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Good business desktops? (i7, 16GB, W10 Pro)

D

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Any suggestions for good prebuilt business desktops?

This is for work to replace my 5 year old Dell Vostro i7-2600, for Visual Studio development. I have no use for a laptop. I don't need ECC or a Xeon or a Quadro/Fire CAD card.

I'll probably need to order a custom build, since 99% of the desktops sold by Newegg and Amazon seem to come with W10 Home.
 
Wow, the Dell Business website is even more terrible now than it was 5 years ago -- they really don't want to let me configure a PC with the options I want. Dell: i7? no you want i5. Full tower? no you want a mini. PSU watts? why would you want to know that? ... gah!
 
Lenovo's site is similar in that regard. The ability to customize has been greatly emasculated - sort of like user control of Windows sounds in Win 10. 🙂
 
HP Z240? That checks your boxes, can be configured as a tower with i7 and choice of power supplies with wattage listed.
 
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XavierMace said:
HP Z240? That checks your boxes, can be configured as a tower with i7 and choice of power supplies with wattage listed.
Click to expand...

That looks decent, but ouch! it's pricey -- $1,800+ without a graphics card, vs. about $1,100 for the parts and OS from Newegg.

All the cheap prebuilts are Win10 Home 🙁

Sigh, maybe I'll just build one. I get to pick nicer parts, but then I'm doing company work on my own time.
 
DaveSimmons said:
Wow, the Dell Business website is even more terrible now than it was 5 years ago -- they really don't want to let me configure a PC with the options I want. Dell: i7? no you want i5. Full tower? no you want a mini. PSU watts? why would you want to know that? ... gah!
Click to expand...
Wow what a dumb business site. The "Customize" button means almost nothing. So weird to see coming from the originators of JIT inventory & BTO on the Web. They have a couple boxes that meet your specs:

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/o...=s012o7050mtus&model_id=optiplex-7050-desktop
http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/o...toallo7050mtus&model_id=optiplex-7050-desktop
 
Custom build for sure. You can do it cheaper, smaller, and better than a prebuilt.

Did you know a Mini STX board (Asus makes one) can take a 65W CPU with the right cooler, like the SIlverstone AR08? You can make an i7-6700 machine with 32GB of (SO-DIMM) memory and a big honkin' m.2 SSD for under $1000. Build in the Silverstone VT01 case, pick up the right adapter and motherboard, and you're set. You can even VESA-mount it 🙂
 
That looks decent, but ouch! it's pricey -- $1,800+ without a graphics card, vs. about $1,100 for the parts and OS from Newegg.
Click to expand...

With what specs? I thought I came up with $1,300ish with the i7?
 
XavierMace said:
With what specs? I thought I came up with $1,300ish with the i7?
Click to expand...

It was probably the 512 GB SSD -- HP, Dell, etc. are still marking up things like that at 2x retail prices.

I ended up ordering an Acer i7-7700 with Win10 Home since I can get it from Amazon by tomorrow. I plan to reinstall with a clean Win10 Pro from MSDN assuming I can find all the drivers.

I use a 4+ year old Acer i3 mini-ITX for my FLAC music jukebox and it's been quiet and reliable, so hopefully this will be too.
 
The Dell OptiPlex systems are pretty rock solid office machines. I have some ten year old systems in my office that just won't die!
 
ultimatebob said:
The Dell OptiPlex systems are pretty rock solid office machines. I have some ten year old systems in my office that just won't die!
Click to expand...

At least 5 years ago, the Vostros were decent too. Quiet, reliable, easy to open up and upgrade.

But the Dell site is an awful mess of dead ends and broken configuration options now, and it would have taken a long while to get a custom build with the features I wanted.
 
Yeah, Dell CTO is kind of a joke right now. (Config To Order, not Chief Technical Officer). At least, it seems that the branded PC companies are reducing their customization options compared to what it used to be like in the past. Maybe that's so as not to "confuse" potential customers. Sucks for us enthusiasts, buying pre-built machines for the office, when you can't get them exactly how you want, and your office won't let you whitebox it.
 
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