Advice wanted on new Dell 7730 workstation

Can any of the Resolve pros on this forum look at the specs and advise on a configuration?

The top CPU is Intel Core i9-8950HK, Six Core 2.90GHz, 4.60GHz Turbo, 12MB 45W or Intel Core Xeon E-2186M, Six Core Xeon 2.90GHz, 4.60GHz Turbo, 12MB 45W

For Davinci do you gain anything by going for the Xeon and EEC ram?

Nvidia Quadro P5200 w/16GB GDDR5

A really great- GP17.3" UltraSharp UHD IGZO 3840x2160 AG NT, Cam/Mic, w/Prem Panel Guar 100% color gamut.

4 slots up to 128gb ram. only ships with 64, or less. Soon 3200mgh ddr4!

4 M.2 drive slots, up to 8tb storage

Removable 6-cell 97Wh Lithium Ion battery with ExpressCharge™ Easy extra batt change in field.

Great array of ports including 2x thunderbolt 4 lane and Display port with 8k out! Fast SD card reader and wifi cards.

3 year warranty

Expensive, but it covers a lot of bases, huge internal storage.

I am needing a travel rig, for Resolve. I saw this at NAB show. It is a very complete machine- fairly compact and light for a 17" I shoot RED. Any advice is very welcome.

Hi

I'm not convinced a laptop is ideal for Resolve. And in the DaVinci Resolve 15 Configuration Guide:

http://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/D ... _Guide.pdf

On the lower parts of page 19 is written about laptops. Under both HP and DELL is written, but it is valid for all laptops: 'While performance for many applications and UHD resolutions will be limited'.

I will suggest you to look into small Desktops, as there for desktops is there different sized components. Of of them is the small ITX motherboards. Here is a link to a very small desktop cabinet with space for a full size desktop Graphics card:

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sil ... ven_RVZ01/

AMD Threadripper CPU's is physical to large for ITX motherboards. So I will suggest to look into Intel X299 Motherboards and the top line of Intel CPU's in the 10-16 Core Range.

Here is a link to a ASRock X299E-ITX/ac Motherboard Review:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11980/th ... ighty-mini

Regards Carsten.

Thank you. I am travelling. I do not have room to carry a small or any kind of desktop + external monitor etc. I also need to use it with battery power on location. I need to get the best possible laptop, I know that it will be compromised. This 7730 has about the best specs out there. In am hoping someone can weigh in on the I9 vrs Xeon question. The quadro p5200 seems to be a good GPU, because of the 16gbs of ram. Does any body have any input on this specific machines coniguration?

Hi.

First I will look into your I9 vrs Xeon question.

The Intel Core i9-8950HK have a Average CPU Mark of 14767.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cp ... Hz&id=3246

The Intel Core Xeon E-2186M have a Average CPU Mark of 15495.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cp ... Hz&id=3232

It is first time a look into that Xeon E-2186M and I don't know why there is this difference, but wonder if it is because it only is measured with 4 samples?

But the DELL 7730 is very new. I can't nearly find any reviews, prices or other information on it. It is not yet sold by DELL in my country.

What I found is this link:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Precision ... 882.0.html

Is has a picture with the Specifications of the Dell Precision 7730.

The nVidea Quadro P5200 w/ 16GB GDDR5 is mention. It is using the same graphics chip as the Geforce GTX 1070/1080, but I read often in this forum that the Geforce GTX is faster for Resolve than the Quadro. And it is only using the slow GDDR5 vRam and not the GDDR5X vRam as in the GTX 1080. Only you can tell if you use some of the special functions that need more than 8 GB vRam such as Noise reduction etc.

I don't know if the 4K panel 3840x2160 pixels, IGZO, Sharp is the same panel as used in the previews Dell Precision 7720:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Prec ... 706.0.html

But the reviewers don't like it, they write under

Cons
- backlight bleeding at the lower edge
- PWM at low brightness levels
- display should be calibrated for best performance

The reviewers also mention the Toshiba SSD drive and write:
QUOTE:
'Samsung's SSDs, however, perform even better, and would also be a good choice for the high-end workstation.' And I agree.

In the Specifications picture is mention 1TB 7200 RPM and 2TB 5400 RPM hard drives. Make sure to only choose 7200 RPM hard drives for Resolve work.

As I previews wrote it is very new and it is not much news I can find about it. But if you can wait am I sure you can find better mobile workstations in the coming few months.

Here are some other reviews for mobile workstations with the new 6 core Cpu's:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Aorus-X9- ... 340.0.html

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG- ... 366.0.html

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG- ... 956.0.html

And the Acer Predator Helios 500 that you can have with either GTX 1070 + i7-8750H/i9 8950HK or a Desktop AMD Ryzen 7 2700 8 Core CPU + Vega 56.
But either Acer or AMD told at Computex if the Vega 56 is with 4GB or 8GB of the fast HBM2 vRam:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Pred ... 084.0.html

https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Preda ... 958.0.html

Regards Carsten.

Thanks Carston. The 7730 is for sale on the USA web site. You can see the configurations there. I too have looked for reviews. I was hoping that somebody here could go through a config best suited for Resolve/Fusion. Every other one of the machines that you suggest are either much, often very much heavier, and larger HWD, or don't have 2x thunderbolt 3, or don't have an sd card reader, none of them have 4 m2 ssd slots, none of them have an easily swapped battery, none of them have display port 1.4 which will output 8k. I am using RED 8k cameras. Also you pass on as the Izgo display panel as not being liked is totally off base. On the contrary,Dell Izgo panels are considered the best you can buy. Also, I do appreciate taking the time to look at this, but as I state above, this machine has enormous potential as an editing machine with it's 4 internal drive bays- 8tb of super fast SSD's and all the other things it has going for it. To list a bunch of different machines that do not stand up to it spec wise is appreciated, but I need everything this machine has. There is no other portable like it, And it comes with a great standard warranty and you can buy it with minimal ram and one small ssd and populate it with much cheaper aftermarket ram and ssd's. What I am asking of the community is it better to go with the I9 or the Xeon from people who actually work with either of them. I know the specs. I am asking about real world performance on Resolve/Fusion. Thank you for your time Carston. Do you have experience with either of those procs that you can pass on?