Need Recommendation--University Lab Computers

[BigToque]

Personally, if I was going to build 30 systems, I would be looking to Dell or IBM.

If there is going to be a lot of media/video editing, you may want to opt for Intel systems as they seem to perform better at encoding. Otherwise, you should go for AMD as they seem to hold the edge in just about everything else and are usually a fair bit cheaper.

Heck, with the savings you get by going with AMD, you might be able to get a more powerful AMD system that outperforms the Intel system (that is if you want to to get the most powerful system that fits within a budget VS. getting AMD or Intel of equivellent performance and not using the entire budget)

 

[NihmRodd]

Thanks for all the thoughts so far. Some comments on what's been said to maybe clarify my position:

1. From what I hear a lot of you saying, my plan now is to go ahead & get a quote from a major manufacturer or 2-3 (besides Dell & IBM, any recom'ds here?) AS WELL as to give some base hardware specs to our IS dept. and then let the powers that be make the final decision as to which way they want to go with it. I unfortunately have no final say in what they do, but at least this way I can hopefully show them that pre-built's are the better way to go (I'd prefer them myself).

2. We already have a wired network structure, so the networking is no concern.

3. We do already have monitors, but I'm researching the possibility of fitting LCD's in our under-the-desktop monitor setup (i.e. our monitors are under a glass panel that's flush with the desktop--the room is used as a classroom as well as a computer lab).

4. As far as the video editing, we have maybe 4 classes per year that each spend about a week doing DV video editing, so that's not a major concern for these systems, other than that they need to have 1394 ports on the front.

5. If they were my computers (and it was my money) I'd be tempted to just slap more RAM in 'em and call it a day, but our campus labs are on a 3-year rotation cycle and our time is up, so we "have to" get new ones.

6. As for the 64bit processors, that was our IS dept's idea, so they are apparently willing to upgrade the XP license to the 64bit version.

Beyond that, I guess now I'm primarily looking for some seriously stable CPU/mobo combinations that I can put on my list of components should my recommendation to get Dell's (or whatever) be shot down.

Thanks again for all the suggestions,

---
NihmRodd

 

[piasabird]

Before I would go with an Athlon XP I would go to the Socket 754 Athlon 64 CPU's. You need to at least hava a processor that has a 333Mhz FSB and a larger Cache size like an XP2500 or higher. I have an XP2800 currently and it runs fine but I do not do video editing.

Prices on the Socket 754 Athlon 64's are about the same as on the Athlon XP CPU's in the upper end ( >= XP2500). The motherboards for Socket 754's are at a good price also.

For video editing you may get better results if you use a tv card with hardware encoding. This takes some strain off of the CPU.

 

[silverpig]

Are they all going to be windows machines?

Have you thought of just switching all your workstations to linux, and then buying one single new server type computer? Like a 4-way opteron with 4 gigs of ram and a lot of scsi drives that everyone logs in to and does work on?

 

[NihmRodd]

Yes, they all must be XP machines. Too much of the software needed is Windows-based.

---
NihmRodd

 

[qbek]

Remember that major OEMs (like Dell) do not offer AMD based systems. No 64-bit platform this way.

 

[imported_2x]

You work at a university that is looking to custom build 30 computers and then are looking to upgrade to XP 64bit, and all this for some general use computer lab? I work for a university and know one other university IT person and we would never custom build anything unless it was for such a specific application no vendor made anything that fit. Also 99% of universities, and many corporations for that matter, are not early adoptors/free beta testers so the 64bit idea sounds crazy. Just seems really hard to fathom such a situation. Opterons and xeons? Also makes no sense that you have been asked to spec out 30 machines with no hard budget figure in mind. DV editing in a computer lab? Dell all the way IMO.

 

[ND40oz]

Originally posted by: 2x
You work at a university that is looking to custom build 30 computers and then are looking to upgrade to XP 64bit, and all this for some general use computer lab? I work for a university and know one other university IT person and we would never custom build anything unless it was for such a specific application no vendor made anything that fit. Also 99% of universities, and many corporations for that matter, are not early adoptors/free beta testers so the 64bit idea sounds crazy. Just seems really hard to fathom such a situation. Opterons and xeons? Also makes no sense that you have been asked to spec out 30 machines with no hard budget figure in mind. DV editing in a computer lab? Dell all the way IMO.

I also work for a University/Hospital and I support a couple of labs in addition to general users. There's no way I'd build my own when for 1100 bucks from Dell I get 17" LCD, 3.2 gig p4, 1 gig of ram, CDRW/DVD SFF (optiplex GX280s) with 3 year warranties. Plus, Dell next day airs parts to you when you have a failure. You take 15 min online test and you get "Dell Certified" to order parts on the website. You don't even need to call and speak to anyone. You're putting alot of extra work on yourself customing building PCs and then trying to support them for the next 3 to 5 years.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: NihmRodd
Thanks for all the thoughts so far. Some comments on what's been said to maybe clarify my position:

1. From what I hear a lot of you saying, my plan now is to go ahead & get a quote from a major manufacturer or 2-3 (besides Dell & IBM, any recom'ds here?) AS WELL as to give some base hardware specs to our IS dept. and then let the powers that be make the final decision as to which way they want to go with it. I unfortunately have no final say in what they do, but at least this way I can hopefully show them that pre-built's are the better way to go (I'd prefer them myself).

