Although Intel’s Xeon chips are usually reserved for servers, it does occasionally dole them out to companies looking to produce monstrously powerful systems or high-end workstations for professionals. That’s happening again with its new lineup of Skylake chips, as the new Xeon E3-1200 Skylake CPU is being bundled into a brand new range of Dell Workstations, offering maximum performance to professionals on the go.
These new workstations form part of the ‘Precision’ line, and will be available with choices of both AMD and Nvidia GPUs. So far four distinct models have been announced, the Precision 15 3510, the 15 5510, the 15 7510 and the biggest and most powerful of them all, the 17 7710.
The most affordable of the line up, the 3510 is still slim and powerful, measuring in at just shy of an inch thick. It will have a starting price of $1,000 before extras and accessories. The 5510 will maintain similar performance, but will be the slimmest and lightest of the range, measuring in at just 0.67 inches thick and just under four pounds. Its starting price is listed as $1,400 (as per liliputing).
Related: What the socket? We explain Intel’s lineup of LGA parts here
Moving up the range to the 7510 reveals a more powerful machine that supports an Ultra HD display for higher resolution workloads. Funnily enough, though, it’s actually $200 cheaper than the 5510, presumably because it’s not as light. It starts at $1,200.
Of course the biggest and baddest of the bunch, the 7710, is the most exciting. It’s the only 17-inch workstation in the range and therefore it has the highest price tag of $1,700. However, it comes with all of the benefits of the 7510, including the more powerful CPU and an Ultra HD display.
Across the entire range, Dell is citing double-digit CPU performance improvements over the last generation, as well as weight reductions and a tripling of storage speed too. Although the base versions of each system are impressive on their own, you can also configure them to have up to 64GB of RAM and as much as four terabytes of storage space — though the slim and trim 5510 is limited by space to 32GB and 2TB respectively.
Each system is also said to sport new and advanced cooling solutions, allowing for the already powerful Skylake hardware to be further boosted, which we’re told “allows you to power through processor-heavy programs at a faster rate.”
All the new Precision workstations will be available before the end of the year.
