Hi all,
New here. Looking at buying a used Dell Precision 7560 for around $1000. Comes with 64GB ram and an RTX a5000 with 16GB VRAM. Is this a good deal?
Will be using it to learn machine learning on imagery as well as wanted to play around with a local LLM.
I thought about an ITX build but am currently moving around alot and need something mobile. Could do tailscale but don’t really have a one place where I could keep it for a long time. Also not sure how it goes with taking an itx build as carry on.
I do have conerns with Dell laptop thermal management for heavy lifting like that (I’ve got one without dGPU and it gets decently hot) - too bad you can’t throw the ITX build in the corner at the office or something where you can remote in.
an a5000 should be quite suitable if you’re playing around with ML and LLMs, especially for $1000 thats a pretty great deal. 16GB of vram would be your only issue, however you can manage at least partial GPU offload and use the 64gb of system ram for overflow. It should be a pretty nice setup afaik.
I’ve really been considering an ITX build made up of used parts, but my main thing is having to take it on a plane and some places (like where I’m at now), don’t always have reliable internet.
Have you or anyone ever taken a desktop on a flight? Especially an overseas flight.
Thanks for your advice. I was thinking maybe I could find anothe pair of 64 GB (2x32) of the same make/timing on ebay and have 128GB. Wasn’t sure how much of a hit performance would take using the system ram.
Also that concerns me a bit that yours get’s hot without a dGPU. Do you know what temps? I’m currenlty using a Latitutde 5521 which has horrible thermals - HWINFO often reports thermal throttling, very easy for it to hit 100C - not sure if that is just mine or most Latitudes - this one has an i7-11850H - the Precision I’m looking at has the i9-11950H - they are basically the same except for I think .3 more MHz for the i9.
Another question - what are folks thoughts on the 11th gen Intel (i9-11950H specifically - 8C 16T) when compared to new Ryzen/Intel mobile chips? Is it far behind?
I don’t track it very closely, but it definitely throttles. The only times I throw much load at it are when I’m compiling something, though - I offload any LLMs, games, or other heavy stuff to a desktop, so for my workload it keeps cool mostly.
I think for the price, though, it’ll be as good as you’re gonna get. It won’t rip through a huge model like a desktop would, what with the 16gb vram and thermal throttling, but I don’t think there’s any laptop that would - you’re not leaving all that much performance on the table and could easily spend far, far more chasing performance…
Just my 2 cents. My work laptop has 13700H with an A1000, versus my supposedly dog-slow i7-1185G7 with integrated Iris XE, and performance is not much different in real-world use. Probably because thermals.
Thanks very much skunkfunk, I really appreciate your input. I think I will go for it, with the aim of building a desktop in the next 2 years when I’m not moving around as much.
As someone still using his trusty old Precision M6700 (an i7-3770 ) one of the things I noticed (even on the more modern laptops - Like the one I bought my Dad a 5520 - i7 7th gen) is that they all have thermals.
From what I can find, the sensor is too close to the gpu. So if you can tweak the fan curve…
Avoid 11th gen H series if the OEM kept the Xe IGP enabled(common on most corp as it supports their 3 display docks), thermals are designed for 80% dGPU and 50% CPU and the IGP kicks up thermal usage by 10%
The gap of of Intel 12-14th P vs H series is minimal as most H series are just as thin and use the same heatsink so Turbo burst of an H is just as short as the P series.
Ryzen 7 5800 U/H has similar results but every OEM locks the external display of the dGPU to HDMI so USB-C docks are IGP. Take a look at your local Best Buy openbox options, a Ryzen 7 and RTX 4070 can be found for under 850-950 depending upon the markdown process(changes every 7-14 days)
) one of the things I noticed (even on the more modern laptops - Like the one I bought my Dad a 5520 - i7 7th gen) is that they all have 
thermals.