Dell 400SC vs SC420

[dpopiz]

I'm going to buy one or the other very soon, but I'm not sure which. Basically, the SC420 is uses newer technologies, which may be a good thing, but there are a lot of things I've read that make me like the 400SC better. Here's why:

1. I've read that they use one of several different CPU fans on the SC420, even the 2.8GHz, and that some people with 2.8GHz have gotten a very noisy fan. I haven't read anything like that about the 400, just always that it's near silent.

2. The SC420 supposedly supports only 5V PCI cards, not 3.3V. I don't know what the typical voltage is, but it worries me that this is noted as an oddity about the SC420.

3. SC420 uses DDR2, which is more expensive, and according to everything I've read, much slower than DDR.

4. The 420 only has 1 channel of parallel IDE, which means if I add a second optical drive, it will have to share the channel with the other optical drive, making it slow.



What do you all have to say about the problems I've noted above, and is there anything good to say about the SC420? any reason I would want to buy it instead of a 400?

 

[Hanpan]

Unless you want the option of EMT64 or 3.8 or 4.0GHZ processors I would say go with the 400sc.

I Have both so I will attemtp to answer your questions.

1. The 400sc is definately quieter than the sc420

2. Not sure about this but honestly i have not had any problems with pci card in either.

3. This is true Also you cannot mix ecc and non ecc on the sc420

4. Also true

As above the sc420 does support higher frequency cpus and well as emt64. Also it has front usb ports pci-e gigabit ethernet and pci-e slots (1x and 8x). Using the 8x for a video card requires some modification however.

Hope this helps.

 

[dpopiz]

anybody else?

 

[joem33]

I would like to add that i have the SC420, and it's whisper quiet.. I can not here any fan noise at all.. very happy about that.. I was using an pci 128 mb video card no issues.. also have a scsi and a sb audigy.. so no issues at all.. w/pci at all.. I have now modded the pci-x and am using an x700 video card, this sucker games amazing now.. it' true that you do have only have on pata, but you can get sata optical drives as well.. so you could have 1 sata hard-disk/optical, and 1x pata hard-disk/optical.. not sure if you want to go that path just a suggestion..

 

[heartsurgeon]

sc420 owner ($309 shipped to the door....i wish i had bought more than one).

i'll be getting another when the price goes down again...

yes, i wish it had on board audio with spdif out, yes i wish it had two ide channels, yes i wish it used a more generic form of memory....yes i wish i didn't have to dremel out the pci-e slot to get it to work....

finally (and most importantly)

yes....i loved the price...
and did i mention i wish i had bought two of them?

i have priced out the components in the system..and i firmly believe it is impossible to build a similar system for less money.....

my understanding is that Dell either broke even or lost money on these units in order to boost sales figures for "servers" in their final quarter of fiscal 2004, in order try and claim the title of selling more servers than anyone else..

me, i think they are trying to make money from the upgrades, service contracts and software....God bless em and whatever the reason is, its a great computer for dirt cheap....

i remember spending $2000 on a PC (4 Mhz), and $5000 for a 40 meg hard drive (yes, meg, not gig)...$7000!!!! now replaced by a computer costing $300 that is 1000X faster, has 4000X more storage, yikes!!

in another twenty years ......??

 

[Yellow Dog]

Originally posted by: Hanpan


1. The 400sc is definately quieter than the sc420

I have a 400SC 2.8 P4 w/HT and a SC420 with 2.8 P4 w/HT. There is no difference in the noise from these machines, as they are both virtually silent.

Yet on other forums people have complained about noisy SC420's. We have even compared the model number of the fans that came with the system to see why. (they were the same make and model)

 

[AtlantaBob]

Another 420 user here, and it's whisper-quiet as well.
Almost sure that it's the same between the machines, but the front USB ports on the 420SC seem to be somewhere between high-and-low-powered versions. (e.g. an optical mouse and a thumbdrive will work fine, but an apple ipod won't be recognized...)