Which desktops for the IT staff? Dell?

[sidewinder]

We currently use some awful all-in-one PC's in our office which are older than half the PC's in the school and pretty poor performance wise

 

So we've decided to look for some replacements, and I would prefer to not use our normal PC supplier as the quality of their products seems to be slipping and slipping

 

We need large hard disks, plenty of memory, large monitors, and a fast but cool CPU (as our office is like a sauna) but we obviously have to justify it so cant go mad

 

Dell seems the simplest solution as you can customise them a lot and they come with good warranties. But what would people recommend? Its actually harder picking machines you're going to be using, normally the only requirement is 'will they withstand the pupils'

 

Also, with Dell, what is the difference between their standard TFT's and their 'ultrasharp' ones that cost a bit more. Is it worth paying extra?

[Roberto]

Personally, I'd buy whatever the rest of the school is using.

 

It doesn't look "good" politically if you have nicer (or even just different) kit than your clients, and it always helps improve your support for your customers on all kinds of levels when your experience of the system is as close to theirs as possible.

[plexer]

I've just been pricing up some nec's for myself and my tech as we have mainly nec ml250's on site. Only difference being I'm speccing them with 1gb ram and dvd rewriters.

 

Ben

[john]

I have a standard classroom PC just with 1gb ram and DVD writer, oh yeah and 2 aditional NICs.

[sidewinder]

Personally, I'd buy whatever the rest of the school is using.

 

It doesn't look "good" politically if you have nicer (or even just different) kit than your clients, and it always helps improve your support for your customers on all kinds of levels when your experience of the system is as close to theirs as possible.

 

Good point, might just get the same style base unti but with much more powerful components

 

We are looking at buying future desktops from somewhere else though so I could make the argument we're 'evalulating' them

And it is true, if we did get some that were competitively priced and better quality, we would use them in future for classrooms

[Andrew_C]

Personally, I'd buy whatever the rest of the school is using.

It doesn't look "good" politically if you have nicer (or even just different) kit than your clients,

Too true! I've just bought (new fiscal year for us) 3 keyboards and two phones to replace beat up old-cr@p, and the teachers are all drooling over them. THEY have all had new (or new-ish) PCs in the last 6 months. All I get is a new keyboard!

[Norphy]

fast but cool CPU (as our office is like a sauna)

 

Kind of eliminates Dell from the runnings then being as the vast majority of their range still uses P4s, P-Ds or P4 derivative Celerons

 

I'd second the NEC PC mention, the vast majority of the PCs in our place are NEC VL-350s and are excellent machines. Also look at the HP DX5150 range

[sidewinder]

Those NEC's come with Semproms or Athlon 64's yeah?

How quiet/cool are the Athlon64 models?

 

We're a pure P4 school so not got anything to compare

 

I use an A64 PC at home but its one I built with decent cooling so I cant really use that as a comparison

[plexer]

We use the ML-250 which are celerys.

 

Ben

[Norphy]

It's difficult for me to judge how quiet the A64 models are as all the ones I work with are either in a room with 23 machines + 23 kids in or in an office with a fair amount of other equipment in.

 

That said, I can't hear my pair of VL350s in the office that I work in over the switch, media PC and other machines in my office and the muffled noise of the servers/switches in the next room. They get a bit noisier as the fans ramp up but they support cool n quiet and are generally very quiet.

[Dos_Box]

We got lots of Dell GX620s with the following spec for not alot of money at all:

 

Ultra small form factor case

Core Duo 2.8

1 GB RAM

19" TFT

DVD RW

250GB HD

 

Speak to them. You may be pleae

[Teth]

We recently bought 60 Optiplex Desktop Machines for a revamp of 2 Suites + technical office.

 

2.8gig P4

1gig ram

60gig HDs

 

Needless to say the price the website quotes is not what you pay when you phone the local Dell education rep. We're very pleased with the results and the 3 years of onsite service that they happly threw in is great for peace of mind given the proprietry nature of the motherboards they use.

[CyberNerd]

re: AMD vs intel temperature.

IMO AMD wins these days - pre athlon XP the AMD's had a reputation of running hot/burning out but I've never seen it lately - Intel go for more clock/voltage = heat.

 

wrt desktops - we're all homebuilt (cheaper, easier/faster to replace). Best advice is to just make sure everything is the same

[Norphy]

Thats only true for Netburst based processors (P4, Celeron, P-D etc) and even then only for the last two generations (Prescott, Presler). Pentium Ms and Core based chips are much cooler than the old gen Intel chips and a fair bit cooler than current Athlon 64s.

 

Admittedly there isn't much in it these days.

[Geoff]

Vista RC-1 runs hot on Core Duo Macbooks. That's down to lack of power management drivers for the hardware though.

[number34]

If for IT staff you mean admin office staff I tend to buy Dell for the 3 years onsite maintenance and relatively good value if you go for their monthly education offers. As most run SIMS all the time they need to be reasonably quick and reliable. We don't keep many spare desktops

 

For the curriculum/pupil use I tend to buy more on price and reasonable spec as they 'wear out' more quickly and very rarely run any really intensive applications apart from technology or media studies. Maintenance is ok if we have return to base as we do keep a reasonable number of spare machines.

 

As to Intel or AMD we have been all Intel but......

[Ric_]

I'd still like one of those dual Opteron workstations that Sun do myself but I don't think I could justify the expense and people would get jealous

[meastaugh1]

Over the past year I've switched over to Stone computers and am happy with the machines and service/support.

[Ric_]

@meastaugh1: Don't let Dos_Box hear you blaspheme in such a manner!

[meastaugh1]

Ok, I consider myself warned

 

Dare I ask why?

[Ric_]

Ok, I consider myself warned

 

Dare I ask why?

 

I think you've already said too much

 

Suffice to say, he's experienced problems with them in the past which has caused him to look upon them unfavourably for some time now.

[Dos_Box]

Over the past year I've switched over to Stone computers and am happy with the machines and service/support.

 

How much are they paying you to say that? Stone Computers are the Nissan Micras of the PC world. You see lots of them around but no bugger admits to buying one! Give me a tier one vendor without a biege case any day!

[john]

I used to use Stones, and I still do support them, they were fcuk'd badly with the large number of Fujitsu hard drives they used in machines which failed, but I actually found there TS better than HPs. Also beige is no more, they are funky black and silver. Also there big downfall is Intel, thats Intel Motherboards, never liked them, even Intel UK Partner managers admit they are a shambles and not the best.