Dell Desktops processors

lukin

I am planning to buy a Dell desktop soon. I have decided to get a Precision as I think the Dimension range are more suitable for a home user whereas I will be using applications such as eclipse and Visual Studio.
I need to buy a programmer-type PC basically.
The type of processor is the part I am undecided about. The first Precision Workstation shown here:http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/compare.aspx/precn_desktops?c=ie&cs=iebsdt1&l=en&s=bsd uses Intel Core 2 Duo and the other two use Xeon. Is there a great deal of difference between the two?

Saruman

Xeon is whats used in servers. It has more cache built in etc.
They generally are used in conjunction with ECC memory which is Error correction control. Its more expensive but avoids some problems with memory errors that can cause a crash.

lukin

So a Xeon is a bit OTT you think?

AlmightyCushion

You'd be doing great with the core 2 duo. It's more than enough for development especially the ones on offer there. My work pc has a gig of ram and a e4300 and I usually have a few instances of visual studio, a few of query analyzer, outlook, a couple of firefox windows as well and have no problems. By the way a dimension would be suitable for development work as well it just depends on the spec.

DirkVoodoo

A lot of people in college use precisions for heavy rendering work with the like of solidworks or FEA with Abaqus and ansys. That's really what they are good for as they come equipped with quadro cards. If you don't need the CAD type rendering ability, then a dimension is just as well specced bar the GFX card.

BostonB

DirkVoodoo wrote:

A lot of people in college use precisions for heavy rendering work with the like of solidworks or FEA with Abaqus and ansys. That's really what they are good for as they come equipped with quadro cards. If you don't need the CAD type rendering ability, then a dimension is just as well specced bar the GFX card.

Precisions are poor value unless you need something they offer.

For Eclipse and Visual Studio you don't get good value from a Precision. For development you'll need a fast CPU, lots of RAM 2GB plus, and dual monitors. A Dimension is fine. You'll get more bang for your buck with a Dimension.

zilog_jones

Yeah, what they said. The only reason why my college ever buys Precisions is when they need kick-ass graphics cards (Quadro/FireGL) - they're probably just not worth it for anything else.

lukin

Precisions are more expensive than Dimensions so surely they are a better machine?
I have a budget of €2500 and I want to get a machine that will last for a good few years.

Anti

Are you going ot be using CAD ( computer aided design ) or not? If not go with a dimension. As you are paying for a CAD graphics card. Which you will never use. If you do use CAD then get the precision !

Kattyboy25

IMHO I would not touch another Dell pc again in my life. Motherboards are poor at best, fans are also poor, and OEM parts drive me nuts! And now when you buy a dell machine they install windows and don't give you a windows cd.... AAHHHH. Best thing you should do is build you're own computer. There is a wealth of information on the internet, aswell as videos on youtube, on how to do it. I built a pc 6 months ago for half the price of buying it from dell.
Oh I use VS too, I really recommend dual core ;-) You can pick up a nice amd dual core cheap nowadays, 64bit ftw... make sure u get 64bit Win XP.

Oh and in one year your dell computer will sound like a jet engine in the room the computer is in!

lukin

Anti wrote:

Are you going ot be using CAD ( computer aided design ) or not? If not go with a dimension. As you are paying for a CAD graphics card. Which you will never use. If you do use CAD then get the precision !

Nope, I won't be using CAD on it.

DirkVoodoo

Precisions cost more because they are heavy duty workstations for CAD and other apps like ProEngineer, Solidworks and simulation software for CFD, etc.

It has nothing to do with gaming. They use the same components bar the GFX card which will be an NVIDIA Quadro as opposed to an NVIDIA GeForce. Geforce are optimised for fullscreen gaming, Quadro for wireframe and multiple window applications.

Get an XPS if you have reservations about Dimension PCs, they are all pretty much the same.

Visual Studio and eclipse for programming wont require anything too intensive, in fact a Dimension with dual core would be more than enough, coupled with a few gigs of RAM.

BostonB

Kattyboy25 wrote:

IMHO I would not touch another Dell pc again in my life. Motherboards are poor at best, fans are also poor, and OEM parts drive me nuts! And now when you buy a dell machine they install windows and don't give you a windows cd.... AAHHHH. Best thing you should do is build you're own computer. There is a wealth of information on the internet, aswell as videos on youtube, on how to do it. I built a pc 6 months ago for half the price of buying it from dell.
Oh I use VS too, I really recommend dual core ;-) You can pick up a nice amd dual core cheap nowadays, 64bit ftw... make sure u get 64bit Win XP.

