Wednesday, September 11th, 2013 Posted by Jim Thacker

Dell unveils ‘world’s most powerful tower workstation’

Dell has updated its portfolio of professional graphics workstations with the announcement of five new models in its Precision range: the M4800 and M6800 mobile workstations, and the T3610, T5610 and T7610 tower systems.

Dell describes the latter – with some justification – as “the world’s most powerful tower workstation”.

A beast of a machine
The T7610 will offer up to 512GB of system memory, and up to three high-end graphics cards – currently the Nvidia K5000, but from October, the spec-sheet-topping K6000.

You can also have up to two Intel Xeon E5-2600 processors, for a total of up to 12 cores, with Intel’s Phi co-processor 3120A PCIe card for additional compute power.

It’ll set you back, though: prices start at $3,059, and given that individual K6000 GPUs currently have an SRP of around $6,000, could go up rapidly from there.

New mobile workstations: display resolution up, prices down
The new mobile systems are essentially incremental updates to Dell’s existing models, the M4700 and M6700. In fact, the specs haven’t changed radically since we reviewed the M6700’s predecessor last year.

Like the M6600, the M6800 sports up to 8GB of RAM and an Intel Core i7 CPU (although now a fourth-generation processor), while its Nvidia K5100M GPU is the current equivalent of the old K5010M we tested.

The more unexpected changes are to the display and the price: the M4800 comes with the option of a 15.6″ HD+ panel, whose 3,200 x 1,800 resolution is actually higher than anything available for its big brother – although the M6800 and its 17.3″ screen does get the option of multi-touch support.

The cost is also down: whereas the M4700 and M6700 were priced from $1,649 and $2,199 on release, the M4800 and M6800 are priced from $1,249 and $1,599.

The five new models are due to become commercially available from tomorrow. You can find more details in the official press release below. The original text came with approving quotes from the likes of Autodesk, Nvidia and AMD, but we’ve removed them here for brevity.

PRESS RELEASE (Excerpts)
Dell today announced it has expanded its workstation portfolio with the most powerful mobile and tower workstations, the Dell Precision M4800, M6800, T3610, T5610 and T7610, designed to seamlessly run the leading content creation, engineering, scientific and other professional software applications. Updated with the latest high-performance, workstation-class processors, graphics, storage, display and other technologies, the new systems demonstrate Dell’s continued commitment to delivering unparalleled performance and reliability that creative, engineering and scientific professionals require to quickly develop and realise innovative ideas.

The most powerful mobile workstations in the market
Committed to improving the performance and personal experience and interaction with its new Dell Precision M4800 and M6800 mobile workstations, Dell is the first to bring a 15.6-inch Quad HD+ IGZO panel to the workstation market, with higher resolution than the Apple MacBook Pro Retina display, and the only to offer optional 10-finger Wacom multi-touch on a 17.3-inch display for intuitive control and interaction with creative and design applications. Dell is also the first to offer WiGig wireless docking and has improved audio performance with WAVES MaxxAudio Pro integration.

The new Dell Precision mobile workstations also deliver the highest performance with up to 16GB¹ of 1866MHz memory, fourth-generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processor options up to Core i7 Extreme Edition, and AMD FirePro and NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics, with up to 8GB graphics memory¹ on the M6800 configured with NVIDIA Quadro K5100M, for handling complex 3D work, including rendering and simulation.

Both systems also provide superb reliability with all-day battery life², including a secondary slice battery, new AMD Enduro and NVIDIA Optimus, and industry-leading endpoint security solutions that include comprehensive encryption, advanced authentication and leading-edge malware protection.

New tower workstations designed for demanding software applications
Offering an award-winning chassis design and cutting-edge technology, the new Dell Precision tower workstations include next generation workstation-class processors and professional graphics, Windows 8 factory installed, new Intel Cache Acceleration Software, PCIe SSDs and updates to Dell Precision Performance Optimizer. Designed for scientific analysis, professional engineering and complex 3D modeling, the new tower portfolio, adding to the Dell Precision T1700 Small-Form Factor and Mini-Tower, includes the Dell Precision T3610 with advanced single Intel Xeon CPU performance, the Dell Precision T5610, a high-power dual-socket Intel Xeon processor workstation in a small footprint, and the Dell Precision T7610, the world’s most powerful tower workstation. The T7610 will offer up to 512GB¹ system memory and power up to three high-end graphics cards, including up to two NVIDIA Quadro K6000s cards starting in October.

Dell understands its workstation customers have specific needs for their workflows so is updating and offering new tools that enable maximum performance and reliability so they can remain focused on being creative.

  • Dell Precision Performance Optimizer – DPPO, the world’s first automated workstation performance tool that configures settings based on the software application, will be updated with new profiles for Siemens NX 8.5 and Dassault Systèmes CATIA and French and German languages starting September 17 via online and factory install on new workstations in October.
  • Intel® Xeon Phi™ co-processor 3120A PCIe card – The Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor is a new manycore x86-based computational architecture built for high efficiency and exceptional performance on highly parallel workloads. Offered as a coprocessor on a PCIe card, it works synergistically with Intel® Xeon® Processors to deliver accelerated performance on Dell Precision T7610 tower and R7610 rack workstations.
  • PCIe Solid State Drives (SSDs) – Dell is the first to bring Micron PCIe SSD technology to the workstation market on its tower and rack workstations starting in October. The PCIe SSD is one of the highest performance storage options that merge SSD technology directly with the fast PCIe system communication bus.
  • Intel Cache Acceleration Software – Workstation (CAS-W) – Dell has deeply collaborated with Intel to bring to market and tune the first workstation enterprise-grade storage acceleration software application, Intel CAS-W, which improves workstation application performance. It is available exclusively on Dell Precision rack and tower workstations starting in November.

As part of Dell’s Technology Partner Program, Dell Precision works with the top Independent Software Vendors (ISV) to test and certify the leading software applications including Adobe Creative Suite, Autodesk Design & Creation Suites, Dassault Systèmes CATIA and SolidWorks and PTC Creo, among many others, for maximum uptime and productivity. Additionally, many ISV partners also leverage Dell Precision workstations to develop and showcase their software capabilities. For example, PTC uses Dell Precision workstations to power its customer theatre with a high-end, three-channel rear-projection active stereo 3D system with tracking that allows visitors to have a hands-on experience using PTC software in an immersive virtual reality environment.

Pricing & Availability
The new Dell Precision tower and mobile workstations will be available worldwide on September 12 with US prices starting at $1,099 for the T3610, $2,729 for the T5610, $3,059 for the T7610, $1,249 for the M4800 and $1,599 for the M6800.³

¹GB means 1 billion bytes and TB equals 1 trillion bytes; significant system memory may be used to support graphics, depending on system memory size and other factors

²Based on testing of the Dell Precision M4800 with 4GB memory, Intel® Core™ i5-4300M with AMD FirePro™ M5100 graphics and NVIDIA® Quadro® K1100M and M6800 with 8GB memory, Intel® Core™ i5-4300M and AMD FirePro™ M6100 graphics and NVIDIA® Quadro® K3100M using the Mobile Mark 2007 Productivity battery life benchmark test. For more information about this benchmark test, visit www.bapco.com. Test results should be used only to compare one product with another and are not a guarantee you will experience the same battery life. Battery life may be significantly less than the test results and varies depending on your product’s configuration, software, usage, operating conditions, power management settings and other factors. Maximum battery life will decrease with time and use.

³Prices are subject to change. Taxes, shipping, handling and other fees apply. Stated configurations and pricing may not be available to all customers.

Read more about the new Precision workstations on Dell’s website