Dell Precision T1650 Workstation Review: Ivy Bridge Xeons Bring Performance
by Dustin Sklavos on July 31, 2012 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Dell
- Workstation
- Ivy Bridge
- Enterprise
Workstation Performance
While the basic application performance was mostly in line with what I expected, the workstation performance of the Dell Precision T1650 is oftentimes eye-opening. SPECviewperf runs such a broad array of tests that oftentimes it can be difficult to pin down exactly what component helps where; still, it's helpful to see just how potent the new workstation is.
The T1650 may have had a modest boost over the T1600 in desktop applications, but jump over to SPECviewperf 11 and it's a bloodbath. There are three major differences to account for here: the T1650 has twice as much memory as the T1600 did (the T1600 had only 4GB) and that memory is running at a higher speed, the E3-1280 v2 has both higher clocks and a higher IPC, and the drivers used on the Quadro 2000 are bound to be newer. It's still difficult to figure out how the Lightwave portion, a benchmark that up until this point seemed to be moderately GPU-limited, produces a score quite so high, though.
When we run the separate SPECapc Lightwave benchmark, results are a little more in line with what we expect, but it's clear the T1650's Xeon v2 is still a demon capable of meeting or beating faster hexa-core systems like the T3600.
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cknobman - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
That is one BFUGLY case!!!!Where do these designers come up with this stuff?
Gunbuster - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
Indeed. Paying the "Workstation" markup they could have at least made it look good like the older Precision boxes.Urbanos - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
why no E5-1600 cpu's in the comparison?cwpippin - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
Does anyone see the resemblance to the IBM ThinkCenter workstations? Man, these are fugly machines. Good thing we are buying performance, not looks.(http://stoutey.com/?attachment_id=237)
Valutin - Thursday, August 2, 2012 - link
Good machine, the Ivy-bridge goodness allows for a boost in performance.But as a few pointed out, ECC is a must for a CAD workstation and for some critical work.
It slightly impacts performance.
On our side, we still opted for several 3D workstations without it as we wanted to increase productivity with overclocking.
I am just surprised by some comments, it's obvious that 2700 USD for a box is expensive, but for a Xeon+quadro 2000 set-up and all the ISV certification behind, that's quite in line and you don't buy this kind of stuff for general ledger work...
One point Coming standard is also the 3 years on-site warranty (at least from our side of the world), which is nice to have from a business point of view.
I was expecting that Dell would have update the flow of their machine but it appears that either the flow was already great, either price reduction was too aggressive on that one.
I still prefer the SFF in IBM and HP's line, they better fit my vision of small CAD box. :)
canyon.mid - Thursday, August 2, 2012 - link
Compilation benchmarks?Stupid and new - Wednesday, May 15, 2013 - link
These machines are a total waste of money. I have a T7600, cost $5500. The absurdly expensive processor in these things suck for 3D modeling. They don't offer a i7 option. I bought $800 pc from Micro Center with a solidstate and i7, put a the same graphics card in it which cost $400 and it runs circles around my T7600. I build it for a co-worker when his office machine died. I felt like a dumbass after that. The key 3d modeling with any type of engineering software is, the programs only support 1 processor. The, the i7 processors are a steal on every level even rendering were the it utilizes all cores. On a side note, I own a M6600 with an i7 for personal use and it is smoking fast, couldn't be happier with it.fezono - Sunday, January 29, 2017 - link
Can anyone tell if the intel C216 chipset supports Sandy Bridge processor (eg. 15-2500k)? Thanks in advance!!