Oh and in one year your dell computer will sound like a jet engine in the room the computer is in!

The motherboards are in the main Intel units.

The other parts are all the same as in other computers. Dell doesn't make CD/DVD drives, HDs, memory, sound cards, GFX card, CPU's.

A computer doesn't get loud for no reason. Dell computers are no different either a part that Dell doesn't make is failing. Or it dusty and needs cleaning, otherwise the fans will struggle and run at full speed for longer.

What the attraction of 64bit windows? Doesn't run any quicker, fewer drivers, and few 64bit applications. Not all new machines are fully 64bit either.

BostonB

lukin wrote:

Precisions are more expensive than Dimensions so surely they are a better machine?
I have a budget of €2500 and I want to get a machine that will last for a good few years.

You can't plan for software that doesn't exist yet. You can only plan for what exists now.

Precisions generally use the more expensive workstation chipsets (975X Express, Intel® 5000X chipset, that allow you to use more memory 8GB~64GB, quad-channel architecture DDR2 Fully-Buffered DIMM 533 and 667MHz ECC memory, more DIMM slots. They have more powerful PSU's for gfx cards or dual GFX cards. OpenGL workstation GFX cards. Usually more advanced RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 features. Often SATA/SCSI/SAS. Often more space for more HD's. They allow faster CPU's Dual or Quad-Core and Intel® Xeon® Processors. Dual CPU's. PCI-X slots and PCI-e Slots.

If you don't know what ALL of that means you don't need one. You won't see much of a difference in mainstream applications. Some of the low end Precisions are slower than the Dimensions in things like games, and general computing where you do not use applications that are not optimised for the hardware.

I've a dual Xeon at work and my home desktop and laptop are quicker for most things but cost half the price of a precision.

lukin

I've decided on this one;http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=ie&cs=iebsdt1&kc=D4XXPS02&l=en&oc=D06922XP&rbc=D06922XP&s=bsd&sbc=iebsdftdppdesktop2
(I'm going to select the 2.66 processor and change to 4 GB of RAM).
It's actually costing a fair bit less than what I have to spend but that's good I suppose.
I am hoping it will allow me to multi-task basically because on my lappie (even though it's a good one;a two-year old Targa, 1.8 GHz AMD with 1 GB of RAM) if I burn a DVD I have to go away and leave it, it can't handle any extra applications. Also streaming video causes it to re-boot after a certain length of time.
Hopefully this won't happen with the new machine.

DirkVoodoo

Windows XP has issues with recognising 4GB RAM, or at least it can recognise it but im not sure that it can utilise all of it without some trick....could have sworn I saw something like this floating around recently.

AlmightyCushion

DirkVoodoo wrote:

Windows XP has issues with recognising 4GB RAM, or at least it can recognise it but im not sure that it can utilise all of it without some trick....could have sworn I saw something like this floating around recently.

It will only recognise 3.5GB.

lukin

You would think that Dell would say that in the spec. so?

DanGerMus

lukin wrote:

You would think that Dell would say that in the spec. so?

You would but they won't. Thats dell for ye. and the tricks dirk speaks of dont actually work (afaik). You need vista for 4gb+ to work properlly.
Any way on your budget, is it your own money or your companys cos if it's your company i suggest you use all of it and then complain that it wasn't enough. If you dont next time they'll cut it and you probably find you really need it then. If they've set aside an amount of money for you it means they can afford it already.
Throw in an extra monitor, at least you'll probaly make use of. And if your using lots of apps simultaniously i can't imagine a Quad core would be wasted.

AlmightyCushion

happygandalf wrote:

You would but they won't. Thats dell for ye. and the tricks dirk speaks of dont actually work (afaik). You need vista for 4gb+ to work properlly.
Any way on your budget, is it your own money or your companys cos if it's your company i suggest you use all of it and then complain that it wasn't enough. If you dont next time they'll cut it and you probably find you really need it then. If they've set aside an amount of money for you it means they can afford it already.
Throw in an extra monitor, at least you'll probaly make use of. And if your using lots of apps simultaniously i can't imagine a Quad core would be wasted.

