Archive notice: This article was originally published on September 25, 2018. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
With the Precision 5720, Dell introduced its first workstation in an “All in One”, or AIO, design last year. Like the Inspiron 7775, it is particularly interesting for creatives working in 2D graphics, photography and image editing / modelling. Its centrepiece and case at the same time is the 27-inch Infinity Edge 4K display, with six uncovered speaker domes displayed along its lower edge. Apart from the speakers, the display appears hardly different from that of the Inspiron 7775. At a price of around 2,265 euros, the Precision 5720 AIO is almost 500 euros above the Inspiron, so the price difference appears to be due to the CPU and GPU configuration, since the rest of the equipment hardly differs. Let us see what 500 euros more buys in performance.
Case / Display
Like the Inspiron, the Precision 5720 arrived well packaged for transport and could be unpacked and set up within a short time. The quality of the cardboard packaging and moulded polystyrene elements allows the computer to be repacked several times for transport. But the first surprise came during setup. Instead of placing the ports in easily accessible positions to the left and right of the case stand, as on the Dell Inspiron 7775, the ports and mains cable are fitted behind the stand. Connecting the mains cable, USB devices, DisplayPort and Thunderbolt connections thus becomes a real test of patience, despite the large guide hole in the stand.
As with the Inspiron, the display is adjustable neither in height nor angle, but offers good to very good display quality at 4K resolution and, according to Dell, is intended to cover all colours in the Adobe RGB colour space. For an additional charge, the display can optionally include touch functionality and thus be operated like a tablet. The webcam sits similarly low to that of the less expensive Inspiron and accordingly supplies images from angles that are not necessarily flattering.
Equipment
For the Precision 5720 workstation, Dell chose the proven Intel i7 CPU and installed the 7700 with four CPU cores clocked at 3.6 GHz. Instead of using an Nvidia card, it apparently chose a more unusual variant and gave the Precision 5720 an AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 graphics card. If you do not vary, you stagnate!
16 Gbytes of RAM are already installed, with space for a total of 64 Gbytes provided the DIMMs run at 2,400 MHz; otherwise, a maximum of 32 Gbytes of RAM is possible. An SSD is fitted as mass storage at the factory, and an HDD with various capacities can also be installed.
For connecting external mass storage or displays, the two Thunderbolt connections and the DisplayPort connection on the rear are available; other peripherals can be connected through the 5 USB 3.0 ports and the network through a Gigabit LAN adapter. There is also an SD card slot on the left-hand side of the display. The clearly visible speakers, presented almost as a design element, create acoustic expectations through their appearance that are simply not realistically possible given the case volume. In the high and mid-frequency ranges, reproduction sounds confident and clear up to roughly medium volume levels. Bass below 150 Hz is reproduced only weakly. If you want to present a trailer with fat sound effects and plenty of bass, there is no avoiding externally positioned speakers.
Performance
With 859 points in the Cinebench 15 Multi-CPU score, the Intel i7 7700 is significantly below the 1,420 points of the AMD Ryzen 7 1700 in the Inspiron 7775, which is a good 100 euros cheaper. Of course, the Cinebench 15 CPU test is not the measure of all things, but in the V-Ray CPU benchmark too, the Precision 5720’s i7 7700 at 2:24 minutes is significantly above the Ryzen CPU’s 1:38 (lower is better in V-Ray). This is not about performance differences of 10 or 20%, but more than 60%. The Radeon Pro WX7100 graphics card’s performance figures show large discrepancies between the good Cinebench OpenGL score of 138.11 frames per second and the poor V-Ray benchmark of 4:09 minutes, which could indicate that the card probably performs better in gaming than in content production.
The stress test with a synthetic CPU and GPU load in Aida 64 gave us an initial indication of the causes of the CPU and GPU’s weaker performance. After only a short time, the fans started up clearly audibly and made an honest effort to blow hot air out of the case. After just two minutes it became significantly louder, joined by unpleasant high-frequency fan noises. After only five minutes the fans had reached their highest setting and the CPU was throttled by up to 8% through thermal throttling. Interestingly, the quite comparable case of the Inspiron 5557 had no thermal-throttling problems at all. Apparently the power supply inside the case causes thermal problems – perhaps it would have been wiser to move the power supply outside the case as on the Inspiron 7775, giving the graphics card and CPU more room to breathe.
Instead, there is more fan noise and less performance. The 256 Mbyte SSD delivered convincing transfer rates, with read rates of 2,775 and write rates of 1,467 Mbytes per second, which are also sufficient for 4K video editing.
The latency figures were genuinely pleasingly low. At just 116 milliseconds for Interrupt to Process, the Precision 5720 delivered the best figure we have ever measured for a computer from a major manufacturer. The configuration of the fast-booting operating system also seems lean otherwise. A Dell Application Optimizer is pre-installed, although it appears to interfere only when requested and otherwise bothers nobody.
Conclusion
The Dell Precision 5720 is certainly not a bad all-in-one workstation. Optionally, CPU performance could be increased slightly with a Xeon processor – but that costs additional money and still stops at four cores. It makes you wonder whether it would not have made more sense to combine the Precision 5720’s Radeon Pro WX 7100 with the less expensive and considerably more powerful AMD Ryzen 7 CPU from the Dell Inspiron 7775. That would have produced a faster system in almost every respect for less money. If the power supply were then moved outside the case, as on the Inspiron, the CPU would probably not suffer thermal throttling. And then place the rear ports beside the stand, and the Precision would be a well-rounded package. As it is, the impression is that Dell has divided one really good, inexpensive AIO computer into two mediocre ones.