Introduction and design
Following the release of Intel's Haswell-based Xeons, Dell has acted quickly to adopt the new processor and use it to put extra spring into the step of its popular Precision workstation family. Dual and single-socket workstations will both benefit from the makeover and for this review we checked out the Precision T5810, a single-socket workstation that sits at the more affordable end of the spectrum.
Following the standard workstation pattern, the T5810 is housed in a substantial yet compact black and silver tower which, thanks to a couple of design flourishes, manages to somehow look pretty stylish. Power comes from an externally removable 685W AC supply which has two fans built in for cooling with, on the review system, another built onto the video card. The end result was far from silent, but we'd still put it down at the quiet end of the scale for this type of system.
Designed to be customised, access is provided via a lift-off side panel with plenty of room to get to all the important bits and pieces. And that includes an all-new motherboard sporting a single socket for the Haswell-based Intel Xeon processor plus, of course, the latest C612 chipset required to manage it.
Processor options
Processor-wise, the workstation we looked at was fitted with a Xeon E5-1620 v3 (it's the "v3" that signifies the Haswell architecture) clocked at 3.5GHz and delivering four cores/eight threads plus a decent 10MB of cache. A good starting point for buyers on a budget, this processor scored an impressive 14,656 when tested using Geekbench, compared to a baseline of just 2,500 for a 2.5Ghz Intel Core i5.
Moreover, those with extra cash to splash can opt for a number of alternatives both from the single-socket E5-1600 v3 family and the E5-2600 v3 line-up, more usually found in dual-socket configurations.
Some care is needed, however, as these processors can work out really expensive. Opt for the 2.6GHz Xeon E5-2697 v3, for example, and the core count rises to an impressive fourteen, but you have to pay an extra £1,700 (around $2,660, AU$3,200) to switch to this chip. That's money which may be better spent elsewhere such as adding more memory or upgrading the video solution, which we'll discuss shortly.
As far as memory is concerned support for the latest DDR4 technology is part of the Haswell update, with eight DIMM slots available on the T5810 motherboard to take up to 128GB, clocked at up to 2133MHz. Ours had a more modest 16GB of ECC-protected memory on-board which is, again, a reasonable starting point without costing the Earth. The DIMMs provided by Dell also left half the slots empty making later additions easy to accommodate.
Performance
Haswell processors aside, it's the video controller that really sets the performance bar in the workstation world with plenty of options here to help make the T5810 fly.
Customers with an existing adapter can save money by leaving this out altogether, otherwise it's a choice between AMD FirePro and Nvidia Quadro GPUs, with a number of models on offer to suit both budget and application requirements.
There's room and power for a pair of graphics cards if needed, but the review system had just one in the form of an AMD FirePro W5100. This 3D capable card takes up a single PCIe slot and has four DisplayPort connectors offering support for monitors with up to 4K resolution.
Capable of a great deal more than your average desktop video controller the W5100 sports 768 processing cores and 4GB of video RAM which sounds impressive but effectively makes it a mid-range 3D adapter in workstation terms. A positioning confirmed when we ran CineBench R15 on the new Dell workstation, the T5810 returning a score of 92.33fps in the OpenGL test.
The separate processor (rendering) score was 713 using this benchmark and both are very respectable results for a single-processor system, the FirePro equipping the T5810 well to handle most CAD/CAM and visual content editing applications.
In addition there's scope for further improvement by opting for a higher spec GPU, although this will add a significant amount to the price tag. Swapping to a high-end Nvidia Quadro K6000, for example, will push the price up by almost £3,000 (around $4,690, AU$5,640).
Storage and more
Storage is, again, down to the customer to specify. The review system had just a single 1TB SATA disk cabled to the on-board controller, but there's plenty of room to add more and RAID is an option. You can also opt for faster SSD drives both for use as conventional storage and boot purposes, or to act as a performance-boosting cache using Intel CAS-W technology, now available as an option on all Precision workstations.
A slimline DVD writer was also fitted on the workstation we looked at and with 10 USB ports (four USB 3.0) plus two on the motherboard there's very little else you can't plug in. An integrated Gigabit network interface also comes as standard and there are five PCIe expansion slots.
Windows 7 Professional was pre-loaded on the test system which retails at £1,941 ex VAT (around $3,035, AU$3,650) not including the monitor which was used for testing. However, at the time of our review Dell was offering a 30% discount, bringing the price down to £1,359 (around $2,125, AU$2,560) ex VAT until May 2015.
Verdict
We liked
As with all of the Precision workstation range, the T5810 inspires confidence both in its ability to keep on running no matter what, and deliver the kind of performance levels demanded by design and engineering professionals. More than that, new Haswell-based Xeon processors plus DDR4 RAM provide a massive step up in performance and, allied to the right graphics subsystem, equip the T5810 to handle a wide variety of tasks.
Price-wise it's about right for a single-socket workstation, just be careful about tinkering with the options as these can make serious holes in your bank balance. We'd definitely recommend adding SSD storage to the mix, with lots of options here that won't break the bank.
We disliked
There wasn't much to beef about with the T5810. It could, perhaps, be made a bit smaller but compared to some competitors the Precision chassis is almost bijou. Dell might also like to think about improving on the rather basic USB keyboard and mouse included as standard. Better alternatives are available but, given the price, the base offerings really ought to be upgraded.
Identifying the USB 3.0 ports wasn't as easy as it could be either, with no colour-coding as on some systems.
Final verdict
There's a fine line between high-end desktop PCs and entry-level workstations. However, with its new Haswell-based processors allied to a choice of highly capable graphics solutions, the Precision T5810 is very much in the latter group.
It's not the fastest workstation on the block but it is affordable and more than capable of handling demanding graphics-intensive applications and doing so with aplomb. It also carries the usual Dell warranty and support guarantees, is easy to upgrade and fits the workstation bill nicely.
from TechRadar: Technology reviews http://ift.tt/169Q3aN
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