Dumb Dell Question, do they make a system with AGP?

[Matthias99]

Yes. Longhorn will have a DX9 codepath (which requires AGP8x or PCI express - not even 4x need apply) however, it also has a DX7 path and may or may not have a windows 2000 software mode.

Whoops -- better tell NVIDIA to stop selling those PCI FX5200 cards with DX9 support...

And somehow I doubt that Longhorn's basic graphics code will be so strenuous as to saturate 4xAGP (which is the minimum for most of today's DX9 cards); even today's most strenuous games don't do that. It may be a bit much for a PCI card to handle, but by then there should be PCI Express x1/x4 graphics cards available (which are comparable to today's AGP cards in terms of bandwidth), as well as the PCI-E x16 ones...

 

[zodder]

To the person who suggested it: look up the motherboard replacement price on a dell motherboard from a two year old out of warranty system. You could buy a whole new computer for that price.

I'd buy another sub-$600 machine from Dell.

Seriously, I'm a one man show that has to support our LAN, Active Directory, Exchange 2003, Citrix, 10 network printers and about 100 PCs. I don't have time to dick around with homemade or used machines. I don't give a rats arse if my users can't play Quake III on my network, but having the ability to Ghost images of these cheap PCs is a god send!

 

[mikecel79]

What you said is very ironic.
if you buy used clones, the parts are interchangeable. They all meet basic PC standards.
Dell doesn't. They use proprietary power supplies, motherboards, cases...
In fact, it would be easier to repair used clones than a fleet of Dells...especially as they both age.
A used clone would be as fast (or faster if it has an AGP slot) than these new 2400s.

Your not getting what I am saying. When I say standardized PCs I mean all the PCs the same. You buy some used machines from a used computer store you may get 10 with ATI cards, 10 with Nvidia cards, 5 with Intel graphics, 3 with Intel NICs, 15 with 3Com NICs, 2 with Linksys NICs, 4 with Creative sound cards, 12 with integrated sound. See where I'm going? Keeping the machines up to date becomes a nightmare not to mention imaging of the machines is troublesome at that point. No need to worry if an Windows update is going to bork the drivers for some piece of hardware that 4 machines use.

What do I care if they don't use standard motherboards or power supplies? I buy anything for a business and it gets a 3 year warranty. After 3 years the machine is not worth upgrading. We have over 450+ machines in our company. 75% of them are Dell Optiplex systems (G1, GX1, GX110). You know how many failed motherboards there have been? 0 Know how many failed PSUs? 1 because of a power spike on the circuit. The parts that do fail in them (hard drives, fans) are all common parts and even if it's not a quick call to Dell and the part is here the next day!

The management functions of Dell machines alone are much better than you can get on a mix of clone machines. With the Openmanage clients on the Dell machines you can view the health of the hardware from a single console and know about failing hardware before a user does!

As far as speed. For 90% of our users they do Office, IE, Acrobat, and Siebel. Do they need an AGP card? No. Intergrated graphics are fine for them.

If managing clone machines was easier to do than buying some Dell machines you would see all companies doing it!

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: mikecel79

People sure like to jump all over Dell, but in a business setting, they are cheap and work great. Having one or two type's of PC's is FAR easier than a mish-mash of homebuilts. Much easier to support and repair.

So true. Lots of people on here have no idea th amount of extra costs it would be to keep a fleet (200+) of homebuilt machines running when they aren't all the exact same parts. Having standardization of your machines is a great thing for administration reasons.

On the same note though.... IBM is cost competitive and has a lower TCO on their boxes. Dell sells on the cheap but the TCO is not on par with an HP, and especially not the IBM's.

Buying mainstream boxes on cost is stupid.

 

[zodder]

Buying mainstream boxes on cost is stupid

That statement is stupid. Carefully buying with cost in mind is not.

 

[AIWGuru]

Originally posted by: zodder

Buying mainstream boxes on cost is stupid

That statement is stupid. Carefully buying with cost in mind is not.

I think what he meant is that buying a system on cost is fine. But buying a system based on its initial sticker price is foolish. You have to take into account its TCO which is higher with Dell than most other brands since they use proprietary, more expensive to replace parts.

