Damn awesome computers are fucking cheap!
 

My 2.4Ghz, 8GB Dell was feeling slower than fuck so I looked into buying something meatier and found:

Dell Precision Workstation T7400
2x's Xeon Quad Core 3Ghz
16GB DDR2 FB-DIMM

... selling for $275 on Ebay. I guess a crapload of them are coming off of business leases.

Paired one with a Samsung SSD ($80) as the main drive and another 16GB of RAM ($125).

Unfucking believable how much faster this thing is than my old box.

Not bad for $480!

I've never used an SSD before and I am blown away. Things that used to be annoying like restarting the computer now take 10 seconds and right after you sign on, its ready. All of the start up programs load instantly. Checking for windows updates is another task that can take many minutes. Now its done in seconds.

Loading photoshop? Almost instantaneous. Switching between open windows of 20 Chrome tabs, several open files in Photoshop, 15 files open in Dreamweaver, several metapads, colorcop, a few Putty, and a grip of other shit is all instantaneous. On my old system it was torture to have that much shit open at once.

Time to buy some more SSD's and go RAID 5.

Yap SSD's do rock, got mine 2 years ago and it was definitely the best upgrade I ever made..

now install more programs and everything will run slow :)

I already have it installed with everything I used to have in it.

It still runs like a speed demon.

But to hit on your point in a more complete way... Right now with 2 dozen startup programs and everything I had before this one takes 10 seconds from power on to being completely usable and my last system was perhaps 30 seconds with nothing installed yet.

Running test on my drives the SSD drive is about 10 times faster than my standard hard drive was (7500rpm drive). And... if I had bought a T7500 the SATA3 would have boosted it to 20 times faster.

no one uses / buys desktops anymore.

I have 5 desktops in my house, people buy them.

That's funny because I just built a new one at home and we bought 4 this month at our business.

your average consumer wont even know what that block of plastic is on your desk in few more years. if they even do now.

There is a whole world of users outside of the "average consumer" that have higher needs and demands. This thread is case in point.

Developers, video and graphics editing, gamers, a huge variety of business solutions, the list goes on and on.

While the "average" person that checks Facebook or ESPN will likely sit on the couch with a phone or tablet (not a computer at all) the heavy computer user will still enjoy sitting at a desk with a large screen with lots of real estate to play with.

gamers largely still use desktops. i will always use one for work. even those who use laptops typically hook them up to monitors and keyboards for real productivity.

Xeons are being replaced with new intel CPUs with 6/8 cores.

If you don't run a business and just check facebook than laptop is the way to go but sly is right gamers and people that actually have greater tasks to do have and own desktops

Tempest 4400 - AMD Opteron Powered Workstation - Penguin Computing

Four AMD Opteron 6300 series processors with up to 16 core per processor
Up to 1TB of RAM
Five drive bays for SAS/SATA/SSD drives
2x PCI-e Gen 2.0 x16 slots
RAID Option
Integrated IPMI 2.0 compliant management controller
Server-grade RAS options

You might wanna google or search on youtube for some tutorials on SSD management.
It's important to configure your SSD the right way and optimize for maximum performance/durability. Usually they come packed with some optimizing software from the producer but you can get better results if you add some more settings to improve performance.

Also, keep the SSD mostly for OS and applications that require speed. For general storage & downloads use a secondary HDD.

Thats the same way us rich people feel about computers every time we make a purchase from the apple store... :2 cents:

Dell's are more expensive because of its name..Get a Asus or Toshiba..:2 cents:

I'm surprised no apple fan said that you should have bought an apple instead.... it would have cost you closer to $2750 than $275 for the same specs though... :1orglaugh

No retina display...not worth it! Would have paid the extra 2k! :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I've been wanting a MacBook Pro. Then yesterday found this: XPS 15 9550 High Performance Laptop with InfinityEdge Display | Dell

You get what you pay for.
At the end of the day its still just a POS windows machine.

I do, I have 3 all on one "L" shaped desk in my office

I was excited over my SSD too, everything went so much faster, then imagine I'm only on sata 2 :1orglaugh

:thumbsup for xps 15

i am buying a desktop for my boys soon.
I like it because i can keep it hidden away from spills and so on. so just the keyboard and mouse are at risk.
There are some very cool programming "games" for kids now

Casuals dont go with desktop that much, they got everything they need with their smartphones nowadays and tablets/laptop. Desktops are more for those who work on heavier stuff so less demands I built my machine at dirt price recently and couldnt help but see all the desktop on the shelves but laptops/tablets were gone like hotcakes.

If it's an older Xeon (DDR2 memory suggests that) just be careful as they can be incredibly power hungry, even when idling.

Why not buy new AMD?

I'm not your average consumer. I prefer a real keyboard that is made for somebody who types a lot of data, code and verbiage. I prefer two large monitors. I prefer a full size ergonomic mouse.

People who excel at business will be buying computers for years to come.

Very much the same specs as what I just bought on Ebay for $275, besides for the cores. But I don't need more than 8 cores. I am not doing video.

Yeah, the stuff that came with my drive missed a few things and didn't work on 2 things it did do, so I found some tutorials to do it all manually.

I was rich once. I wasted my money on flashy stuff. Now I am going about things the Sam Walton way. Put the money back into the company and grow it instead of my ego.

At $275 for what I got I think I did very well.

See above.

Yeah, I guess I am just a tool, shitty script kiddy.

Because I wanted everything I got for for under $500. I have used AMD computers for many years and I am always frustrated when I want to upgrade something and some bullshit driver doesn't work well with AMD. Got tired of it. But I also didn't care what was in my desktop. I just wanted certain specs at $500 and I found them.

Next time, try a used opteron :2 cents:

gonna try dropping a SSD on my laptop tonight, wish me luck ((

With any luck, you're going to fuck your shit up, so that we don't have to endure you here anymore. :321GFY

:1orglaugh

get the macbook they are nice.

Tips. Obviously you will want a kit to ghost your drive. Often the kits don't walk you though drive setup. As in your computer might see the drive in bios, but not as a dive in windows. It will show up as a mass storage device. A thumb drive.

Go to admin tools and in there you will find drive set up. In there you will tell windows to see it as a drive and not a mass storage device. Then you can format it, etc.

is it that good? i've read a lot of negative reviews. the tech blogs love it but reviews dell.com has a lot of negative reviews.

what a stupid comment...any serious webmaster has a desktop/laptop workstation setup

PC gaming sales are higher than ever

I suggest you find a new industry if you really feel that way

PC does whaaat?!

I do..:upsidedow

No one you know maybe.

Could you post a link or some idea of what you searched on ebay for? I'd love to get a machine like that for a database project I'm working on...

Precision T7400 3ghz 16gb

As your query on ebay. Should pop up dozens of them.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T7400-Workstation-3-00GHz-QC-5450-32GB-2x-1TB-HDD-No-OS-/181889961821?nav=SEARCH

Give him a best offer of $275.

Correction. I got my system for $255.

$180 + $75 shipping.

I only had desktops so far ;)

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

no they all use hipster crapple """""""Retina display""""""" I-maxi-pads :1orglaugh and when they need to do some serious work they use a iphone :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh