Dell Precision 5720 AIO review: Uncompromised computing performance and plenty of customizability

Design

The new Precision 5720 All-in-One PC looks so much identical to the Dell XPS 27 with six giant speaker grilles below a 27-inch 4K (3840x2160) screen. There are four more down facing speakers underneath the PC. All in all, the sound quality is great and the display looks bright and vibrant.

The display gives a beautiful picture but due to the glossy finish, it sometimes leads to some glare. What we honestly feel is that the PC should be more suitable in a casual environment like a home recording studio than in an office. The system is great for entertainment as well as immersive gaming.

The Dell Precision 5720 has the overall design of one of the nicer products Dell has produced.
The sides of the all-in-one are fairly narrow sporting the power button and USB port on one side and an SD card reader and audio jack on the other.

At the rear of the device, there is Dell branding and beneath the attachment lies the rest of the ports. Here there are two Thunderbolt 3 ports, one RJ-45 port, the power cable port, an audio out port, a HDMI port, a DisplayPort 1.2, and four USB ports. But during our frequent use, since the rear ports are hidden behind the stand arm, it was quite difficult to access the ports on the go. We wish that Dell had included the ports somewhere else for easy accessibility.

The PC is quite heavy and weighs in at 16.9 kg. It is portable but it is not quite easy to move it around frequently because of it heavy nature and the rubber feet under the display stand. Interestingly despite its weight, tilting the unit was very easy, and it could be done one-handed.

As for the display stand, it is exceptionally sturdy. The stand's hinges remained silent during any kind of operation and the hinges were also resistant to display wobble. Swivel adjustment can't be done but you can move the unit from side to side but this could be a challenging task again due to the sheer weight of the workstation.

Performance

Talking about the performance, we have taken our personal experience and subjective opinion with some benchmark charts based on the available and reproducible tests, most of which simulate real-world applications and games.

As for our experience with the system, Precision 5720 delivered a smooth and seamless performance.

With the configuration provided our review unit resulted in snappy startup and software applications were quick to open. Precision 5720 was also fast is carrying out different everyday tasks, like word processing and web browsing.

No initial lags but we did encounter some delay when we watched a 4K video and at the same time were working on Adobe Premier Pro software, editing some videos. Do note that this review unit was a used one. It did not come fresh out of the box. As for just video playback, 4K UHD files played quite smoothly.

As for gaming, on Precision 5720 performed quite well and we did not face any critical issues. The desktop is certainly capable of powering through today's titles but we don't recommend 4K gaming as the GPU performance of the Precision 5720 is limited for typical consumer gaming loads.

Coming to the Precision 5720's SSD, well we found that it has a write speed of a little less than 300MBps, but it reads quite fast at a pace of 500MBps.

As for the peripherals, the standard keyboard (not wireless) that came in the box looked simple and nothing fancy but it was responsive and offered great feedback.

Tests

In order to test the Dell Precision 5720, we put it through a series of benchmarks to demonstrate its performance when confronted with resource-intensive workloads and to examine the performance of its equipped AMD Radeon Pro WX 4150 w/4GB GDDR5 graphics card.

The tests that we carried out measured the performance of a system's specific components-especially the CPU or graphics card/subsystem and we have also taken a holistic approach, running several sub-tests and delivering a single score designed to give a general sense of how capable a system is compared to others.

However, it is worth saying that these tests even though they are reliable they don't paint the real picture of how well a system tackles various tasks, from office chores to high-end image or video editing, to running the latest game titles. It could depend from user to user.

Unigine Heaven Benchmark

The first test we carried out was using Unigine Heaven Benchmark which is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions.

Equipped with a 7th Gen Intel Core i5-7500 processor running at 3.8Ghz and AMD Radeon Pro WX 4150 w/4GB GDDR5 GPU the Precision 5720 is suprisingly the best-performing AIO we've tested so far. Its gaming performance seems to be at a high level than its competitors with frame rates easily conducive to smooth gaming at maximum quality settings on our Heaven benchmarks at 86 frames per second.

However, this excellent graphics benchmark results also means that the Precision 5720 could easily power a VR headset. The desktop does offer VR support. However, for playing games in 4K though, the Precision 5720 might not be a good choice.

GFXBench

GFXBench includes sustained performance test, iterating for 30 test runs to stress test the hardware and look at how performance changes over test runs. As such we tested desktop performance with advanced graphics effects and increased workloads and the results were quite good. Here are some of the scores that the Precision managed to get.

In the high-level tests with settings at maximum, Precision got a score of 5193.28 (87 FPS) in 1080p Car Chase test, in 1440p Manhattan 3.1.1 test it scored 3741 (60 FPS) and in 1080p T-Rex test it has got a score of 7286 (130 FPS). In low- level tests, Precision 5720 managed to score 2268 (75 FPS). As for special test which includes the Render Quality (high precision) test the workstation has managed to score 4501 (1129 FPS).

Thermals

One of the features we liked about Precision 5720 is its cooling feature. It is exceptionally quiet and we could barely hear the fans in a room even when there was no ambient noise. Under normal use, the fans weren't audible at all.

After back-to-back of running high-intensity applications, we observed that the CPU didn't heat that much and the temperature was max at 71 degrees centigrade. The AMD Radeon Pro WX 4150 graphics card peaked at just 45 degrees centigrade.

Verdict

After all the tests and our experience with Dell's Precision 5720 this AIO desktop is certainly a niche player for creative professionals, audiophiles, and gaming enthusiasts. The AIO is incredibly versatile, and perhaps even a good value because buyers are getting a 4K monitor and a good sound system in one workstation.

Further, the AIO desktop is quite attractive from a visual standpoint as well. This desktop would look really good in a business environment, in a modern-style home or in a recording studio. Apart from the sleek design, the Precision 5720 is a great choice for running basic office tasks or some creative tasks like using editing photos or videos. Besides the PC does deliver on what it promises-smooth performance.

Moreover, what we liked about this AIO is that there is a wide array of drive options on the Precision 5720. Dell is offering plenty of combinations for those who need speed, space, or both. Users can do a lot to upgrade their PCs. However, the only issue that we had with the Precision 5720 was the awkwardly placed ports and its pricey options.

All in all, Dell has paid great attention to details in developing this PC and it does help the 5720 win some extra points over some competing models such as HP's Z1 G3 or Dell OptiPlex 7450.