Well, what do we have here? An industry source has sent along information and images for a trio of new
Dell Precision workstations using Intel's
Nehalem architecture. The T3500 (starts at $999) sports up to 24GB DDR3 ECC memory. Just above that, we've got the T5500 (starts at $1,620) with up to 72GB of memory and dual socket Intel Xeon. Meanwhile, granddaddy T7500 (pictured; starts at $1,800) boasts 192GB of three-channel DDR3 ECC memory up to 1066 or 1333MHz, dual native Gen 2 PCIe graphics slots and supports NVIDIA SLI technology. All models feature an E-SATA port, up to 1.5TB SATA HDD, dual / quad monitor support, DisplayPort connectors, and for those trying to keep some assemblance of eco friendliness, these are all Energy Star 5.0 compliant. We also caught wind of new EqualLogic PS6000 and SSD-equipped PS6000S storage arrays, which start at around $17,000 and $25,000, respectively. Interests piqued? Hit up the gallery below for some pics.
Update: Dell releases the
official presser for the PS6000S.
posted Mar 24th 2009 11:36PM
Can this be considered the official "competitor" to the new mac pro??
Why dont more consumers purchase these 'business' products?
They seem like such a better deal than the 'home' section of products...
No, because it still only runs windows
I don't see why everyone thinks the Mac pro is some special computer?
When you look at what it has the only real special thing the Mac pro has is 2 CPU's. Like listed Dell offers this any others. And the base model mac pro only has 1 quad core.
The Mac Pro is Apple's favorite when saying they aren't overpriced, especially compared to Dell's Precision line, spec for spec the Mac Pro is actually cheaper. Not to mention better looking, as much good Dell has done to change it's image for Home PCs (though people here still dislike them), their Office PCs are still ugly. The problem is that most businesses prefer Windows [XP], and have large contracts with Dell/HP, Mac Pro's crowd are the same that can choose from the much cheaper i7 Home Desktops, which unless you're getting the 2 CPU Mac Pro, is pretty comparable is performance for a fraction of the cost
@Adam
In the mac world "The Pro" is something special, it has expansion slots and extra drive bays. Things us foolish PC users take for granted.
The answer is YES, it can play crisis.
Can it play Cry- oh...
i may need a new change of pants
Looks like im about to do this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4
The only thing we need now is a damn read link for more information about these beastly systems. Even though it is a Dell, i want. This would be a badass gaming PC.
holy freaking batman! 192GB DDR3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!
that's more than my laptops hard drive :(
Please be an Engadget recession antidote.
You would think that for $17,000 or even $25,000 it might look a little more like you actually bought a quality piece of hardware. What a piece of crap!
Seriously Steve? Did you seriously just say that?
Why? Do you need your solid state storage arrays to be stylish?
How does this even look like a piece of crap? The designs are clean and fit the purpose. Also, how is a SAN supposed to look to you? I am guessing you have never used an Equallogic SAN before and also didn't notice it will be in a rack in a room where no one will see it.
These are designed for business and remember you are paying for what it does and the stability of it, not how flashy it is.
There's a reason Dell kept the EqualLogic name when they bought them out a year or two ago. It's because they make the best damn iSCSI SAN that there is. For SSD's that's actually much cheaper than I would have guessed. A friend of mine bought two of the last pre-Dell units, 10TB 7200RPM SATA units, and those ran his company 70k. And they were worth it.
Crash course in iSCSI:
Basically this acts as a local hard drive attached over ethernet. Often you keep them on a separate network for data transfers. They deal with data in block format instead of files, meaning that these will easily cap out gigibit connections, because it writes data like its going to a hard drive, not copying files to a network share....in fact the arrays themselves often have 2x10Gb connections (for redundancy) and you will have dual or quad NICs on the servers, so it can be as fast as fiberchannel (or faster in theory, but then you may start to run into other limitations).
The nice thing is that it's extremely flexible. You make an iSCSI volume, and then you link it up to the server, and it looks exactly like a local hard disk...not a mapped drive. You start running out of space, no problem, you increase the iSCSI volume size on the SAN, and then on the server you can expand the disk to the new capacity. And all servers can have volumes cut out of the big main physical volume. The only trick is that these are not network shares, generally only 1 server accesses 1 iSCSI target at a time.
Then you can get into some cool options with virtualization and whatnot, but I've probably made this way too complex already.
thats a good point, it only runs windows; :D
"it only runs windows" - but that's what people want anyway so what's your point?
I'm pretty sure these will quite readily run Linux, too.
If you're worried about OS X, then these boxes aren't pretty enough for you anyway.
