Need help choosing between nMP or Dell Precision T3610

[LongSticks]

Mr.Shaw, you have made a strong case. Just ordered the DELL precision T3160 with E5-1620 v2

I need hyperthreading and a quadro video card. Have some programs that do severe number crunching that also uses the GPU for calculations. Parellel programming at its best!

Hope this machine will help.

Now I cant afford to have my iMac anymore. It was great. But, now it goes for sale!

Can you post your spec and cost. I'm in the same dilemma with Autodesk products I have to use in windows. Need the additional power now as the software is out pacing my old iMac in Bootcamp.

 

[AidenShaw]

Can you post your spec and cost. I'm in the same dilemma with Autodesk products I have to use in windows. Need the additional power now as the software is out pacing my old iMac in Bootcamp.

I just bought a Dell Precision Workstation T3610 for $2244.73. Ordered 27 March, delivered 7 April. (Same config is $2147 online today - see attachment)

Same 6 core "Xeon workstation/server class CPU, error checking & correcting (ECC) RAM (good for long calculations)" E5-1650v2 3.5 GHz CPU and 1866 RAM as the $3999 new Mac Pro.

Has a 1 GiB Quadro GPU - I don't need dual GPUs, and the GPGPU stuff that I do use is CUDA-based. Didn't inflate the price with (for me) nearly useless mid-range ATI GPUs.

Has 8 GiB of 1866 ECC RDIMM (2*4GiB) and 8 DIMM slots. Ordered another 72 GiB from Newegg (4*16GiB + 2*4GiB) from Newegg, so will start with 80 GiB. Will upgrade to a supported 128 GiB config when needed.

Has 685watt power supply.

Has two PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (one used by the Quadro), one PCIe 3.0 x8 (physical x16) slot, one PCIe 2.0 x4 slot, one PCIe 2.0 x1 slot and a PCI slot.

Has a DVD-RW and BD-RE drive.

 

[krravi]

Can you post your spec and cost. I'm in the same dilemma with Autodesk products I have to use in windows. Need the additional power now as the software is out pacing my old iMac in Bootcamp.

I wanted hyperthreading and quatro video card and also had a budget to mind. This is just my home PC and am not using this professionally. I needed the power and reliability and yet not cost too much.
So between liquid cooled LED's galore monster gaming PC's and DELL, I chose the DELL as I am not a gamer and the aesthetics of gaming PC's leaves much to be desired. Plus, this DELL has impeccable build quality, reliability and expandability. Most of the gaming PC's shortchange you with micro ATX motherboards that leaves no room for expansion inspite of the huge case and lights and fans bonanza that they project outside.

So here it is

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H59ONS4/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

----------

I've had a new Dell T3610 for about 7 weeks now. It's a great machine, quiet, and lots of expandability. I got the E5-1650v2 (same hex that Apple sells), DVD-RW and BD-RE. I put two 4 TB Seagate SSHDs in the drive bays, and a pair of Samsung 840 Pros in a plastic "two SSD in one 3.5in slot" carrier velcroed in the space between the SSHDs and the optical. (The mobo has 6 internal SATA ports.)

Two RocketRaid 644LS cards give me up to 40 eSATA drives in inexpensive PM cabinets.

I got the 8 GiB (2*4GiB) 1866 MHz ECC memory from Dell, then got two more 4 GiB plus four 16 GiB for a total of 80 GiB. (I could have done 4 GiB non-ECC from Dell, and thrown the 4 GiB away - but it was slightly cheaper to get 8 GiB from Dell that I could keep.) Really nice that the T3610 has eight DIMM slots for up to 256 GiB of RAM (although the stats still say 128 GiB max - until the 32 GiB DIMMs get qualified).

Only hassle with the machine is that *all* of the Ivy Bridge E5-v2 Xeons have a bug in EPT virtualization - you need to disable it or your VMs will crash with various memory management errors. (It's Erratum CA135 - see http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/mi...TypeID=DT_KB_1_1&dialogID=258860268&stateId=1)

But you have to wonder why DELL had all those SATA ports and left a big gaping hole between the CD drive at the top to the hard drive bays at the bottom. Maybe air circulation? But just two drive bays? They dropped the ball on the design here.

