Hey IT Guys - Another computer question

ihpartsjeff

ihpartsjeff

Administrator & Owner
Staff member
So I am about ready to purchase another dell computer. It is intended to be my main office computer and needs to be able to network to other computers(my existing one for now). Here is what I have picked out. It's spendy! Do I really need all this?? Your opinions are requested.

Dell precision t1500 base for intel h57 chipset
operating system genuine windows® 7 ultimate, no media, 32-bit, english
processor quad core processor core i5-750,2.66ghz,8mb
memory 3gb, ddr3 non-ecc sdram memory,1333mhz, 1x2gb/1x1gb
keyboard dell multimedia pro keyboard, with palmrest
monitor dell professional p2210 22in has wide monitor, vga/ dvi/ dp
graphics 512mb nvidia® quadro® fx 580, dual mon, 2 dp & 1 dvi
boot hard drive 500gb sata 3.0gb/s,7200 rpm hard drive with 16mb databurst cache™
hard drive configuration c1 all sata hard drives ,non- raid for 1 hard drive
media card reader dell 19-in-1 media card reader
mouse dell ms111 usb optical mouse
network adapter intergrated pcie 10/100/1000
1394 controller 1394 card
dvd and read-write devices 16x dvd+/-rw w/ cyberlink powerdvd™/roxio creator™, no media
sound card integrated 5.1 channel audio
speakers dell ax510 sound bar for all ultrasharp flat panel displays
documentation documentation, english, with 125v power cord
productivity software microsoft® office starter 2010
2nd hard drive 500gb sata 3.0gb/s,7200 rpm hard drive with 16mb databurst cache™
display ports displayport to vga adapter
resource dvd no resource media
hardware support services 3 year prosupport for end users and 3 year nbd on-site service
installation services no onsite system setup
complete care 3 year completecare accidental damage protection
quick reference guide quick reference guide, english
shipping packaging options shipping material for system
warranty extension notice warranty extension notice – ensure coverage with notification when your warranty is about to expire
software for your dell
quickbooks pro 2010 - 3-user qty 1
dell part# a3111871 unit price $399.99
manufacturer part# 410971
dell part# a3111871
total: $2,299.99
 
If you're going to go dell get a small department server instead of a flashy desktop. I'll post a sample up here in a moment:

here's my version of your t1500, more ram, raid 1, less video, no firewire, use openoffice instead of overpriced ms, . This will do more as fast as the other config and will handle complete hard drive failure.

Dell precision t1500 base for intel h57 chipset
genuine windows® 7 professional, no media, 64-bit, english
quad core processor core i5-750,2.66ghz,8mb
3 year basic limited warranty and 3 year nbd on-site service
4gb, ddr3 non-ecc sdram memory,1333mhz, 2x2gb
256mb nvidia® quadro® fx 380, dual mon, 2 dp & 1 dvi
no 1394
c7 all sata hard drives, raid 1 for 2 hard drives
320gb sata 3.0gb/s,7200 rpm hard drive with 16mb databurst cache™
320gb sata 3.0gb/s,7200 rpm hard drive with 16mb databurst cache™
16x dvd+/-rw w/ cyberlink powerdvd™/roxio creator™, no media
dell professional p2210 22in has wide monitor, vga/ dvi/ dp
dell 19-in-1 media card reader
recovery media for genuine windows® 7 professional,64bit,multiple language
my accessories
quickbooks pro 2010 - 3-user
integrated 5.1 channel audio
no speaker option
dell quietkey keyboard
dell ms111 usb optical mouse



total: $1,815.99
 
Last edited:
Jeff, the new one is going in your office.

Are you going to be doing cad drawings?
I could build a machine for less than that first one you posted, using the same or better equipment.

Even if you are doing cad drawings a customized optiplex would do you fine.

We have been buying the vostro series machines for pretty cheap and I have outfitted those pretty good.