I think you can get Red Hat Linux if you want.
Nothing says you can't turn it into a Hackintosh.
I cant believe they just let that third computer fall over like that.
It didn't fall over, they did that show how it would look if you chose to mount it sideways which some people occasionally do.
I'll mount you sideways
I had to put mine on it's side and put my monitor on it because it tends to vibrate in cycles. I hit it on the side to make it stop sometimes. Tech support kept switching me from one person to another telling me after explaining that they were not the tech support. I eventually got hung up on.
Wait, 192gb of RAM? How is that possible in that workstation? Is that a typo, or do they mean it as SSD?
The description for the first model says "sports up to 24GB" and second "up to 72GB" so 192GB is probably not a typo.
Of course this is not possible with current memory density. 192GB is the maximum amount addressable by the hardware at some point in the future when you can stuff 192GB in however many slots this monster has.
apparently samsung makes 32gb ram sticks, looks like six slots in there. so i guess 192gb could fit
Actually, here's a picture of the inside of the T7500 from the Engadget gallery.
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/03/t7500-inside-low-res.jpg
You can clearly see 6 RAM slots. That means it can support RAM modules up to 32GB each (32*6=192).
"How is that possible in that workstation?"
Money, lots and lots of money. If a 6GB kit of non ECC DDR3 is just under $100 for 1600Mhz using 3 2GB dimms. I don't even want to imagine what 6 32GB ECC dimms would cost. I'm sure it would be slightly more than your first born, a arm, a leg, and maybe even one of the twins.
and here i am thinking im cool with 8GB DDR2 800. damnit
What isn't shown is that the Dell Precision series often have expansion boards plugged into the motherboard RAM slots. I have a system set up with 16 * 4GB modules (4 RAM modules per motherboard slot, 64GB total). So I imagine the same concept applies, just with bigger modules in multiples of 3 of of six headers rather that multiples of 2 on 4 headers (DDR3 vs DDR2).
A lot of confusion here. First the photo of the T7500 isn't, it's the 3500 (notice the single heatsink). There won't be memory expansion boards as while the older FB-DIMMs supported it, the new DDR3 model does not. Each processor can support up to 9 memory slots.
The T3500 has 6 memory slots with Dell offering 4GB DIMMs for that 24GB number. The T7500 has 12 supporting upto 16GB DIMMs. I can't see the T5500 having 9 or 18 memory slots which is the only way the suggested 72GB would work, so I'd assume it has 12 too and the story is wrong.
Technically any Xeon should support upto 16GB DIMMs and it appears these limits are purely marketing ones.
Unless you have Windows Server 2008 enterprise or higher in 64-bit, you hit your limit at 128gb of addressable memory. Vista Home Premium is limited to 16gb.
@Jason White
If you purchased 192GB of ram, something tells me that the cost of Windows 2008 Server Enterprise or Datacenter is a minor cost.
Also why would somebody that purchased this machine be concerned about the mem limits of Vista Home Premium?
adamo then this, dell seems to be appealing to the common people of this current era.
Interested to see when these hit Dells site, I'm sure the ram upgrades from Dell will have a nice fat margin on them but nothing says you have to get them from Dell. On the server side their 1TB sata drives are good oughly overpriced last I checked I think they were around $400 per 1TB 7200 drive. Makes it pricey to build out a VM server when your boss won't listen to you to get the drives elsewhere.
Nehalem is officially launched on the 29th so expect them then or on the 30th.
At work, I spec out the new machines, and I told the office and 2 or my coworkers to wait for these machines to come out... but the coworkers and my boss were impatient, so I spec'd out a set of core i7 machines for them. Dell took 1 month to get them to us, arrived and set up just last week, and 1 machine has a hardware fault so it's being returned for a replacement. I tried to warn them that they were throwing good money away on those single cpu systems, but what can you do but say "I told you so, you fools!" Oh well, they're stuck with those for the next 2 years at least, so I hope they're happy. Me, I'm ordering myself a 5500 for work. :) They had waited 3 months, just 1 month more and they too would have had 5500's too. Man, that sucks.
Is that the old XPS case?
It looks familiar.
same case as my two year old Precision 690... they are larger than they look in the pictures
The difference between this and the Mac Pro is that it'll be used by people who have work to do rather than trust fund kids. Ok, I'm kidding. Mostly.
but can it "stream" crysis??
eh, eh??
Sometimes it just hurts to be a Mac user. Like now.
Yeah, Mostly in the Wallet.
So when and where can I order one? I just sent a PO for 2 T5400 systems to IT and I want to cancel that....
24 slots for 8GB ea. = 192GB RAM