Dell has announced the new generation of its Precision workstations for customers in Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA). The Dell Precision 690 and the Dell Precision 490 workstations feature the latest dual-core Intel® Xeon® technology, a new, faster and more scalable memory architecture and the latest dual graphics. These combine to deliver performance gains over previous models of up to 45 percent1 on single-threaded applications and up to 155 percent2 on multithreaded applications.
“Customers want higher performance and memory capacity, particularly when running compute-intensive applications or dealing with extremely large or detailed images such as mechanical design and seismic data analysis,” said Eric Greffier, Director of Corporate Client Products, Dell EMEA. “We listened to our customers’ and our application software partners’ needs when we designed these new workstations. Our goal was to set a new standard for performance and scalability in an industry-standard professional workstation and we have done just that.”
The new memory architecture enables customers who work with large data sets to more easily manipulate and manage workloads and images. The new systems double the number of memory channels to four fully buffered dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs) and feature a unique, scalable advanced memory design – up to 16 DIMMs via an optional memory riser – for the largest memory configurations.
The graphics capabilities of the Dell Precision 690 and the Dell Precision 490 workstations have also been enhanced for the most demanding visualisation environments. The Dell Precision 690-1KW workstation features an optional dual-graphics riser card that combines two NVIDIA® SLI™ graphics cards for increased performance and visual quality.
Dell has also acted on customer feedback with new Dell Precision 690 and the Dell Precision 490 chassis designs. The 490 features a convertible chassis that can be deployed as a tower or desktop, depending on customer requirements. In addition, both chassis’ provide easier access to system components, improved front panel access and greater reliability.
Dell Precision 690 highlights:
• New dual-core Intel® Xeon® processors
• Up to five times more memory bandwidth over dual-channel memory with new, faster quad-channel memory
• Memory scalability up to 64GB3 with new DDR2 fully buffered ECC DIMMs
• Dual-graphics capabilities that support quad monitors or NVIDIA® SLI™ technology for enhanced graphics performance (available via an optional graphics riser card in a specially designed 1KW 690 chassis)
• New serial-attached SCSI (SAS) disk storage delivers up to 50 percent higher performance than SATA 10K
• Innovative chassis designed for increased reliability, ease of access and exceptional expandability with support for up to five disk drives
Dell Precision 490 highlights:
• New dual-core Intel® Xeon® processors
• New memory architecture increases bandwidth by 500 percent. Up to 32GB3 quad-channel DDR2 fully buffered DIMM ECC memory
• New SAS hard disk storage delivers up to 50 percent higher performance than SATA 10K
• Innovative, compact dual-orientation chassis for flexibility and six slots for expandability
Pricing and Availability
The Dell Precision 690 and the Dell Precision 490, certified on some of the workstation industry’s most demanding CAD, CAE, DCC, GIS and other applications, are available today worldwide. Prices for the Dell Precision 490 start at USD$1475. The Dell Precision 690 is priced from USD$1680. For more information, visit www.dell.com/me.
1 Up to 45% performance gain in single threaded benchmarks (Woodcrest): Based on the SPEC CPU2000 (integer-speed base) benchmark test performed by Dell Labs in January 2006 on the Dell Precision 690 with two Intel Xeon 5150 2.66GHz processors with dual-core, 4MB L2 cache and 1333MHz FSB (No HT available), 8GB DDR2 533 ECC FBD memory, 160GB SATA 7200RPM HDD, Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2 as compared to the Dell Precision 670 with two Intel Xeon 3.8GHz processors with 2x 2MB L2 cache & 800MHz FSB (HT off), 2GB DDR2 ECC memory, 160GB SATA 7200RPM HDD, Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2. Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability
2 Up to 155% performance gain in multi-threaded benchmarks (Woodcrest): Based on the SPEC CPU2000 (integer-rate base) benchmark test performed by Dell Labs in January 2006 on the Dell Precision 690 with two Intel Xeon 5150 2.66GHz processors with dual-core, 4MB L2 cache and 1333MHz FSB (No HT available), 8GB DDR2 533 ECC FBD memory, 160GB SATA 7200RPM HDD, Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2 as compared to the Dell Precision 670 with two Intel Xeon 3.8GHz processors with 2x 2MB L2 cache and 800MHz FSB (HT off), 2GB DDR2 ECC memory, 160GB SATA 7200RPM HDD, Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2. Actual performance will vary based on configuration, usage and manufacturing variability
3 For hard drives, GB means 1 billion bytes; total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment.
About Dell
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services they trust and value. Uniquely enabled by its direct business model, Dell sells more systems globally than any computer company, placing it No. 25 on the Fortune 500. Company revenue for the last four quarters was $56 billion. For more information, visit www.dell.com. To get Dell news direct, visit www.dell.com/RSS.