2. We already have a wired network structure, so the networking is no concern.

3. We do already have monitors, but I'm researching the possibility of fitting LCD's in our under-the-desktop monitor setup (i.e. our monitors are under a glass panel that's flush with the desktop--the room is used as a classroom as well as a computer lab).

4. As far as the video editing, we have maybe 4 classes per year that each spend about a week doing DV video editing, so that's not a major concern for these systems, other than that they need to have 1394 ports on the front.

5. If they were my computers (and it was my money) I'd be tempted to just slap more RAM in 'em and call it a day, but our campus labs are on a 3-year rotation cycle and our time is up, so we "have to" get new ones.

6. As for the 64bit processors, that was our IS dept's idea, so they are apparently willing to upgrade the XP license to the 64bit version.

Beyond that, I guess now I'm primarily looking for some seriously stable CPU/mobo combinations that I can put on my list of components should my recommendation to get Dell's (or whatever) be shot down.

Thanks again for all the suggestions,

---
NihmRodd

1) micron still gives HUGE edu discounts on PCS, my old school has labs full of Microns and Dells, i worked for IT so i know this

2) good

3) last year all new PCs were ordered with a LCD for space and power saveings, however the comps in the media labs, hevy image and vid editing still had 20+ in CRTS, all others had 17in LCDs

4) if your school was like mine, the video editing is this, Import from camera - - cut out unwanted scenec - add some silly effects - reencode - burn to DVD, pretty much any Comp can do that and generally those useing the comps arnt the most tech savy people so they wont even notice teh speed diff, Our school actually used alot of macs and Imovie for this because its pretty "idiot proof"

5) get AT LEASt 512 megs of ram in these comps, ram is the thing schools always seem to skimp on and its one of the most important things

6) thats really their call

ill add that most of these comps need nothing more then a GF2MX for a vid card, image and vid editing is all CPU

you can reuse kb/mouse for these as well, however if you are to upgrade get optical mice as ball mice really do suck ass

 

[ixelion]

Pentium 4 478 Prescott 3.0 E Ghz
ASUS P4P800 SE
512MB RAM
120GB PATA Seagate Baracuda

P4 are better for that video editing stuff, ASUS is very solid and reliable. Seagate is also very rock solid hardrives and good performance.

 

[jamesbond007]

Originally posted by: 2x
You work at a university that is looking to custom build 30 computers and then are looking to upgrade to XP 64bit, and all this for some general use computer lab? I work for a university and know one other university IT person and we would never custom build anything unless it was for such a specific application no vendor made anything that fit. Also 99% of universities, and many corporations for that matter, are not early adoptors/free beta testers so the 64bit idea sounds crazy. Just seems really hard to fathom such a situation. Opterons and xeons? Also makes no sense that you have been asked to spec out 30 machines with no hard budget figure in mind. DV editing in a computer lab? Dell all the way IMO.

Ditto everything here, 110%!!! :thumbsup:

 

[NihmRodd]

Originally posted by: 2x
You work at a university that is looking to custom build 30 computers and then are looking to upgrade to XP 64bit, and all this for some general use computer lab? I work for a university and know one other university IT person and we would never custom build anything unless it was for such a specific application no vendor made anything that fit. Also 99% of universities, and many corporations for that matter, are not early adoptors/free beta testers so the 64bit idea sounds crazy. Just seems really hard to fathom such a situation. Opterons and xeons? Also makes no sense that you have been asked to spec out 30 machines with no hard budget figure in mind. DV editing in a computer lab? Dell all the way IMO.

I agree with much of this, too. I don't know what it is about our IS guys (hope they aren't reading this...), but they seem to think that it's best to build their own systems with cheap parts, hire 3-4 student techies to run around trying to fix stuff they seem to have little idea about (which usually turns out to be "we couldn't duplicate the error, sorry"), then take a day or two to respond when we have to call them up several times a week to come fix the stupid computers! It doesn't seem to be time and cost efficient, and it certainly isn't very service oriented. But I digress...

Anyway, as much sense as it makes to me (and most of you, apparently) to go with Dell, IBM, or whoever, until someone in the university's administration realizes that there's a better way to go than this, I'm stuck doing what I can to make my lab computers as good as they can be. Which, right now, is probably recommending some specific hardware parts...

---
NihmRodd

 

[jamesbond007]

Originally posted by: NihmRodd
Which, right now, is probably recommending some specific hardware parts...

In that case, I second what Ribbon posted.

Originally posted by: ribbon13
802.11/Wifi with that many nodes would be terrible.

$77 Antec SLK1650B

$95 MSI RS480M2-IL
$146 AMD ADA3000BIBOX
$104 G.skill F1-3200PHU2-1GBZX

$145 Seagate ST3250823AS
$53 NEC ND-3520A-BK
$11 NEC FD1231H-302

$631

 

[Tarrant64]

i haven't finished going through most of the posts, but dullard had a good decent solution. You could upgrade all the processors and the memory. For what their being used for you should'nt need too much more power. 1gb will go on forever, really no need for anything else right now. And a decent 3000+ should do the job.

If you need more power, I don't think the Sempron's(754) are a bad idea. It's cheap, and gives you relatively more power than you'll need. You'll have more money left over to do something about the monitors and wireless situation. Also, money left over for extra hard drives and upgrades.

Just my 2 cents.