Regarding the EPT bug, its only if you run a 32 bit guest OS. No issues in 64 bit OS. Plus, DELL seems to have given a BIOS update that resolved that issue.

 

[MacProCard]

I'm a fan of the new Mac Pro, but I really curiously as to why you think it's in a class by itself. I use HP and Boxx workstations pretty regularly and they're both solid. If it's an operating system argument, then I that might make more sense. But if you're talking about hardware alone, why do you think it's so much better?

My AMD HD7970 card alone is almost the same size as the nMP. You don't find that impressive from a hardware position? You sir, are tough to please.

 

[handsome pete]

My AMD HD7970 card alone is almost the same size as the nMP. You don't find that impressive from a hardware position? You sir, are tough to please.

Of course it's impressive, but at what cost? Ask most workstation users what they'd prefer (standard pcie slots or proprietary cards) and I'm guessing most would go with the larger and more accessible tower. And of course you get the bonus of internal drive bays. I've already said I like the new mac pro a lot, but the reduction in size does nothing for me when comparing it to other workstations.

 

[MacProCard]

Of course it's impressive, but at what cost? Ask most workstation users what they'd prefer (standard pcie slots or proprietary cards) and I'm guessing most would go with the larger and more accessible tower. And of course you get the bonus of internal drive bays. I've already said I like the new mac pro a lot, but the reduction in size does nothing for me when comparing it to other workstations.

Fair enough. You always expect reluctance to change though. Being a veteran of the pc game for almost 20 yrs. I can appreciate the refreshing change or injection into the system. TB2 has removed the dependency for internal hookups as well. I find that stuff super cool.

 

[AidenShaw]

Plus, this DELL has impeccable build quality, reliability and expandability.

+1. Very solid, tool-less maintenance (even the power supply can be replaced without tools).

And quiet - the only time I hear it is when it's spinning an optical disk.

But you have to wonder why DELL had all those SATA ports and left a big gaping hole between the CD drive at the top to the hard drive bays at the bottom. Maybe air circulation? But just two drive bays? They dropped the ball on the design here.

The Dell BTO configs with 4 HDDs put the two extra disks in the 5.25" optical bay.

Since I have a BD-RE Blu-Ray writer in that bay, I put a pair of 512 GB Samsung 840 Pros in one of those $5 'two 2.5" disks in one 3.5" bay' thingies and Velcro'd it to the cover over the power supply cables, and connected the disks to the two free mobo SATA connections.

Dell didn't really "drop the ball" - the T5610 and T7610 have more internal slots for disks. Surely everyone on an Apple forum understands "upsell" 😉 .

Regarding the EPT bug, its only if you run a 32 bit guest OS. No issues in 64 bit OS.

I have a dozen crash dumps with Win7 x64 guests that say that this statement is wrong.

They're not frequent, but under load I'd get one or two guest BSODs a day (guest with 48 GiB and using it all). Light loads and small guests, not a problem. No guest crashes since I followed VMware's suggestion to disable EPT.

Plus, DELL seems to have given a BIOS update that resolved that issue.

I'm running BIOS A06. I see that A07 came out a couple of weeks ago. The change log doesn't mention an EPT fix, though.

 

[AidenShaw]

Mr. Shaw was never a friend of the new Mac Pro and I often asked myself if he participates regularly in this sub forum just to convince people how bad it is, while in a Forum for PCs he would have little to add to the opinions of others.

I'm here to help correct bad information and bad advice. There are many posts that are simply wrong about x64 hardware, and Apple OSX, and Windows.

If you want to bring up ad hominem attacks - go ahead. I'm not listening to that nonsense.

There are many brands and models available for sale but the new Mac Pro is a class by itself IMHO and Apple is committed to quality AFAIK.

Yes, there's only one class of "completely proprietary hardware and software Xeon systems" - and that's the new Mac Pro. Yes, it's in a class by itself.

There are lots of systems with similar to better performance available. Open your eyes.

 

[krravi]

+1. Very solid, tool-less maintenance (even the power supply can be replaced without tools).

