Dell Prebuild Recommendation

[Chelica]

Hello all,

I've always built my own systems so this realm is a little bit out of my territory. I am assisting a friend with his small business and he wanted me to pick out a couple of Dell desktops. Custom builds and other brands are out of the questions so that weeds out the hundreds of selections that I might have to go through, yes! I will be performing the support for these desktops so I want something easily accessible and upgradeable (Available video card slot is a must).

Budget for each desktop (not including monitor):
$500-$600

Usage:
One desktop will be used for heavy accounting and office work.
The second desktop will be used for basic office work, media playback, minor music editing. This second desktop will require a monitor but will not be a part of the $500-$600 budget.

I did some research and below are some configurations that struck my interest. I would like to see if you guys can link me to a better configuration and what to look for when purchasing a prebuild from Dell.

I was thinking of getting the Inspiron as the accounting machine.

Inspiron 580 Desktop
http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/inspiron-580/pd?oc=bi5s81&model_id=inspiron-580
$549.00
Intel® CoreTM i3 550 (3.2GHz/4MB cache)
Windows 7 Home 64 Bit
6GB DDR3 at 1333MHz
1TB Sata 7200 RPM
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
16x DVD+/-RW

For the second machine, I was thinking of getting the Vostro 460 Mini Tower.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...en&s=bsd&cs=04&model_id=vostro-460&vw=classic
$729
Intel® CoreTM i5 2400 (3.1GHz/6MB cache)
Dell E Series E2011H 20"W Monitor
2GB2 Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz
320GB3 SATA hard drive (7200RPM)
1024MB AMD RadeonTM HD6450
Single Drive: 16X (DVD+/-RW) Burner Drive

This one comes with a video card and a monitor which is going to be needed as mentioned above.

What do you guys think? Any good deals that I am overlooking?

 

[Dangman]

Does the first desktop really need 6GB of RAM for heavy accounting and office work?

The second machine does not need a dedicated video card. The onboard video found in the new Core i5 or Core i3 2xxx CPUs will be enough for the usage scenarios you described.

 

[Chelica]

What I can probably do is remove the 2GB sticks from the first configuration, skip on the 2GB on the second configuration. That will cut $80 dollars off and both units will have 4GB of memory. I might just keep the video card in there since that's part of the combo deal. Other than that, anything else that is out of place Danny?

 

[Chelica]

I was also browsing the XPS series and I notice that I can actually get 2 of these at $499 each.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...d=studio-xps-7100&oc=bx5tqxy&s=bsd&vw=classic

Studio XPS 7100
AMD Athlon™ II X4 640 + ATI Radeon HD 4200
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz- 2 DIMMs
1TB 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
THX® TruStudio PC™
16X DVD+/-RW Drive

I can spend $150 or so for a monitor and that will bring the grand total for 2 similar machines with their own dedicated video card, 1TB HDD and 4GB memory for $1150.

Similar setup with the Core i3/5 on my previous post will run me $1200 (With 1 monitor and 4GB of memory on each desktop).

Which is the better buy, the AMD or the Intel rig? Thank you!

 

[Dangman]

Just a FYI, the HD 4200 is not a dedicated video card. It's still an onboard video card. But it'll be enough for the usage scenarios anyway.

For the first PC, that XPS 7100 is great. For the second PC, that XPS 7100 isn't that great of a deal since it's $650 with monitor. Really not that great of a choice since the performance difference between the Vostro 460 you configured and the XPS 7100 is well worth the extra cost.

 

[Chelica]

Roger that. Thanks Danny!