Dell Precision 7710 Workstation Review

The Dell Precision M6800 predecessor's case featured many good properties. Of course, we expect to see these in the successor, too. Apart from high stability, especially the good upgrade and maintenance options were convincing here. However, ill-fitting components and a significantly too small touchpad were not perfect. Moreover, the slightly unusual metallic brown of the case might not have met everybody's taste.

The new case of the Precision 7710 appears slimmer and its gray aluminum combination might be appealing to the masses. Moreover, it features the same positive traits as its predecessor. The palm rests are stiff, the keyboard bed does not yield anywhere, and the hinges keep the display firmly in position. The base unit is very torsionally stiff and does not creak at all. Even the lid is very rigid overall and we could not find sharp edges. However, we found two spots where the finish is chipped off in our test model. Such flaws should not exist in retail-ready models; we put this down to the model being a test sample. Although the Dell Precision 7710 is not lightweight with a weight of 3580 g, it is in line with its category. Our Lenovo ThinkPad P70 test model weighed in at 3600 g and Schenker's W706 weighed in at 3810 g.

Communication

Intel's Dual Band Wireless 8260 AC-WLAN, Gigabit-LAN, and an HD webcam cover the usual communication features. The WLAN signal is 2-3 bars with a distance of about 15 meters from a FritzBox 7490 and through several walls. In practice, the connection quality was always good without noticeable interruptions or disconnections.

In addition, it is possible to add a mobile broadband module for fast network connections on the move. The necessary cables are available. At the time of testing, the Dell Wireless DW5811e card for mobile broadband, LTE/HSPA+ (gross price of about 110 Euros, ~$120) is available in the online shop. However, the SIM slot is unfavorably placed immediately beside the WWAN slot. Those who often swap cards will have to remove the screwed part of the underside all the time.

The web cam features a resolution of 1280x720 pixels and is a standard model, which delivers a passable video quality for chats and conferences in well-lit places. In poor light, artifacts, noise, and color shifts build up and the quality diminishes notably.

Security

In general, there are many security features available for the Precision 7710. However, our test model does not come with the optional smartcard reader or fingerprint reader. Thus, apart from the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2, users have only basic security features available with a Kensington lock slot and the usual password options on BIOS or system level. As usual, Computrace service or self-encrypting drives have to be bought separately.

Accessories

According to Dell, the current business series will be the last ones with a proprietary docking port. Dell will gradually switch to the universal Thunderbolt 3.0 port in their complete line-up. Dell's Advanced and Simple E-Port-II replicators (about 300 and 270 Euros, ~$327 and ~$294) can still be used here, but future series will no longer support them. Those who already own a docking station or other devices of the older series can continue to use them with the current Precisions. However, we recommend waiting for a Thunderbolt model if you are planning a completely new environment, in order to avoid the need for a new docking station with the next model change.

Otherwise, Dell does not offer any model specific accessories apart from a 91 Wh battery. The Precision cannot use removable tray modules and an external graphics solution via Thunderbolt is also not in sight.

Maintenance

As the front part of the underside is fixed without screws, you can quickly reach the battery and the 2.5-inch drive. However, you have to loosen two screws and remove the back part of the underside to get to the M.2 slots or two RAM slots. In general, Dell's Owner's Manual describes in detail how to get to each component. Thus, it is not a problem to reach the RAM slots beneath the keyboard or clean the fans.

Warranty

Dell includes a manufacturer's warranty of 36 months including ProSupport with on-site service on the next workday. You can either reduce it to basic support on the next work day (minus 180 Euros, ~$196) or expand it in many ways. For example, the gross price for five years ProSupport with on-site service on the next workday is currently about 370 Euros (~$404).

At the time of testing, Dell offers the Full HD IPS display of our test model and a UHD IGZO panel (3840x2160 pixels) as an alternative in the online configurator. The gross surcharge for the high-res variant is about 250 Euros (~$273). Your choice not only depends on your individual preferences but also on the used operating system and the planned fields of applications. For example, high-res displays still suffer from notable scaling problems under Windows 7 depending on the applications. You can still encounter too small fonts, ill-displayed symbols or overlapping windows. Moreover, the IGZO displays we have reviewed so far were very power-hungry, which has a considerable impact on the achievable battery runtimes. If long battery life is important for you, the Full HD display might be the better alternative. However, we cannot confirm this before we have actually tested the UHD display.

In our brightness measurements, the Full HD display achieves an average brightness of 307 cd/m². The brightness in the segments range from 277 cd/m² up to 332 cd/m². The brightness distribution is 83% and clouding is visible in uni-colored images. In addition, screen bleeding is especially visible towards the bottom display edge in black pictures.

The black value is 0.33 cd/m² at maximum display brightness which makes for a high contrast of 1006:1. Especially images, videos, and 3D objects profit from it. The color space is also good. The panel achieves 96.9% of sRGB, which should be sufficient for many professional tasks.

This might only be too low for especially demanding photographers and film-makers, since absolute precise colors are only possible with 100% coverage. The results measured with our spectrophotometer show that this display comes close to the optimum. Alike most other displays, this one is also not calibrated out-of-the-box. While the average DeltaE2000 shift of 3.38 for mixed colors (Colorchecker) is already very passable, maximum deviations of up to 6.9 do not allow working with precise colors.

After calibration, which is obligatory for professional work, the display's potential and class shows off to an advantage. The results are almost perfect in all subtests and we can no longer detect weaknesses in color fidelity. The maximum DeltaE2000 is 1.18, the gray balance is very uniform, and the gamma curve only slightly deviates from the ideal.