Is it not a problem with 32bit and not xp itself?

lukin

happygandalf wrote:

You would but they won't. Thats dell for ye. and the tricks dirk speaks of dont actually work (afaik). You need vista for 4gb+ to work properlly.
Any way on your budget, is it your own money or your companys cos if it's your company i suggest you use all of it and then complain that it wasn't enough. If you dont next time they'll cut it and you probably find you really need it then. If they've set aside an amount of money for you it means they can afford it already.
Throw in an extra monitor, at least you'll probaly make use of. And if your using lots of apps simultaniously i can't imagine a Quad core would be wasted.

It's my own money but I won't be disappointed if I don't have to spend more than I thought I would to get the machine I want, if you know what I mean.

When I selected the "Intel Viiv" Quad Core it told me XP Pro is not compatible with it. It makes you wonder what kind of muppets put this site together. Why allow a user to select something that isn't going to work?
I then selected "Intel Core" Quad-Core and it was fine. They are both the same price so I dunno what that's about.

I had originally planned to buy the ordinary Core Duo (2.66GHz). This "Quad Core" must be better as the price goes up when I select it instead but it's 2.44GHz. I would buy it if it is better.

AlmightyCushion

I've never used a quad core but I'd say at the moment it would be wasted. You'd probably be best saving the money and buying one in a year or two.

chump

lukin wrote:

It's my own money but I won't be disappointed if I don't have to spend more than I thought I would to get the machine I want, if you know what I mean.

When I selected the "Intel Viiv" Quad Core it told me XP Pro is not compatible with it. It makes you wonder what kind of muppets put this site together. Why allow a user to select something that isn't going to work?
I then selected "Intel Core" Quad-Core and it was fine. They are both the same price so I dunno what that's about.

I had originally planned to buy the ordinary Core Duo (2.66GHz). This "Quad Core" must be better as the price goes up when I select it instead but it's 2.44GHz. I would buy it if it is better.

No offense but you seem obsessed with expensive=better rhetoric.
Ultimately buying things you don't need or use is a waste. Throw out the logic of if it's cheaper it is worse and you'll be a long way closer to being where you need to be.

lukin

chump wrote:

No offense but you seem obsessed with expensive=better rhetoric. Ultimately buying things you don't need or use is a waste. Throw out the logic of if it's cheaper it is worse and you'll be a long way closer to being where you need to be.

Fair point I suppose. But the price increase must be for a reason and dual is two and quad is four so....

BostonB

lukin wrote:

Fair point I suppose. But the price increase must be for a reason and dual is two and quad is four so....

A JCB is more expensive than a car, but that doesn't mean it goes any quicker.

DirkVoodoo

Fact is, given what you are using it for, dual core will be MORE than enough for a while to come.

Buying a quad core will ultimately provide you with the same user experience, except two or more of those cores will be sitting around, twiddling their thumbs while they wait for programs to arrive that will fully exploit their capabilities.

4 cores does not mean 4 times faster, etc.

McSandwich

Quad core sounds good in theory but remember that they are connected to memory via a shared front side bus. If all four cores are running (assuming software knows about them) they will have to compete/ wait for the bus, increasing latency and SLOWING performance.

Intel's next architecture will have two faster (1600?) FSBs to overcome this problem - why it's probably best to wait if you need more that two cores.

[edit]
The current Xeon architecture, as used in the Precision range, has a faster FSB (1333 vs 1066) and so can cope better with more cores. The fully buffered memory supports more than 4GB. This is an advantage in the server and workstation market requiring a 64bit OS and applications to take advantage. It comes at the cost of increased latency meaning standard DDR2 is faster (and a lot less expensive) than FBDIMMs for everyday applications.
[/edit]

If I were you, I'd get the dual core and spend anything else burning a hole in my pocket on more memory, 4 RAID configured disks, and a nice 24''/ 30'' HD display

AlmightyCushion

Get two monitors. Would really come in handy for development.

lukin

DirkVoodoo wrote:

Fact is, given what you are using it for, dual core will be MORE than enough for a while to come.

Buying a quad core will ultimately provide you with the same user experience, except two or more of those cores will be sitting around, twiddling their thumbs while they wait for programs to arrive that will fully exploit their capabilities.

4 cores does not mean 4 times faster, etc.

You are probably right, it's just that the plethora of various types of processors that Dell provide makes things very confusing, especiallly for someone like me who only takes a passing interest in technological trends.

AlmightyCushion wrote:

Get two monitors. Would really come in handy for development.

Not enough room on my desk mate!

Anyway, enough talk, I'm going to take the plunge and buy the thing today.