Hello, it’s Dell. Time for a reintroduction

Bobby Miller 3 Aug, 2010 at 2:54pm ET Article published in Tech

Clear your mind. I’m going to mention a name, and I want you to note down your immediate thoughts. Are you ready? The name is: Dell. I’m willing to bet that your thoughts include things like “Dude, you’re getting a Dell”, the all-too-familiar blue colored laptops and gray/black Dimension desktops—and if you’re a system builder, probably a little bit of disapproval at what some refer to as the McDonalds of pre-built computers. Did any of you think of workstations, though? If you didn’t, then it is time to reacquaint yourselves with Dell.

It is no secret that Dell sells a lot of manufactured computers. To the enthusiast, their products don’t typically present a case for interest. Anyone involved with the digital content creation markets should take note, however, because Dell is very serious about their Precision workstation lineup, and they’ve got the guts to show that they mean business. That perception is just what Dell is here to do at SIGGRAPH—to show the world what their workstations can do. Icrontic met with Dell representatives Lauren Mauro, Patrick Hannan, and Don Maynard to see just what kind of power the company is offering to the professional segment.

The Dell Precision workstation lineup offers two mobile solutions, four desktop solutions, and a rack workstation solution. These systems are powerful, and they offer some compelling configuration options. Take a look at what they have to offer in Precision, and even the most jaded of professionals and enthusiasts may come back surprised.

Take, for instance, the recently introduced T1500 desktop workstation. Containing a quad-core Intel i5 processor and your choice of five different Quadro and FirePro GPU solutions, all housed in a standard ATX chassis (so you won’t break your desk in half with the sheer size expected of most workstations). The workstation is also ISV certified for AutoCAD, one of the premiere CAD software solutions. The most compelling part of this solution? Its starting price of $950. Of course, this workstation can be customized to any needs before buying, which is going to adjust the price appropriately, but offering powerful, customizable workstation solutions at such a competitive price should make Dell a compelling option for anyone that doesn’t have 5 grand for one of the top-tier products from most other manufacturers.

And that’s just the beginning. The representatives were also talking about their T7500 workstation. This solution offers some mind-blowingly powerful options and capabilities. Offering dual Intel Xeon hexa-core processors (up to a possible 12 cores) and support for an astonishing 192 gigabytes of DDR3 1066MHz memory across 12 DIMMs, there isn’t much that this workstation wouldn’t be able to handle when configured correctly. Though the 192GB dodeca-core setup won’t stroll into the boundaries of what most would deem affordable, the dual quad core, 2GB options start at only $2,700.

Perhaps the most impressive of what we were shown of Dell’s workstation lineup at SIGGRAPH was not actually any of their rack mounted or desktop models, but rather their laptops. The Precision M6500 is a product that Dell is especially happy with. Not just your typical desktop replacement, the M6500 mobile workstation offers some incredible options for the hardware. For starters, the 17-inch LED display has full Adobe Gamut color support. The storage options offer up to three devices (one SSD and two HDDs), which can be configured into RAID 0 or RAID 1 for additional performance or redundancy. The M6500 also supports up to 32 gigabytes of DDR 3 1333Mhz memory. Couple that with an Intel quad-core i7-920XM processor and a mobile FirePro or Quadro solution, and you have an impressively capable laptop that can tackle any of the major 3D packages. The M6500 also comes in the attractive “covet” color. Not a functional advantage, but eye candy never hurt anyone.

We walked away from our meeting with Dell impressed. Without previous knowledge of Dell’s workstation lineup, it was easy to go into our meeting with muted expectations. After learning of their products and the company’s intentions in the professional segment, it became clear that Dell wants one thing—to show that their workstations are the real deal. Just as many of us grew up with Dell computers when we were younger, Dell itself has grown up to empower professionals. Perhaps it is time for us to leave the “dude” to the annals of history and build a fresh look for that computer company that we have become so familiar with.

Comments

3 Aug 2010 ~ 3:00pm BuddyJ All our devs use Dells workstations with Quadros (soon to be Radeon HD 4850s).
3 Aug 2010 ~ 3:08pm _k I have 4 T7500s sitting the office with me, sadly just dual dual-cores in them so with HT 8. Seem nice enough. It looks like they use a PSU with a softbreaker in them which bothers me a lot.

I find it laughable that they designed the case for the 7500 and then included a metal foot because the case rocks on its own and isn't stable one bit. I wish these things didn't weigh 75 pounds though.
3 Aug 2010 ~ 3:51pm chrisWhite Dell really came out strong this SIGGRAPH and having never owned a Dell and only spend time fixing other people's, they immediatly got my attention with their workstation line up.

While you can build this powerful of computers for cheaper (good luck on the laptop) you want systems like these in a professional environment so you know good support is on the line and easily accessible. Knowing you can get broken parts replaced very quickly is a huge advantage for production critical hardware.
3 Aug 2010 ~ 6:14pm Sledgehammer70 Just did a quick pricing for the laptop...

$7.8k not including shipping or tax. I'll take a beastly desktop for that cost.
3 Aug 2010 ~ 6:59pm Straight_Man Being more a general user rather than a specialist graphics person, I opted for a Dell XPS laptop for my most recent computer. This is a quite capable computer in its own right. It has a dual core Intel 2.8 GHz Extreme chip in it, but the machine never gets too hot because the exhaust fan is quite capable of handling the heat and air flow from tiny vents in its bottom (it is elevated on four feet and the tinyness of each vent hole keeps dust from coming in the vent holes). It also has a mini-card mounted NVidia graphics chip and DDR3 GRAM in it. The LED decorations it came with got turned off first thing, thought I admit to being tempted to play with the LED color controls in its bios. As to comm, it can do wi-fi and also wired networking. I opted for the 500 GB SATA hd option. It cost me about $3K on sale when I bought it about a year ago from some money saved up for this kind of
4 Aug 2010 ~ 12:10pm drasnor

chrisWhite wrote:

While you can build this powerful of computers for cheaper (good luck on the laptop) you want systems like these in a professional environment so you know good support is on the line and easily accessible. Knowing you can get broken parts replaced very quickly is a huge advantage for production critical hardware.

I use a Dell Precision T3400 at work and at the time I could've built twice the machine for what we paid through our hub vendor. The only reasons we have the Dells are due to OEM support and the requirement to use the hub vendor.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice machine and beats the pants off the Optiplexes my poor neighbors use, but when a power supply blows out it still takes two weeks to get replaced regardless of who made the machine. The Dell advantage is that we can afford to have a stack of computers so if one fries we can take another off the top of the pile, hand it to the user, and deal with support for the two weeks it takes to get the faulty one replaced.

As for laptops, Lenovo has the same gig going for their Thinkpad W-series workstation models. If I'm fronting that kind of dosh Lenovo's support beats the pants off of Dell's any day of the week.
7 Aug 2010 ~ 12:30am chrisWhite Two weeks to replace the hardware Drasnor? Yikes, HP's workstation division got us new PSU's and GPU's the next day at the last place I worked. They shipped us new units most of the time before our bad units were even in the mail headed back to them.
7 Aug 2010 ~ 12:58am NullenVoyd In my previous job we used to do some Dell Next Business Day service calls for their commercial accounts, some of them being 1-of banks and small local businesses, so I know they CAN get service moving but I'm sure NBD service is not cheap.
7 Aug 2010 ~ 1:59am primesuspect It depends on your service plan. You can definitely get enterprise level same-day or next-day service from Dell.