Dell's Precision 7710 can be very freely configured according to your individual needs. Currently, you can select from three different processors, five professional graphics chips, two displays, and many RAM options. If you choose Intel's Xeon E3-1535Mv5, it is also possible to order ECC RAM.

This is especially useful if the RAM and processor are stressed and high error prevention is crucial. Incorrect data and calculations can also lead to crashes and affect the workflow considerably. Apart from servers, ECC RAM makes sense especially in workstations for e.g. construction, design, science and finance analysis.

Although our test model features the Xeon processor, it uses 16 GB of standard DDR4 RAM without ECC. Otherwise, the test model comes with AMD's professional FirePro W7170M, a 256 GB NVMe SSD, a 1 TB hard drive and the already mentioned Full HD IPS display. At the time of testing, the device's gross price was about 3730 Euros (~$4068). The extra cost for ECC RAM would have been 90 Euros (~$98) for our configuration.

Since the new processor generation, Intel has also introduced two mobile Xeon CPUs into their portfolio. These mobile processors have been designed for permanent use and especially differ from comparable standard CPUs of the Skylake generation by ECC support. The Intel Xeon E3-1535M v5 used in our test model is the top model of the series and comparable to Intel's Core i7-6920HQ. Both feature 8 MB of L3 cache and a base clock of 2900 MHz. Thanks to Turbo Boost, the clock rate can increase to up to 3800 MHz in single-thread applications and thanks to Hyper-Threading up to 8 threads can run simultaneously. Thus, the CPU's performance should optimally adapt to the demands on paper.

It is not surprising that the powerful quad-core CPU belongs to the Top 20 in our extensive CPU benchmark list. Among others, this is due to the very good results in Cinebench R15 with 746 points in the multi-core test and 162 points in the single-core test. The wPrime 1024m and the SuperPi 32m calculations also finish very quickly with 214 seconds and 511 seconds, respectively. The difference to Intel's Core i7-6820HQ is only small. You can choose it as alternative for the Dell Precision 7710 and save about 220 Euros (~$240). We only measured a performance difference of 6%, which should not have a big impact in practice. However, the performance difference to the base CPU configuration, Intel's Core i5-6300HQ, which is available for about 370 Euros (~$404) less, is significantly higher. The difference of up to 68% cannot be downplayed that easily. This is especially notable in software, which splits tasks into many simultaneous threads.

Unlike many competitors, the Precision also delivers its maximum CPU performance under full load. After multiple hours with Furmark and Prime95, the HWinfo tool shows a constant CPU clock of 3.4 GHz. However, the graphics performance throttles in this scenario, as we will see in the graphics performance section.

On battery, the CPU performance is also high and the test results are almost identical to mains operation. For example, the system achieves 8.16 points vs. 8.24 points (in mains operation) in Cinebench R11.5 (64-bit, multi-core).

All things considered, a configuration with Xeon CPU without ECC RAM, alike our test model's, does not make much sense. If you do not require error-correcting code RAM, you can select Intel's Core i7-6820HQ without hesitation. However, you should be careful considering selecting Intel's Core i5-6300HQ for this workstation since the performance difference of up to 68% is partly substantial. Further comparisons are available in our extensive CPU benchmark list.

In low load scenarios, the Dell Precision 7710 is often silent and the fan only runs quietly (31.1 dB(A)) for short periods of time. Under medium load, the fan noise first increases to 37.4 dB(A) step by step and finally reaches 43.2 dB(A) when the load persists for a longer time. Under full load, the system noise starts at this level and reaches the maximum of 47.13 dB(A) after a few minutes with Furmark and Prime95, which persists during the whole full load period. Overall the system noise is quite restrained without unpleasant or high-frequency noises. However, permanent maximum load can still get annoying due to the noise level of 47.13 dB(A).

The integrated stereo sound system is sufficient for simple tasks like some background music, video chats or short Internet videos. The sound characteristic is quite high-tone heavy with little mid tones or basses. The maximum volume is good at 81 dB(A) and the sound is not distorted, but it suffers from the unbalanced reproduction quality. Thus, it is recommended to use external speakers when the system is used for presentations, videos in a small group, or as a jukebox. These can be connected via USB, 3.5 mm jack, Bluetooth, HDMI, or DisplayPort. The 3.5 mm jack combines headphones and microphone and some headsets (with two cables) will require an adapter.

Dell's Precision 7710 was fundamentally revised and made up-to-date in many important aspects.

The user gets a mobile workstation with very good performance, easy maintenance, suitable input devices, and a high-end Full HD display suitable for professional use in the new model year.

As we are used to, Dell offers many configuration options and optional warranty and service extensions.

However, we are not completely satisfied with the connectivity, which could have been better in a completely revised 17-inch workstation. Older interfaces have been removed, but cutting-edge ports like USB 3.1 Gen.2, Thunderbolt 3.0 (only optionally available) or HDMI 2.0 are still missing. On top of that, you have to do without an optical drive or a second 2.5-inch drive slot. Moreover, it is not adequate for the test model that its graphics performance throttles heavily during the stress test and on battery. As mobile workstations are bought especially for computationally intensive use, this measure is actually contrary to the planned field of application.

Dell makes up for this with a low system noise at low load and an overall low heating. The battery runtimes are outstanding despite being equipped with the smaller 72 Wh battery and ensure use away from an outlet for an adequately long time.

All things considered, you will get a solid mobile workstation for a gross price of about 3730 Euros (~$4068), including 36 months ProSupport with on-site-service in our test model. However, it requires the user to accept some austerities.