And quiet - the only time I hear it is when it's spinning an optical disk.




The Dell BTO configs with 4 HDDs put the two extra disks in the 5.25" optical bay.

Since I have a BD-RE Blu-Ray writer in that bay, I put a pair of 512 GB Samsung 840 Pros in one of those $5 'two 2.5" disks in one 3.5" bay' thingies and Velcro'd it to the cover over the power supply cables, and connected the disks to the two free mobo SATA connections.

Dell didn't really "drop the ball" - the T5610 and T7610 have more internal slots for disks. Surely everyone on an Apple forum understands "upsell" 😉 .




I have a dozen crash dumps with Win7 x64 guests that say that this statement is wrong.

They're not frequent, but under load I'd get one or two guest BSODs a day (guest with 48 GiB and using it all). Light loads and small guests, not a problem. No guest crashes since I followed VMware's suggestion to disable EPT.

I'm running BIOS A06. I see that A07 came out a couple of weeks ago. The change log doesn't mention an EPT fix, though.

Okay maybe you should give the new BIOS a try? I got it from this article,

http://itnervecenter.com/content/windows-bugchecks-vmware-esxi-xeon-e5-2670-cpus

Regarding the bays, to have a pair of extra bays made of recycled metal means upgrading to a very higher model?

I blame the car salesmen for such tactics!

 

[pragmatous]

I don't understand the debate here. Ignore the fanboys including myself. I love the mac pro and I would never buy a dell. I'd rather build it together myself than buy a Dell. But that's me. I want the Mac Pro myself but I don't have any software that requires a PC.

Just don't listen to me or them. Look up your software requirements and what's supported. Call the software vendor too they offer support with it. That's why you pay 5k dollars for it.

Keep in mind though that the next gen workstations and servers are around the corner. HP gen9's are coming out and available to buy in September. Dell is probably around the same time.

Haswell-ep is a new architecture so they'll be new case designs, new technology, and so on coming up.

I'd wait if you can. Now is a really bad time to buy, upgrade, anything computer workstation/server and mac.

edit:

With the exception of the macbook pro there's no reason to wait for that just buy it. Same for regular PC's.

Hi guys, I'm having a hard time choosing between the nMP (Hex 16Gbs SSD512 Dual D700) and Dell precision T3610 (Hex 16Gbs SSD256 Dual Quadro K5000).
My work involves 3D modeling, animation, particles effects, product and architecture visualization. My main workflow includes 3Ds Max, Maya, Vray and Vray RT which is crucial cuz real time preview really speeds up my workflow. I don't require the level of accuracy like CAD design but I need a machine to handle large scene and lots of particles effects.
I've never used Mac or AMD firepros before, researches on the internet show mixed results. Some say the nMP is designed towards video/post processing work and is not really a 3D workstation because Firepro and OpenCL is not as good and widely used as Nvidia and CUDA. The nMP is an amazing machine of great value but if this is true then I wouldn't mind spending a few more on the Dell.
So what is your opinion on this? Thank you guys for your time 🙂

 

[handsome pete]

I

Haswell-ep is a new architecture so they'll be new case designs

What makes you think that?

 

[Riwam]

I'm here to help correct bad information and bad advice. There are many posts that are simply wrong about x64 hardware, and Apple OSX, and Windows.

If you want to bring up ad hominem attacks - go ahead. I'm not listening to that.

...........................
My Dear Mr AidenShaw.
It is not the first time.
When you get short of arguments you bring your greatly Feared, well known "ad hominem" Malediction upon those wretched people who do not agree with you,as people in Duvalier's "Papa Doc"'s Haiti used Voodoo to kill someone they did not like.
I am convinced that your posts in the MacPro Forum about a computer you clearly hate, (besides your never ever (!) ending publicity for the Great American Hero who saved US democracy running to the arms of such Great World unique Democrats as Vladimir Putin, so loved by Russia's neighbors like Ukraine, or Poland) is your never ending quest of finding reasons and arguments and comparisons and whatever... against the nMP and this at any price and without an end in sight!
When you take a brake in your attacks against the nMP, (which does not happen very often), and somebody dares to disagree entirely with you, you cast a Terrible "ad hominem" Curse on him which will no doubt disintegrate him immediately. I am already shaking of Terror!
I wonder if I promise to buy two hundred copies of Ellsberg's Masterpiece you always advertise, and swear publicly that the nMP is the biggest s***t ever created by human beings! you might be finally satisfied, my Dear "ad hominem" Witch Doctor 😱