Dell is not letting me customize it like I did the other machines I have. I would also suggest going with a 64 bit operating system especially if you are going to have 4gb of ram or more in the future (which you will)

as far as raiding your drives you have 2 otptions. 0 or 1. You either mirror them so you have fail over, or you stripe them so they work in tandem and go faster. If you are not doing heavy input/output operations to those disks, it really isnt worth it.

I will spec out a fully customizable machine on newegg and show you what it would cost to build it just for pieces parts and software. It is fully customizable so any area can be added to or scaled back.

I will email it to you when I am finished ;d
 
Last edited:
korllach said:
As far as raiding your drives you have 2 otptions. 0 or 1. You either mirror them so you have fail over, or you stripe them so they work in tandem and go faster. If you are not doing heavy input/output operations to those disks, it really isnt worth it.
Click to expand...

If this pc is used to do work, raid 1 is a critical must have. For the slight expense it is irresponsible not to. This is right up there with cut-n-turns on front axles.

And post your newegg link so we can look it over too :)

edit: I should add I'd do it korllach's way. Dell's computers are not all they are advertised to be and their big iron servers are way overpriced. Parts from newegg can get you the same quality at a better price.
 
Last edited:
Lemme see if I can get that to be a publicly shared wish list.


Imo, after using raid and also using the plethora of online backup services a la mozypro carbonite, connected backup, etc. I would rather go with those for a small monthly fee, than deal with a dead raid drive.

Will post the specs shortly.
 
korllach said:
lemme see if I can get that to be a publicly shared wish list.


Imo, after using raid and also using the plethora of online backup services a la mozypro carbonite, connected backup, etc. I would rather go with those for a small monthly fee, than deal with a dead raid drive.

Will post the specs shortly.
Click to expand...

You're confusing redundancy with backups. Backups allow you to restore lost data after some type of failure (including hard drive failure). Redundancy prevents the hard drive failure from losing your data in the first place and saves you the man hours associated with a os reinstall and data restoration. If you're serious about your data you do both.
 
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1 asus vw225t black 22" 5ms widescreen lcd monitor
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1 gigabyte gv-n460oc-768i geforce gtx 460 (fermi) 768mb 192-bit gddr5 pci express 2.0 x16 hdcp ready sli support video card
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1 a-data gaming series 4gb (2 x 2gb) 240-pin ddr3 sdram ddr3 1600 (pc3 12800) desktop memory model ax3u1600gb2g9-2g
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1 evga 160-lf-e659-kr lga 1156 intel p55 classified 200 sli extended atx intel motherboard
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1 intel core i5-750 lynnfield 2.66ghz lga 1156 95w quad-core processor bx80605i5750
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1 microsoft windows 7 professional 64-bit 1-pack for system builders - oem
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1 intuit quickbooks pro 2010 3u small package
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$409.99 $409.99

1 microsoft office 2010 home and business
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1 lg black 10x blu-ray burner - bulk sata wh10ls30 lightscribe support - oem
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$109.99 $109.99
subtotal: $2,093.88

and remember, everything on this list except software can be scaled back to acommidate price. I tried to get the best price on software I could while still retaining what Jeff wanted to do with his original post. Quickbooks would be about 50% less if 3 people didn't need to access the same workbook file at the same time.
 
Yeah for our servers we raid 10 so we are covered there. However the only time we had an issue with a raid going out, we lost so many disks at once that there was no way to get it all back, I think we ended up with 1 out of 4 drives that was readable.

That is definitly an option though espeically if this machine is going to be the machine housing the quickbooks data files. I would make very sure I was atleast using an online backup for it. And yes, mirror the drives and pray to god that they both dont go at the same time.
 
korllach said:
1 gigabyte gv-n460oc-768i geforce gtx 460 (fermi) 768mb 192-bit gddr5 pci express 2.0 x16 hdcp ready sli support video card
model #:gv-n460oc-768i
item #:n82e16814125334
return policy:vga standard return policy
mail in rebate card14-125-334

$199.99 -$10.00 instant $189.99
Click to expand...


Overkill on the video memory, that much memory is only needed for playing 3d games.

Those video cooling fans will fail in 12 to 18 months resulting in a very bad day.

