 86.3 -11% | 95.9 -2% | 87.4 -10% | 85.52 -12% |
| Response Times | -6% | -551% | -2297% | -490% | -1452% | |
| Response Time Grey 50% / Grey 80% * | 1.68 ? | 1.84 ? -10% | 13.7 ? -715% | 45.6 ? -2614% | 12.8 ? -662% | 36 ? -2043% |
| Response Time Black / White * | 1.77 ? | 1.92 ? -8% | 8.6 ? -386% | 36.8 ? -1979% | 7.4 ? -318% | 17 ? -860% |
| PWM Frequency | 60 ? | 59.52 ? -1% | ||||
| Screen | -5% | -33% | 33% | 30% | -6% | |
| Brightness middle | 345.7 | 325.2 -6% | 530.5 53% | 601.9 74% | 407 18% | 440 27% |
| Brightness | 349 | 328 -6% | 476 36% | 569 63% | 388 11% | 418 20% |
| Brightness Distribution | 98 | 97 -1% | 83 -15% | 77 -21% | 88 -10% | 82 -16% |
| Black Level * | 0.57 | 0.47 | 0.36 | 0.3 | ||
| Colorchecker dE 2000 * | 3.59 | 4.59 -28% | 2.26 37% | 2.45 32% | 1.3 64% | 2.81 22% |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 max. * | 7.02 | 7.65 -9% | 4.46 36% | 2.5 64% | 4.62 34% | |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 calibrated * | 0.99 | 4.73 -378% | 0.7 29% | 2.99 -202% | ||
| Greyscale dE 2000 * | 3.1 | 2.5 19% | 1 68% | 2.6 16% | 2.1 32% | 0.91 71% |
| Gamma | 2.13 103% | 2.1 105% | 2.28 96% | 2.3 96% | 2.26 97% | 2.2 100% |
| CCT | 6448 101% | 6541 99% | 6543 99% | 6805 96% | 6437 101% | 6600 98% |
| Contrast | 931 | 1281 | 1131 | 1467 | ||
| Total Average (Program / Settings) | -4% /
-4% | -196% /
-119% | -757% /
-401% | -155% /
-65% | -488% /
-247% |
* ... smaller is better
The display is decently calibrated out of the box with average deltaE values between 3 and 4. Our calibrated ICM profile is available to download above for free.
Display Response Times
| ↔ Response Time Black to White | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1.77 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 0.8 ms rise |  |
| ↘ 0.97 ms fall | ||
| The screen shows very fast response rates in our tests and should be very well suited for fast-paced gaming. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.1 (minimum) to 240 (maximum) ms. » 4 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is better than the average of all tested devices (21.8 ms). | ||
| ↔ Response Time 50% Grey to 80% Grey | ||
| 1.68 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 0.97 ms rise |  |
| ↘ 0.71 ms fall | ||
| The screen shows very fast response rates in our tests and should be very well suited for fast-paced gaming. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.2 (minimum) to 636 (maximum) ms. » 3 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is better than the average of all tested devices (34.3 ms). | ||
Screen Flickering / PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation)
| Screen flickering / PWM detected | 60 Hz | ≤ 100 % brightness setting |  |
The display backlight flickers at 60 Hz (Likely utilizing PWM) Flickering detected at a brightness setting of 100 % and below. There should be no flickering or PWM above this brightness setting. The frequency of 60 Hz is very low, so the flickering may cause eyestrain and headaches after extended use. In comparison: 53 % of all tested devices do not use PWM to dim the display. If PWM was detected, an average of 18704 (minimum: 5 - maximum: 3846000) Hz was measured. | |||
Flickering is present on all brightness levels similar to smartphones and other laptops equipped with OLED panels. The frequency would be stable at 239 Hz from 0 to 54 percent brightness and 60 Hz from 55 to 100 percent brightness.
Outdoor visibility is average at best as the 350-nit glossy OLED touchscreen isn't nearly as bright as the IPS displays on the ZBook Fury 16 G9 or ThinkPad P16 G1 which can approach 500 to 600 nits.
Performance — Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake-H
Testing Conditions
We set our unit to Ultra Performance mode via the Dell Optimizer software prior to running the benchmarks below. The Optimizer power profiles can conveniently sync with the Windows power profiles unlike the specialized power profiles on most other makers.