 

[AidenShaw]

Okay maybe you should give the new BIOS a try? I got it from this article,

http://itnervecenter.com/content/windows-bugchecks-vmware-esxi-xeon-e5-2670-cpus

That BIOS is for a Dell PowerEdge R720 Server, not for a T3610. It also clearly states in the change log that it addresses the EPT issue.

Thanks for the link, though. I'll raise a support call with Dell and ask when the EPT problem referenced by that update will be fixed on the T3610.

For anyone who cares, the actual Dell link is http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/nasd/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=763C0 .

----------

What makes you think that?

Dell T3600 - E5-x6xx

Dell T3610 - E5-x6xx v2

 

[krravi]

That BIOS is for a Dell PowerEdge R720 Server, not for a T3610. It also clearly states in the change log that it addresses the EPT issue.

Thanks for the link, though. I'll raise a support call with Dell and ask when the EPT problem referenced by that update will be fixed on the T3610.

For anyone who cares, the actual Dell link is http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/nasd/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=763C0 .

----------



Dell T3600 - E5-x6xx

Dell T3610 - E5-x6xx v2

I looked at a picture of the innards of this beast and was blown away by the heat sink. Silly you think? Look at the radiator fins ... what a finish! Looks like a part from a spacecraft!

 

[krravi]

I am no tech great expert.
However many people who know much more than I will ever learn say that
1) building a similar powerful computer with those specs would need a huge ugly enclosure.
2) similar components would cost much more if bought separately

I might be wrong but love and admire my nMP more than any of the different computers I previously had.
You are free not to agree. 🙂

P.S. I believe that the idea of gathering all the unavoidable heath generated by the different components into one single hollow room, allowing in this way to suck the warm air by a single, large, and therefore quiet moving fan (the only moving part in the whole computer) seems such an obvious solution for the heath disposal problem in any computer, that it should had been adopted long ago.
Instead, manufacturers just added whenever needed a further fan to those already present.
(This includes the previous generations of Mac Pro as well, the 2010-2012 had 8 fans!)
Even my weakest netbook makes therefore much more (fan) noise than a nMP.
So much so that at the end I became used to the noise of any computer or notebook and did not realize it could be different. Fan noise became thus "normal". Human beings are known to get used to permanent working sensorial phenomena to the point they finally are no longer aware of them.
Once I heard that our ears ignore from early childhood molecular generated noise which otherwise would make us mad. (I don't know if it is true, am no expert in that field either).

However to "hear" once my nMP I had to stress it with a Benchmark.
Otherwise only the small lamp tells me if it is on or off.
That is in my opinion reasonable computer design and for the moment I am not aware of any other manufacturer disposing of heath in such a straightforward, simple and ingenious way.
And heath is the factor limiting CPU and GPU speed and performance AFAIK and not a minor inconvenience.
Well, that's my opinion for what it might be worth...or not.

I don't know. Sealed maintenance free liquid cooling systems are gaining mainstream now. They are efficient and liquid coolants have 25 times the specific heat capacity of air.

So going bonkers on designing a heat sink like a pyramid, sticking the motherboard, video card and memory on each of the three sides and leaving the rest and encasing it in a cylinder is more of a fashion and design statement than functionality. Does it look cool? yes. Would I want one? No. Give me a computer with bays and not having to go through iFixit and other websites just to figure out how to remove the motherboard just so you can add a hard disk or an SSD.

 

[Riwam]

I don't know. Sealed maintenance free liquid cooling systems are gaining mainstream now. They are efficient and liquid coolants have 25 times the specific heat capacity of air.

