The new compact Dell Precision T1700 SFF, pictured alongside two 24-inch Dell UltraSharp U2413 displays
Dell has launched two new CAD-focused workstations at opposite ends of the spectrum: an entry-level desktop machine and a high-end rack workstation. Both come with bold claims.
The Dell Precision T1700 small form-factor (SFF) is said to be the smallest tower workstation chassis in its class, measuring a mere 290mm x 92.6mm x 312mm.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Dell Precision R7610 is claimed to be the world’s most powerful rack workstation.
In addition, Dell has introduced a standard minitower (MT) version of the Precision T1700.
The launch of the Dell Precision T1700 SFF follows a trend started by competitors HP and Lenovo: the concept of the truly compact desktop workstation.
Both the T1700 SFF and T1700 MT offer next generation Intel workstation-class processors (future Intel Xeon processor E3-1200 v3 product family or future 4th gen Intel Core processors, formerly codenamed
Haswell) and up to 32GB of 1,600MHz ECC memory.
For graphics the T1700 MT boasts a wide range of discrete CAD-focused cards, including the Nvidia Quadro K600, K2000 and K4000 and the AMD FirePro W5000 and V4900. The T1700 SFF’s tiny chassis means the choice of discrete CAD-focused cards is limited to one – the Nvidia Quadro K600.
For storage the T1700 MT can host up to two 3.5″ or four 2.5″ SATA drives, while the T1700 SFF can only take one 3.5″ or two 2.5″ SATA drives. SSDs go up to 256GB in capacity and 3.5-inch SATA drives go up to 2TB.
For the new Precision R7610 Dell has packed all the power of a Precision T7600 into a 2U form factor to support workstation virtualisation.
Meanwhile, for firms looking to centralize IT resources, the Dell Precision R7610 rack workstation is a step up from Dell’s previous offering, the R5500. The Precision R7610 not only boasts ‘significantly more power’ than its predecessor, but an enhanced remote experience and new virtualization capabilities.
The R7610 has essentially packed Dell’s flagship T7600 tower workstation into a 2U rack form-factor. The rack workstation is designed to enable customers to centralise, secure and manage data and share resources.
The R7610 rack workstation can be used by four users without sacrificing performance, claims Dell. It achieves this via GPU pass-through using up to four single width graphics cards such as the Nvidia Quadro K4000 and K2000 or AMD FirePro W5000. For those with bigger graphics requirements, three double-width Nvidia Quadro K5000 cards can also be used. Later this year the machine will offer Nvidia GRID boards, which means it will be able to support even more users by virtualising the GPU.
Memory has been expanded to four channels with up to 256GB in 16 DIMM slots, with future availability of 512GB and the machine offers dual Intel E5-2687W 150 watt 8 core processors.
