Dell launches business desktop with Sandy Bridge

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Dell has launched a new desktop for small and medium businesses looking to adopt Intel's new Sandy Bridge platform. Despite its starting price of $599, the lowest-specced Vostro 460 Mini Tower packs the new 3.1GHz Core i5-2400, which e-tails for $195 alone. Another $110 or $210 gets you an upgraded 3.3GHz i5-2500 or 3.4GHz i7-2600.

All the CPUs are paired with Intel's H67 chipset, which utilizes Sandy Bridge's on-die graphics core. We imagine Intel's new HD Graphics 2000 IGP is plenty sufficient for standard office use, but the Vostro 460 can be outfitted with a 1GB Radeon HD 5450 ($60), 1GB GeForce GT 420 ($145), or a 1GB Radeon HD 5670 ($195) if you need a little more horsepower.

The default $599 configuration is only equipped with a gig of RAM, but you can add up to 16GB if that isn't sufficient. Hard drive capacities range from 320GB to 1.5TB, and although a secondary drive is available, it maxes out at 1TB. A DVD reader comes standard, while a Blu-ray burner tops out the optical drive category with an added expense of $235.

Besides the standard ports and connectors, you can add a 19-in-1 media card reader, a USB 3.0 PCIe card, and an IEEE 1394a adapter. OS options include Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate. Systems ordered today have a preliminary ship date of February 2 and come with a basic keyboard/mouse as well as a one-year warranty.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/41952-dell-launches-business-desktop-with-sandy-bridge.html

 

[9Nails]

I like how their chassis is starting to look like common components instead of odd-shaped power supplies and 2 DIMM slot motherboards. It gives a tech-savvy owner some breathing room for the future. But it's a real shame that it only comes with 1 GB of RAM. That's pretty crippling for most computer users under Windows 7.

 

[TomSEA]

Yeah, in order to make that a viable PC - even with Sandy Bridge - you're going to have to invest a few hundred bucks in upgrades.

 

[gwailo247]

Nobody is going to buy it with 1 GB RAM. Just include 4 and charge $699.

If I was a small business looking to get a bunch of these, and right off the bat I found out that the I need to add bunch x $100 to the final cost, I'd be annoyed.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

I don't know what businesses buy, but I think it makes plenty of sense to offer the system with 1GB of RAM. I've run a diluted version of Windows 7 with a gig of RAM and it's fine for basic use. Plus, I imagine some businesses might want to save cash by bulk ordering RAM elsewhere and have it installed by in-house IT staff.

 

[gwailo247]

My imaginary business was far less successful than you imagined Matthew, I only have 5 imaginary employees, and no IT department.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

You do realize the system can be ordered with 2GB ($35), 4GB ($95), 8GB ($260), or 16GB ($500) of RAM, right? Having 1GB as the baseline option offers more flexibility. Not sure what you guys are griping about, really.

 

[Jibberish18]

Matthew said:
You do realize the system can be ordered with 2GB ($35), 4GB ($95), 8GB ($260), or 16GB ($500) of RAM, right? Having 1GB as the baseline option offers more flexibility. Not sure what you guys are griping about, really.

Yeah true, but in this day and age, speaking realistically even for someone in an office environment, a good 2 GB is needed. I work in an office and mostly use the web and I easily hit over 1 GB of RAM. Include the OLD and inefficient programs that I sometimes have to use and you can add a an extra 512 MB or RAM to that. I'd figure that DELL would offer that thing with 2 GB of RAM by default. In fact, the Dell Vostro 200's we order, I THINK might come with 2 by default.

Then again, I'm sure DELL has their reasons and knows better than I do.

 

[jimmyfal]

I wish all these reviews would include the experience index #'s. That is actually a REALLY good way to compare all these pc's.

As for Dell, they are the Apple of the PC world. Always more expensive and never that much better.

 

[peperonikiller]

Working for an IT company I know that even HP's basic towers we order for customers only come with 1Gb of ram. We have to order upgrade kits to get them more ram if they need it. In most cases they just use Office and Outlook so the 1Gb is just fine. I find this to be a bit too powerful of a PC for the normal business so if any place does order one of these then they should expect to be buying more ram. The upgrade price for ram is reasonable anyway. I don't see what the big deal is here

 

[captainawesome]

I agree with Matthew - flexibility is the way to go.

 

[windmill007]

1GB is not good for today's computers...nothing should come with less than 2GB unless it's running XP. If you run Windows 7 ..2GB is the Min. Can you run with less sure...But with the price of another GB costing them less than $10 I'm sure....why even sell a restricted system?

 

[Guest]

As a comparison, i work for a large company (top 150 in the Fortune 500) and I checked our laptop configs page. Our old school (which people still have, but isn't given out anymore) Dell D620 comes with 2gb of RAM and a dual core 667 Mhz processor. That's for Win XP. These aren't computers for software developing, they're for outlook, office, and PDF viewing. Basic office stuff. (All new laptops for basic office tasks, but are setup for Win 7 and have 3 GB of RAM)

If you're getting a new, fancy Sandy Bridge processor you're probably expecting your computer to be able to perform at a respectable level. Especially a desktop. With how cheap RAM is I think Dell probably makes a good margin on this guaranteed upgrade. This sorta thing is why I got into building computers.