So going bonkers on designing a heat sink like a pyramid, sticking the motherboard, video card and memory on each of the three sides and leaving the rest and encasing it in a cylinder is more of a fashion and design statement than functionality. Does it look cool? yes. Would I want one? No. Give me a computer with bays and not having to go through iFixit and other websites just to figure out how to remove the motherboard just so you can add a hard disk or an SSD.

If I remember right the G5 had already almost 10 years ago liquid cooling for the huge IBM PPC processors. Apple had at that time no other way to deal with the enormous generated heath of those monster processors.
By now I still believe that simple disposal of heath by a central air tunnel and a single silent fan is preferable.
As to iFixIt instructions, I have presently neither need nor will to put my nMP to pieces. It performs nicely as it is and hope it continues to do it.
While I might possibly be able to open it entirely, I am much less confident I could bring all pieces together and have it work again.
This computer is too expensive for my rather limited budget to bring me to take any adventurous risks, so I only opened the external enclosure once and that was to insert the RAM I had bought by myself.
I do not think its straightforward heath disposal is a temporary fashion trick but a simple and effective technique which in time will probably be used by other manufacturers as well simply to save money, parts and labour costs.
I am no prophet so time will tell. 🙂

 

[krravi]

If I remember right the G5 had already almost 10 years ago liquid cooling for the huge IBM PPC processors. Apple had at that time no other way to deal with the enormous generated heath of those monster processors.
By now I still believe that simple disposal of heath by a central air tunnel and a single silent fan is preferable.
As to iFixIt instructions, I have presently neither need nor will to put my nMP to pieces. It performs nicely as it is and hope it continues to do it.
While I might possibly be able to open it entirely, I am much less confident I could bring all pieces together and have it work again.
This computer is too expensive for my rather limited budget to bring me to take any adventurous risks, so I only opened the external enclosure once and that was to insert the RAM I had bought by myself.
I do not think its straightforward heath disposal is a temporary fashion trick but a simple and effective technique which in time will probably be used by other manufacturers as well simply to save money, parts and labour costs.
I am no prophet so time will tell. 🙂

Okay maybe your MacPro is fast enough and doesnt need an upgrade. I was probably refering to my situation where I have an 2011 iMac and the hard disk is making lot of noises.

Now guess what? Removing that LCD display and pretty much dissasembling the whole computer is needed to get to the computer. And when I do? I cant just buy any hard disk from the market and replace it. Its a special hard disk that has a temp sensor connectors! So if you replace the hard disk from the market, your fans will be constantly spinning at high speed.

What a pain!

 

[iBug2]

...........................
My Dear Mr AidenShaw.
It is not the first time.
When you get short of arguments you bring your greatly Feared, well known "ad hominem" Malediction upon those wretched people who do not agree with you,as people in Duvalier's "Papa Doc"'s Haiti used Voodoo to kill someone they did not like.
I am convinced that your posts in the MacPro Forum about a computer you clearly hate, (besides your never ever (!) ending publicity for the Great American Hero who saved US democracy running to the arms of such Great World unique Democrats as Vladimir Putin, so loved by Russia's neighbors like Ukraine, or Poland) is your never ending quest of finding reasons and arguments and comparisons and whatever... against the nMP and this at any price and without an end in sight!
When you take a brake in your attacks against the nMP, (which does not happen very often), and somebody dares to disagree entirely with you, you cast a Terrible "ad hominem" Curse on him which will no doubt disintegrate him immediately. I am already shaking of Terror!
I wonder if I promise to buy two hundred copies of Ellsberg's Masterpiece you always advertise, and swear publicly that the nMP is the biggest s***t ever created by human beings! you might be finally satisfied, my Dear "ad hominem" Witch Doctor 😱

Don't waste your breath, I remember one time he actually questioned me about my presence in the Louvre Apple Store in Paris. He knows about hardware because that's his job but other than that I've learned to just focus on the information he shares and disregard all the rest, like his opinions.

 

[SeattleMoose]

Don't waste your breath, I remember one time he actually questioned me about my presence in the Louvre Apple Store in Paris. He knows about hardware because that's his job but other than that I've learned to just focus on the information he shares and disregard all the rest, like his opinions.

