Dell T7500 workstation with Xeon E5645 and Quadro 4000

[ml1209]

Used computer I might buy locally. Older Xeon chip and chipset, but it is 6-core and can take two CPUs (although only one is installed). Also has NVidia Quadro 4000 card in it. All for $450. Good deal? Oh, and it has 20 GB RAM.

Is this a pretty powerful setup? I will be using it for CAD and Revit, maybe Sketchup and some light 3D. Not a gamer.

 

[yee245]

Looks like the benchmarks on that processor puts it on par probably with an older i5.

I personally am not really wowed by the price. You can get off-lease/refurbished Dell Precision towers from dellrefurbished.com with comparable or better specs for about the same price or less with their Memorial Day sale coupons (40% off $399+, or 30% off $49-398). They sometimes run 45% off coupons, but inventory varies.

Official Dell Store | Dell Precision T3500 12GB RAM 160GB HDD 6850966 and Official Dell Store | Dell Precision T3500 12GB RAM 160GB HDD 6850947 have better processors (though can only take a single processor) and less RAM (whether you really need 20GB, or 12GB would be sufficient will be up to you) and the same graphics card, but are only around $290+tax after coupon, and would come with a 100 day warranty. Although your local system can take a second processor, consider whether you're actually going to get that matching processor down the road, and whether you'll end up needing to get the Dell heatsink (I'm not sure if it takes a particular standard mount for the heatsink).

There are also a couple T5500s that would be about $450+ tax that again have less RAM, the same video card, but instead get you dual (better) processors.

Once you start getting up to $450, you start approaching the price point of the next generation of Precision towers on eBay. I think I've seen some of the T3600s with newer and faster 4, 6, or 8 core Xeon E5 processors at or below that price point. The dual socket ones of those (the T5600 and T7600) start to get more expensive, but again, will you actually be needing that second processor? I guess, to an extent, it depends on what you consider pretty powerful. I've been playing around with hardware like those "cheap" 8-core Xeon E5-2670 processors recently, so something like that E5645 looks "slow" to me.