Dell Workstation
Choosing a Dell workstation has become a good idea these days.
While companies like
IBM and HP still build amazing workstations that cost over $10,000 ... for entry level performance and value for money
you can't beat a Dell workstation.
I'm interested in 3D graphics work on a budget and Dell workstations excell in this area. They offer the latest range
of professional 3D accelerators at prices less than retail.
In fact it would be impossible to build a system for less.
It's also nice that a Dell workstation will come all ready to
go,
saving you the time and trouble installing drivers and
finding a stable
configuration.
Dell has a wide range to choose from at low price points.
Of course they have all the latest Intel Xeon chips to give
you
state of the art power for graphics, scientific or other commercial work.
Let's start looking at what Dell offers and I'll tell you why I think Dell workstations are the
best.
Entry level Dell workstation:
The Dell Precision 360 is a great entry level workstation for graphics or video editing work.
It is a single processor only design but it does support hyper threading and 800 MHz FSB
Pentium 4s.
Here's what you get for your money.
The current choice of video cards suit 3D graphics work you get the best nVidia Quadros or
ATi Fire GLs on the market. Often these cards are difficult to get but they actually aren't that expensive if you get them bundled through Dell.
It comes with 1Gb of DDR 400 RAM which is setup in dual channel for fast performance.
On the site you can upgrade to 2Gb for a nominal cost but if you want more than 2Gb you will have to pay a lot.
Another nice feature of Dell workstations is that they will setup a RAID array for you and install the operating system Setting up RAID takes a long time and is a bit of a pain. This way your setting is ready to go out of the box.
Although this is a very cheap workstation at under $3000 many people need more
power than this to get the job done. For cutting edge work you need a dual Xeon system.
Advanced performance Dell workstation:
This workstation is similar to the one above except that it supports dual Xeon processors. Intel has the 1Mb cache Xeons out now and with hyper threading you will have 4 logical processors for running threads. This is a nice combination.
This workstation is for serious business.
The costs rise quite dramatically but you can always buy this workstation with 1 processor
and then add another one later.
You get the full options of a SCSI RAID array installed on this system. A large RAID array
such as this would be great for video editing. You also get IDE support for those who need
more storage rather than faster access. Of course you get the full range of workstation
graphics cards to choose from.
Dell also has a nice range LCD and Trinitron CRT monitors for you to buy with your system.
You can buy two matching monitors for dual display support.
All in all it is the great prices than make Dell workstations so attractive. They don't gouge
you on extras and offer you a wide range of customization options.
Why not save on great deals from Dell now and see for yourself!
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