Dell Dual quad core for $748

[Handruin]

This seems like an interesting little deal:

PowerEdge SC 1430 Dual Quad-Core 1.6GHz $748...

 

[ddrueding]

Sweet.

 

[Mercutio]

Too bad those CPUs are on a Dell.

 

[P5-133XL]

I looked at it because it is interesting. Very good price! A 750W PS is enormous. I don't have an issue with it being a Dell, but there are issues: 8x PCI-E slot (no standard video card); no CD/DVD-Rom (minor); 1.6GHz (is rather on the slow side); FB-RAM (Duh -- Its a Xeon).

I then looked-up folding times and found that it runs WU's at about 50% slower than a C2Q but it can run 2x as many.

I'm still intrigued by the concept of a dual 1.6GHz Barcelona. Unfortunately, I have yet to see any folding speeds for compareson purposes.

 

[Mercutio]

I've seen a rather steep decline in the overall quality of Dell-badged hardware within the last year or so. Lots of blown power supplies and bad motherboards. It's not that hard to make a quality desktop or low end server, and they aren't doing it. My feeling is that Dell is probably cutting costs or product specs a little too much on recent products in order to remain profitable.

 

[Handruin]

So then it probably isn't worth the money for this system? The power supply capacity is a surprise for this price though. What's the pros/cons to FB-RAM, is it a price thing?

 

[Mercutio]

Remember that one of the things that makes a C2Q CPU so appealing is the sickening capacity to overclock. FBDIMMs cost pretty much double what DDR2 does and tops out with support for a 667MHz FSB. Also, Xeon has never been what you'd call an overclock-friendly CPU; anyone who makes a "server" motherboard isn't going to be giving you manual FSB/multiplier adjusts, especially not Dell.

 

[Bozo]

I've seen a rather steep decline in the overall quality of Dell-badged hardware within the last year or so. Lots of blown power supplies and bad motherboards. It's not that hard to make a quality desktop or low end server, and they aren't doing it. My feeling is that Dell is probably cutting costs or product specs a little too much on recent products in order to remain profitable.

And, you have to go back to Dell for the parts. No Dell I have worked on ever had a standard power supply, or any hardware for that matter.

Bozo :joker:

 

[P5-133XL]

FB-RAM has very high latency because of the buffering. However, to help compensate for that, Intel typically has a much better cache subsystem. It also runs very hot and uses a lot of energy compared to competing memory products. On the other hand it does allow for lots of banks of RAM which may be important if you need lots of RAM. I didn't look at the Dell specifications as to how many are allowed on this particular motherboard.

I would much prefer a dual-quad based on a C2Q over a Xeon, unless I needed an enormous quantity of RAM that FB-Ram can supply

I haven't worked on a significant number of Dell machines in the past year, so I can't really dispute Merc's issue with Dell's reliability.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm told that you can buy Dells at Walmart now?

 

[Mercutio]

A couple models, yes.
It's not a good fit, really, but I think Dell has given up on quality in the name of market share.

 

[ddrueding]

Strange, because they became the market leader by selling decent stuff. How long do you think they will continue to be the market leader until their rep is trashed?

 

[Mercutio]

I think they're just looking at the fact that HP is bigger right now, Apple earns vastly more on a per unit basis, and the edicts are coming down from on high for their engineers to find ways to save money.

I do not think they're giving consideration to the long term in the slightest.