SMB IT | Curtis Franklin » Dell Pumps Up Precision Line

May 23, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Dell Pumps Up Precision Line

TAGS: SMB Hardware

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Dell visited me in New York City again last week for a pre-release meeting covering changes they're announcing to the Precision workstation line today. Never mind that I work in New Jersey. And that they didn't bring T-shirts or USB drives or stuffed animals or strippers. And never mind that I STILL haven't gotten my Precision M90 review unit.

But that's all water under the bridge. Yup. No way I'd hold that against them in the future. Not me. I'm a sweet, fair and totally unbiased guy. Ask anyone.

Instead, they brought a really exciting PowerPoint presentation, which is definitely just as good as a chatcki or silicone. Yup.

Anyway, the PowerPoint summed up some new additions to the Precision workstation line: The Precision 490 and 690. Think sleeker, faster and...faster.

Sleeker because it's a cool word and because the new Precisions have new cases. These have been optimized for cooling and convenience with front-mounted inputs, as well as front-mounted diagnostic and network link lights. Additionally, they can be rack- or tower-based and Dell took this one step further: You can rotate the drive cage to match case orientation. So if it's going from floor to rack, you can actually rotate the drive cage 90 degrees--and even the Dell logo rotates, which is what was worrying me the most.

Faster (1) because they're getting bumped up to the new Xeon 5000 series (codename Dempsey) when they come out this month and then get bumped again in a few weeks to the Xeon 5100 series (codename Woodcrest) when that becomes generally available in early summer.

The Dell guys summed up the positives here real nicely: the new Xeons use shorter pipelines but more of them combined with slower clock speeds with up to three times the final throughput of existing Xeons. So you're looking at going from about 6.4GB/sec with today's Xeons to about 21.2GB/sec with a 5100. Way faster.

Faster (2) because the Xeon 5000/5100 also get an upgraded memory architecture. This means they can use faster DDR2 memory via a new technology called, 'fully-buffered DIMMs'. Faster. Along with that they get double the memory channels--from dual to quad. Again, faster. And finally, Dells upped total available system RAM to 32GB. Way, way faster. Even better, if you opt for an optional Memory Riser Card on the high-end 690 box, you can go all the way to 64GB of system RAM. So fast, I'm bleeding.

For CAD and graphics guys, you can get even more speedfeed, by opting for Dell's optional nVidia-based SLI video card arrangement. That's two high-end nVidia graphics cards running in tandem via an SLI-based interconnect. Screaming video speed--but at a significant price hike considering that these cards by themselves can run over $1000.

Other good news includes support for SATA and SAS drives off the motherboard as well as better power consumption since the Xeon 5000/5100s are slated to eat only 65watts vs. the existing Xeon munch factor of 100watts.

If the 490/690's power potential has you drooling, then check out Dell's product pages on these babies. Here, you'll be able to access a list of certified third-party software applications that Dell has tested to make sure they operate perfectly with these new workstations. (Check the links under Vertical Markets down on the left.) You'll even get your own Precision-smart tech support staff in case anything goes wrong.

Check 'em out.

Posted by Oliver Rist on May 23, 2006 12:30 PM

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