Something like this will last longer, run cad, windows 7 areo, multiple monitors.

xfx hd-545x-ynh2 radeon hd 5450 (cedar) 512mb 64-bit ddr2 pci express 2.1 x16 hdcp ready video card

$54.99
 
korllach said:
1 microsoft office 2010 home and business
model #:t5d-00417
Item #:n82e16832116857
return policy:software standard return policy

$279.99 -$60.00 instant $219.99
Click to expand...

Unless you need access ( I used to do a lot of access development for the company's sharp program ) openoffice works fine, saves files in the same format the rest of the world uses, and even has a few features ms office doesn't.

$ 0
 
korllach said:
1 lg black 10x blu-ray burner - bulk sata wh10ls30 lightscribe support - oem
Model #:wh10ls30 oem
item #:n82e16827136181
return policy:standard return policy

$109.99 $109.99
subtotal: $2,093.88
Click to expand...

Those sure have dropped over the last little while. Almost can't afford not to get one.
 
Right, as I said, everything is scaleable based on what wants to be done with the pc.

In my many years of building computers and gaming with them, I have only ever had 1 gpu fan fail and it was on a an nvidia ti4200.

I have a couple of gtx260s still running strong,

2x 8600s running strong

1x 7900 gtx that runs fine.
1x 7950 gt that runs fine.

Gpu fans are not my first and most expected point of failure. I usually expect processor fans to fail before gpu fans.
 
As for open office, yeah it works fine, if you are willing to work with it, but most people use ms office and get used to how it feels and functions and hate change.

It is very much like people and vehicles. Most people drive them and put gas in them. Sometimes change the oil. They dont want to have to do their own cut and turns, or anything more than filling it with fuel and taking it to jiffy lube.

I added the office because it was fairly inexpensive for getting 2licenses and Jeff had it in his original spec.
 
korllach said:
1 evga 160-lf-e659-kr lga 1156 intel p55 classified 200 sli extended atx intel motherboard
Model #:160-lf-e659-kr
item #:n82e16813188058
return policy:limited replacement only return policy
mail in rebate card13-188-058

$319.99 -$10.00 instant $309.99
Click to expand...


I like the fanless but 3 way sli is overkill for a work machine - that's only for playing video games at high resolution.

Same manufacturer, same chipset, much more suited to work than games:

evga p55 le 123-lf-e653-kr lga1156 intel p55 atx intel motherboard

$ 149.99
 
Yeah like I said... It is all scalable. I tried to base the hardware at or better than what was posted first. I also like to provide some longevity. It might seem overkill now, but that overkill translates into it still working really well 4 or 5 years down the road.
 
korllach said:
we lost so many disks at once that there was no way to get it all back, I think we ended up with 1 out of 4 drives that was readable.
Click to expand...


Simultaneous mechanical failure of 3 hard drives is astronomically unlikely.

More likely is a controller glitch or a transient out of spec voltage from the power supply.

I've found that often those same drives test out fine after failing in a raid array. Not that I ever trust them enough to put them back in though :)
 
It was pretty astronomical.

It was an old old whitebox server. I tried to recover all of our vm's off the disks with no luck, even booting to a ubuntu cd to mount the drives, it would not come back. 2 of the drives were completely unreadable the other drive would mount but the disk was so damaged I could only get a few things off of it. Ironically, it was our quick books vm that I could not retrieve.

We had to take it to a data retrieval specialist to extract the data (this happened about a week after our company split and we did not have a new backup solution in place yet.)

guy who got the drives said they were pretty much destroyed but was able to get the data off of the one disk we could mount.
 
korllach said:
yeah like I said... It is all scalable. I tried to base the hardware at or better than what was posted first. I also like to provide some longevity. It might seem overkill now, but that overkill translates into it still working really well 4 or 5 years down the road.
Click to expand...

You think 3 way sli will be needed to run word in 4 or 5 years?

Don't get me wrong, you've got some good items listed here. I like things like having 4 ram slots and only filling 2 to start with.
 
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