 

[johnjkr1]

"On the same note though.... IBM is cost competitive and has a lower TCO on their boxes. Dell sells on the cheap but the TCO is not on par with an HP, and especially not the IBM's.


Based on what? I'd say 0 motherboards and 1 power supply over 4 years with 400 computers is pretty good.

 

[selene]

Originally posted by: djheater
Additionally the odds are good generally that Dell will be able to sell you the part in the event that the warranty has expired.

Standardization is key. I would vote Dell for any office with more than 5 stations. I'd probably choose them for less than that too.

I run a small office.. 65 precision 530 and 35 optiplex 270.

All hardware the same, I build two clones images and send to both systems.

I dont pay much of 3 year onsite warranty, maybe another 90-200 dollars, they come onsite with the part and swap it or mail us a new one.

In 5 years of runing dells, we lost 3 cpu fans, a few floppy that no one uses. 1 power supply came cracked and that was exchanged. Overall not a lot of failures. We started with precision 410/420 (p3) and now running dual xeons

 

[selene]

Your not getting what I am saying. When I say standardized PCs I mean all the PCs the same. You buy some used machines from a used computer store you may get 10 with ATI cards, 10 with Nvidia cards, 5 with Intel graphics, 3 with Intel NICs, 15 with 3Com NICs, 2 with Linksys NICs, 4 with Creative sound cards, 12 with integrated sound. See where I'm going? Keeping the machines up to date becomes a nightmare not to mention imaging of the machines is troublesome at that point. No need to worry if an Windows update is going to bork the drivers for some piece of hardware that 4 machines use.

What do I care if they don't use standard motherboards or power supplies? I buy anything for a business and it gets a 3 year warranty. After 3 years the machine is not worth upgrading. We have over 450+ machines in our company. 75% of them are Dell Optiplex systems (G1, GX1, GX110). You know how many failed motherboards there have been? 0 Know how many failed PSUs? 1 because of a power spike on the circuit. The parts that do fail in them (hard drives, fans) are all common parts and even if it's not a quick call to Dell and the part is here the next day!

The management functions of Dell machines alone are much better than you can get on a mix of clone machines. With the Openmanage clients on the Dell machines you can view the health of the hardware from a single console and know about failing hardware before a user does!

As far as speed. For 90% of our users they do Office, IE, Acrobat, and Siebel. Do they need an AGP card? No. Intergrated graphics are fine for them.

If managing clone machines was easier to do than buying some Dell machines you would see all companies doing it!

Agreed, my user are agped user.. we're always upgrading video cards... like my previous message, we dont have much failures in 5 year... only failure were notebook that were dropped and abused but those do not count.

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: johnjkr1
"On the same note though.... IBM is cost competitive and has a lower TCO on their boxes. Dell sells on the cheap but the TCO is not on par with an HP, and especially not the IBM's.


Based on what? I'd say 0 motherboards and 1 power supply over 4 years with 400 computers is pretty good.

Based on endless whitepapers from Gartner and IDC/Giga for one.... If you like the static proof anyway.

TCO isn't just break/fix costs. It's the procurement, asset tracking, system management, helpdesk and so forth. I wasn't too impressed with Dell's offerings in those segments, but since establishing what our TCO costs were on Dell, and then switching to IBM's M50 desktops and primarily the t-40 ThinkPads, our cost's were nearly 30% lower from what we can tell so far. We're actually going to pay for another outside audit to determine the real savings - crossing fingers anyway.

Our break/fix is even down from the Dells - granted everyone has their own experience with that.

What I will say is that we haven't run into one imaging problem with the IBM's. We spec'd one of their workhorse models that they build with no change for like 9-12 months. Last time we did a large rollout with the Dells, they changed the video chipset on us ever so slightly about 3/4 through the rollout causing us to rebuild our image.... lots of time and cost in that.

Either way.... I don't care if it's Dell, HP, or IBM..... But IBM saved 30% out of our fixed budget so far. That's significant. Their tools are awesome.