Dell Precision 16" 5690 Review

Let's talk about the Dell Precision 5690. This is a mobile workstation, which means it's built for serious creative and technical work, not just browsing the web. It's packing an Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU, 32GB of RAM, and a professional-grade NVIDIA RTX A1000 GPU. That combo is aimed squarely at engineers, architects, and 3D artists who need certified drivers for their software.

But here's the interesting part. The specs sheet looks solid, but the percentile rankings tell a different story. The CPU lands in the 1st percentile, which is a huge red flag. That means, compared to other mobile workstations and high-performance laptops, its processor is at the very bottom of the pack. That's a tough starting point for a machine that's supposed to handle heavy workloads.

So who is this for, really? If you're in an organization that gets a massive discount on Dell hardware and your workflow is 100% dependent on that RTX A1000's ISV certification, it might be a consideration. For everyone else shopping with their own money, there are some immediate questions we need to address.

The performance story is a mixed bag, and it's mostly defined by that CPU. An Intel Core Ultra 7 165H in the 1st percentile means it's being outperformed by nearly every other professional laptop chip out there. For daily tasks, it'll be fine. But the moment you throw a CPU-intensive workload at it—like compiling code, running complex simulations, or rendering a detailed timeline—you'll feel that bottleneck. It's the weak link in an otherwise decent chain.

The GPU is better, sitting in the 70th percentile. The RTX A1000 with 8GB of VRAM is a capable professional card. It'll handle viewport performance in CAD applications like SolidWorks or AutoCAD smoothly, and it's good for GPU-accelerated tasks in applications like Blender or DaVinci Resolve. The 32GB of RAM is also a strong point (70th percentile), giving you plenty of headroom for large projects. Just don't expect the CPU to keep up if the work shifts to its cores.

At a listed price of $1600, the value proposition is really hard to justify. You're paying a premium for the 'Precision' branding and the professional GPU, but you're getting a bottom-tier CPU and middling scores for the screen, storage, and port selection. The reliability score is also alarmingly low at the 27th percentile, which is a major concern for a workstation meant for critical work.

When you look at the market, $1600 can get you a much more balanced and powerful machine from competitors, even in the creator or gaming spaces that often share similar hardware. You're essentially spending a lot of money for one specific component (the GPU) while compromising on almost everything else, including the core component that drives overall system responsiveness.

Look at the Apple MacBook Pro with an M4 Max. For a similar price, you get insane CPU performance, incredible battery life, and a stunning display. The trade-off is macOS and a lack of that specific NVIDIA professional driver certification. If your software runs on Apple Silicon, it's not even a contest.

Then there's the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i. It's a gaming laptop, but it often houses high-wattage versions of consumer RTX GPUs that outperform the A1000, paired with much faster CPUs. You lose the professional driver validation, but you gain raw power and often better screens for the same money. The ASUS Zenbook Duo offers a completely different, dual-screen productivity angle. The MSI and Gigabyte competitors are pure powerhouses focused on gaming and content creation. Against all of them, the Precision 5690's crippling CPU and questionable reliability make it a tough sell.

I can only recommend the Dell Precision 5690 in one very specific scenario: you are a professional whose livelihood depends on software that requires an ISV-certified NVIDIA RTX A1000 or similar professional GPU, and you are acquiring this through a corporate IT department with a steep Dell discount. The certified drivers are the only compelling reason to choose this.

For any other use case—general content creation, engineering work that isn't locked to those drivers, or as a personal purchase—it's an easy pass. The severely underpowered CPU, low reliability ranking, and high price tag make it a poor choice. Your $1600 is much better spent on a MacBook Pro for sheer performance and battery life, or a high-end gaming/creator laptop from Lenovo, ASUS, or MSI for better all-around specs.