Dell Precision T3600 Review: Dell's New Enterprise
by Dustin Sklavos on April 23, 2012 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Dell
- Precision
- Workstation
- Maximus
Workstation Performance
I've tried to stress this before but it really does bear repeating: workstation-class graphics cards, whether or not they share silicon with desktop parts a quarter of the price, pay for themselves in performance. The NVIDIA Quadro 4000 in the Dell Precision T3600 demonstrates that; as a gaming card it would be woefully underpowered, but as a workstation card operating in situations that leverage both the optimized OpenGL drivers and formidable double precision performance, it easily justifies itself.
Notice how in most cases, the GTX 580 with a fully enabled Fermi core gets massacred by cards with half the shader power or less. The Quadro 5010M in the HP EliteBook 8760w is the only GPU that's able to consistently outperform the Quadro 4000, and that makes sense: it has similar clocks, but it boasts 128 more CUDA cores. It's also the fastest mobile workstation GPU available, bar none.
If I had to guess, I'd say that once desktop graphics limitations are taken out of the equation, the proe-05 test gets stuck on single-threaded CPU performance. Meanwhile ensight-04 is the only test that focuses on pure GPU performance and doesn't care about optimized drivers.
The Xeon E5-2667 runs at slightly lower clocks than the Core i7-990X, but it benefits from the more efficient Sandy Bridge-E architecture while the i7-990X makes do with Gulftown. Lightwave definitely wants the fastest CPU it can get, though, and the E5-2667 delivers.
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eanazag - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
I'd like to see how their new cards compete in this all nVidia review. The only problem I see is I can't make sense of how many different series AMD has.http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/WORKSTATION/GRAPHIC...
thetuna - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
One of us doesn't know what a page fault is...YaBaBom - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
I like the Dell workstations, and administer a few of them. But I have to agree with cjcoats--the limited options for disk expansion--especially in the 7x00 series--are inexcusable.I wish they would take a queue from something like the Fractal Design Arc Midi that has 8 internal 3.5" bays.
bobj3832 - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
The machine itself is nice but it is the custom power supply, custom drive brackets, etc. that I hate.We have a ton of Dell computers at work. The ability to change out the PSU quickly is great for an IT department IF they buy some extra power supplies and have them sitting in a closet. Unfortunately our IT dept doesn't. PSU blows and it will either be 2 days to get a new one FedEx'd or Dell is out of stock for the 3 year old computer PSU model. With regular ATX PSUs I can buy a new one at a local store and put it in in less than 5 minutes.
I also couldn't put a full length graphics card or double slot graphics card in some Dells at work.
A CPU fan died and I can't just replace it with an off the shelf model because it's enclosed in this giant custom Dell air vent.
Rant over.
killazys - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
Hi, could someone elaborate exactly what testing is being dome with x264? What's the source clip, encoding settings, whether or not avisynth is being used, etc? Its interesting that the gpu is listed, because x264 encoding is purely software based unless you're using something like DGSource in Avisynth.killazys - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
Done*. Please excuse me as I am posting from my phone.Rocket321 - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
I've long been jealous of the enterprise/workstation Cases from both HP and Dell. They are designed for such ease of service and have good attention to airflow and ascetics. My HP z600 at work is great with the handle/latch side door, steel panels, etc. I wish an aftermarket case maker would copy some of this stuff!otherwise - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
Agreed. I've been building computers for almost 20 years now, and the Z600 has to be the best designed case I've ever worked in.randinspace - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
Is Dell hoping to bring up fond memories of the Playstation 2 or something?cjb110 - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
The model name orientation suggests they designed it to be horizontal, but the logo on the mesh suggests vertical?Unless they have a rotatable logo like the PS3? :)
Interestingly at work we've just switched outsourcing from HP to IBM, and as part of that any new desktops and laptops are now all Dell. Not this class though, just the i3/i5 models. They definitely look nicer and don't scrimp on memory like the 1/2gb HP ones did.