LOL...couldn't agree more. Could never figure out why someone who hates Apple/Mac so much, hangs out here FOR YEARS just waiting for a chance to pump everything Windows (maybe paid by MS?) and bash everything Apple. He appears very bright and HW savvy so I hope hanging out on "enemy forums" and throwing darts is not his whole life. If so, what a waste... 😎

 

[pragmatous]

Because I have insider knowledge.

What makes you think that?

 

[udflyer]

1st - As many others have pointed out, make sure your SW runs on both otherwise no decision.
2nd - I did the same thing 5 years ago. I bought the Dell Precision T3500 and the machine still absolutely flies......

I work on PC's all day and develop for Mac as a hobby, so I have no allegiance to either camp.

So this time around I just bought the Mac Pro over T3610 and here is what

- I do like Mac OS X better. Quicker to rebuild system, Windows clean install then wait hour for patches to catch up with 7 reboots..hate it.
- I hate Win8.1. Just do not like on they evolved with multiple editions, std, Pro...Mac's just have 1
- I like the Mac App Store sandbox model. Plus if you have multiple macs you get the SW for all of them same costs, licensing managed...I like it.
- Over time my Dell seems to be just a little off as new windows versions come out. Sleep mode not as consistent etc......
- Dells really seem made for the exact OS they ship with IMO


I also like the design of the Mac Pro and it is not a tank in my room.

Anyway, good luck, just some random thoughts YMMV.
Both machines will scream.

 

[Riwam]

LOL...couldn't agree more. Could never figure out why someone who hates Apple/Mac so much, hangs out here FOR YEARS just waiting for a chance to pump everything Windows (maybe paid by MS?) and bash everything Apple. He appears very bright and HW savvy so I hope hanging out on "enemy forums" and throwing darts is not his whole life. If so, what a waste... 😎

Thank you very much for your kind words.🙂
Sometimes it's discouraging to see someone moving around regularly in any forum dedicated to something...just to try to prove it's worthless and those having bought it full idiots...
I thank you heartily SeattleMoose!
There are still (thanks God!) nice and friendly people in this sad world.
You are one...

----------

Don't waste your breath, I remember one time he actually questioned me about my presence in the Louvre Apple Store in Paris. He knows about hardware because that's his job but other than that I've learned to just focus on the information he shares and disregard all the rest, like his opinions.

Dear iBug2
I thank you for your encouraging words.
It's good to find people like you. 🙂
You belong to those few which make life worth living in a world not being the kind of place we would like it to be...
Good to have you in this Forum.
Thanks! I appreciate your words very much, truly do.
Ed

 

[krravi]

+1. Very solid, tool-less maintenance (even the power supply can be replaced without tools).

And quiet - the only time I hear it is when it's spinning an optical disk.




The Dell BTO configs with 4 HDDs put the two extra disks in the 5.25" optical bay.

Since I have a BD-RE Blu-Ray writer in that bay, I put a pair of 512 GB Samsung 840 Pros in one of those $5 'two 2.5" disks in one 3.5" bay' thingies and Velcro'd it to the cover over the power supply cables, and connected the disks to the two free mobo SATA connections.

Dell didn't really "drop the ball" - the T5610 and T7610 have more internal slots for disks. Surely everyone on an Apple forum understands "upsell" 😉 .




I have a dozen crash dumps with Win7 x64 guests that say that this statement is wrong.

They're not frequent, but under load I'd get one or two guest BSODs a day (guest with 48 GiB and using it all). Light loads and small guests, not a problem. No guest crashes since I followed VMware's suggestion to disable EPT.




I'm running BIOS A06. I see that A07 came out a couple of weeks ago. The change log doesn't mention an EPT fix, though.

Just wanted to give an update.

Received my DELL and am very happy with it. Windows 8.1 has been working great so far. Loving their storage spaces.

Going to upgrade to a 1 TB hard disk today as I only got 500 GB.

I am trying hard to stress test this beast and it never as much as makes a whisper. Running quite like its not even turned on.

Fantastic!

 

[EvilMonk]

Whats this website name? 😛
For sure you wont get the same answers as www.UnbiasedRumors.com 😛