Dell Precision 7530, HP ZBook 15 G5, or Lenovo ThinkPad P52?

Hi guys. Third thread here, and this time for real, because I'm entering university in a month, and I absolutely have to have a notebook. I'd like to go all out with the configuration, and I've narrowed the choices down to the three in the title. For discussion's sake I'll fill in the form, too, and see if any other suggestions come my way. Anything is welcome; thanks, guys.

General Questions

1) What is your budget?
US$2500-3000

2) What size notebook would you prefer?
15" display

3) Where will you buying this notebook? You can select the flag of your country as an indicator.
US shipping to Singapore, or Singapore.

4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
a. Like: Three in the title, Clevo, MSI, Asus
b. Dislike: Apple Macs

5) Would you consider laptops that are refurbished/redistributed?
I doubt there are refurbished laptops with specs this new, but, yeah, sure.

6) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook?
Programming, video production/transcoding, CAD, general browsing, gaming

7) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places, leaving it on your desk or both?
Both, definitely.

8) Will you be playing games on your notebook? If so, please state which games or types of games?
I intend to be able to play Cyberpunk 2077 at medium settings at least.

9) How many hours of battery life do you need?
6+ hours of light use would be great.

10) Would you prefer to see the notebooks you're considering before purchasing it or buying a notebook on-line without seeing it is OK?
The latter is fine, but it would be good to get a feel of what I'm buying.

11) What OS do you prefer? Windows (Windows 7 / 8), Mac OS, Linux, Chrome OS, etc.
I will be running Arch, VM-ing into Windows if necessary.

Screen Specifics

12) From the choices below, what screen resolution(s) would you prefer?
1920*1080 FHD, 2560*1440 QHD, or 3840*2160 UHD.

13) Do you want a glossy/reflective screen or a matte/non-glossy screen? (Scroll down to see explanations.)
Either is fine, as long as the colour gamut is sufficiently wide.

Build Quality and Design

14) Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you?
Yes, definitely. No 'gamery' looks, i.e. red streaks, gaudy logos, 'race car' design.

15) When are you buying this laptop?
Within the next month and a half.

16) How long do you want this laptop to last?
Half a decade.

Notebook Components

17) How much hard drive space do you need? Do you want a SSD drive?
Multiple terabytes. M.2 NVMe SSDs would be great.

18) Do you need an optical drive? If yes, a DVD Burner, Blu-ray Reader or Blu-Ray Burner?
Not necessary.

Thanks in advance, everyone.

 

Your not gonna have much luck gaming on a Quattro graphics card I don't think.

My first laptop had a workstation graphics card. It was a dream for workloads but a nightmare gaming.


Also cyberpunk is still a few years out my friend. =/


Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

 

I'm in the same boat as you. Please tell me more about your screen preferences:

• FHD or 4K?
• 72% or 100% gamut?
• Touch or non-touch?
• Matte or glossy?

The ThinkPad P52 has 2 display options:

1. FHD IPS matte non-touch 300nits 72% gamut
2. 4K IPS glossy touch 400nits 100% gamut

The Precision 7530 has 3 display options:

1. FHD IPS matte non-touch 72% gamut
2. FHD IPS glossy touch 72% gamut
3. 4K IPS matte non-touch 100% gamut

 

Clevo P75xTM1-G. Forget those 3. You don't need Quadro for CAD, especially gimped mobile Quadro with no gaming performance whatsoever along with the terrible cooling design of business class/workstation notebooks.

 

Yeah, and if anything goes wrong you're F'ed because heh no NBD warranty whatsoever.

 

Of the three listed in the title, I recommend either the 7530 or P52. These two models are competitive with their graphics offerings, as they both can be configured up to a Quadro P3200 (1060). The HP can only be equipped up to a P2000 (1050 ti). The primary reason for this difference has to do with Dell and Lenovo eschewing the MXM GPU form factor for their own custom solutions. This enables them to include higher TDP cards in a smaller chassis while keeping it a replaceable part, but the decision does harm upgrade-ability since we have no idea if this is going to be a standard going forward. It also fragments the laptop GPU market.

Personally I've grown to prefer workstation notebooks, so I find it interesting that they were your headline picks. Better support will always win out for me, which I think is highly underrated. I've had many great experiences with Dell's basic 3 year on-site support, which comes standard with their workstations.

Also, you absolutely can game on Quadro cards - they mostly use the same silicon as their consumer parts and yield similar performance. You simply need to understand which Quadro corresponds to which Geforce's performance profile:

P5200 - 1080
P4200/P5000 - 1070
P3200/P4000 - 1060
P2000/P3000 - 1050 ti
P1000 - 1050

Some specs will be different, such as clock speeds (typically lower on quadro) and other anomalies like the P3200 - it's designed to perform at a 1060 (GP106) but is instead based on GP104 (1070/1080). To meet the performance profile of a 1060, it has a narrower memory bus (from 256-bit to 128-bit). Despite quadros having similarly performing Geforce counterparts, they are much more expensive. You can thank the ISV certification and drivers for that.

 

The P52 has a garbage cooling solution. A single heatpipe each for CPU and GPU.

 

I'm interested in the P52 but I'm a bit skeptical about its 4k display: it is glossy and touch... Do you think that a 15" FHD display is good enough in 2018?

As I wrote above, the P52 has just 2 display options:

1. FHD IPS matte non-touch 300nits 72% gamut
2. 4K IPS glossy touch 400nits 100% gamut

 

Wow, the cooling solution indeed looks underpowered. For reference: (thanks ibmthink)



I suppose time will tell how it performs, but you should probably expect throttling under heavy simultaneous loads.

I almost always go FHD - longer battery life, less scaling headaches. The trade-off here is that you don't get the nice 100% Adobe RGB color gamut, so it really depends on the work you do. I do a lot of digital design work but only need 100% sRGB (aka 72% NTSC) which the FHD displays are calibrated for. They fit this interesting space where you can work at 100% scaling (most compatible), yet are dense enough to where you might want to work at 125-150% (looks nicer, easier to use with touch), so it's kind of a best of both worlds situation.

I'm also a huge proponent of touch as it's always great to have an additional input method.

 

The Precision 7530 also has a similar heatsink assembly. Looking to get either of the two to replace my current Precision, will probably wait for some reviews before committing to either.