Advanced Optimus or Optimus 2.0 is not supported. However, new to Ada Lovelace workstation GPUs is ECC VRAM mode which can be toggled on or off via the Nvidia Control Panel. A reboot is required when toggling this feature.
Processor
The 13th gen Core i9-13900H is disappointing in the sense that it isn't a noticeable leap forward over last year's 12th gen Core i9-12900H. Performance, for example, would be essentially identical to the Asus ProArt StudioBook 16 running on the older Core i9-12900H save for just a minor 5 to 10 percent boost in single-threaded operations. It's too bad that the Precision 5680 doesn't offer a Core i9-13900HX option which would have provided a much more significant boost in performance over any Alder Lake-H mobile processor.
Note that there are also no Xeon or W-class processor options meaning no support for ECC RAM on the Precision 5680 series. Dell offers ECC RAM for its larger Precision 7000 series instead.
Downgrading to the Core i7-13700H from our i9-13900H is expected to reduce multi-thread performance by about 20 percent based on our time with the Schenker Vision 16 Pro.
Cinebench R15 Multi Loop
Cinebench R23: Multi Core | Single Core
Cinebench R20: CPU (Multi Core) | CPU (Single Core)
Cinebench R15: CPU Multi 64Bit | CPU Single 64Bit
Blender: v2.79 BMW27 CPU
7-Zip 18.03: 7z b 4 | 7z b 4 -mmt1
Geekbench 5.5: Multi-Core | Single-Core
HWBOT x265 Benchmark v2.2: 4k Preset
LibreOffice : 20 Documents To PDF
R Benchmark 2.5: Overall mean
Cinebench R23: Multi Core | Single Core
Cinebench R20: CPU (Multi Core) | CPU (Single Core)
Cinebench R15: CPU Multi 64Bit | CPU Single 64Bit
Blender: v2.79 BMW27 CPU
7-Zip 18.03: 7z b 4 | 7z b 4 -mmt1
Geekbench 5.5: Multi-Core | Single-Core
HWBOT x265 Benchmark v2.2: 4k Preset
LibreOffice : 20 Documents To PDF
R Benchmark 2.5: Overall mean
* ... smaller is better
AIDA64: FP32 Ray-Trace | FPU Julia | CPU SHA3 | CPU Queen | FPU SinJulia | FPU Mandel | CPU AES | CPU ZLib | FP64 Ray-Trace | CPU PhotoWorxx
System Performance
PCMark scores are higher than on most other workstations by relatively wide margins including even some powerhouses like the HP ZBook Fury 16 G9 or Precision 7670 Performance. This can be attributed to our RAID 0 SSD configuration and RTX 5000 GPU whereas most other workstations are running on single SSDs and older generation GPUs.
CrossMark: Overall | Productivity | Creativity | Responsiveness
| PCMark 10 Score | 8587 points | |
Help | ||
* ... smaller is better
DPC Latency
LatencyMon reveals slight DPC issues when opening multiple browser tabs of our homepage similar to what we observed on the Precision 7670. 4K video playback at 60 FPS is otherwise perfect with no dropped frames recorded.
| DPC Latencies / LatencyMon - interrupt to process latency (max), Web, Youtube, Prime95 | |
| HP ZBook Fury 16 G9 | |
| Asus ExpertBook B6 Flip B6602FC2 | |
| Dell Precision 7000 7670 Performance | |
| Dell Precision 5000 5680 | |
| Lenovo ThinkPad P16 G1 RTX A5500 | |
| MSI CreatorPro Z16P B12UKST | |
* ... smaller is better
Storage Devices — Up To Two PCIe4 x4 NVMe SSDs
Our test unit ships with the same SK hynix PC801 PCIe4 x4 NVMe SSDs in RAID 0 configuration as found on the Precision 7670 series. While PCIe5 support like in certain gaming laptops would have been nice to see, it's not an important feature at the moment given how rare PCIe5 SSDs still are. Dell offers self-encrypting SSD options for additional security.
Each M.2 SSD slot comes with a copper heat spreader as shown below to aid in cooling. Each drive in our unit would have no issues maintaining high transfer rates of ~5400 MB/s over long periods to show no major throttling issues.
