ofthomas - thanks for following up. yes, money is not a concern, but i don't like spending money on things i don't need / won't use. and, also, i've read these threads (and others on some of the techie sites - but i prefer asking on here, since the responses will be more trading-related, and not "must get 3d for the latest and greatest, 3l173 here" i've decided i'm going to get my backup machine first so i can play around with that, and see if certain things work/don't work well. because it's my backup machine (which does other junk, including kids playing on it), i'm going to get a HD with between 500GB/1TB. i'm going to go with the 1607 core (your comments and link were helpful; i'd rather not spend on that area; i used to tell non-techies that "get increased memory first!") since i won't be doing tons of computations, i've decided non-ECC will be fine. was worried about the cap at 8GB, but i don't think that should matter either. my mindset was always "double what MSFT recommends for their software", so i think i'm fine at 8. i'm going to go with a dual monitor rather than quad, because if i ever start using more monitors, i'll just get a new video card. so getting the nvidia 300, one dvi-> vga adapter (don't have any), DVD RW drive, speaker card, recovery disk, and what i need to check now is SSD. i hadn't seriously considered it before, but will now check into it more because of your post. i knew SSDs are more reliable, and that's obviously a nice feature to have; it also may be something to have on my main machine, but not my backup. so now i've got a pretty good guideline for my unit. i'm going to check outlet for the next few days, see if anything special comes up (ie. if it's lacking memory, i'll just get more; if it's a slightly different video card or hard drive, no worries), and if not, i'll get one new. thanks for all your suggestions!
gaj, for what is worth... just get the 1620 ... all you will save is $30-110 or so... and that extra 600MHZ might make a difference with your platform... T3600 $809 â¢Processor: Intel Xeon Four Core E5-1607 Processor (3.0GHz,10M) â¢Genuine Windows 7 Professional â¢Dell Outlet Precision Fixed Workstation T3600, 425W Tower â¢250GB, 7200 RPM 3.5 inch SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive â¢250GB, 7200 RPM 3.5 inch SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive â¢4GB, DDR3 UDIMM Memory, 1600MHz, Non-ECC (2 DIMMs) â¢8X DVD +/- RW Optical Drive â¢512 MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 300, Dual Monitor T3600 $889 â¢Processor: Intel Xeon Four Core E5-1607 Processor (3.0GHz,10M) â¢Genuine Windows 7 Professional â¢Dell Outlet Precision Fixed Workstation T3600, 635W Tower â¢500GB 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache â¢4GB, DDR3 RDIMM Memory, 1600MHz, ECC (2 x 2GB DIMMs) â¢8X DVD +/- RW Optical Drive â¢512 MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 300, Dual Monitor
also, if money is really not an issue... for what is worth... get the SSD for your backup... I mean, they are not all that expensive... and you will be able to benchmark things properly... 120GB Samsung goes for $1/GB.. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147188 and for your prod machine, I would get one of these.. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227807 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147192 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147189 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167115
The AMD FirePro has 1 DVI and 2 DP connectors. Dell monitors here are supplied with 1 DVI and 1 VGA Cable. Dell Thailand cannot supply the DP to DP cable that is available from Dell America, part #A1765027. I have tried to get the DP cable from 4 stores here, no luck. Will try the IT mall across the city when I'm free. If I can't get it there, I could; 1) order this from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/PTC-Premium-S...qid=1366372365&sr=8-1&keywords=Dp+to+dp+cable 2) Switch to the NVIDIA Quadro NVS 510 with 4 mini-DP connectors. Dell Thailand has the mini-DP to DP cable. Specs for the cards at Compare Side by Side http://www.dell.com/Learn/ca/en/cab...t76?c=ca&l=en&s=bsd&cs=cabsdt1&delphi:gr=true Any advice on the respective graphics cards? Last option is to get the cable from Dell America through this outfit. Never used them before though. They got a favourable mention on an Aussie forum. http://www.forwardit.us/how-it-works/
if amazon will ship to you, they are the simplest option... no need for a new card if you can get the cable from them... the service forward is your second choice, with buying the new card last... in terms of overcall risk (or expense in this case)..
Nvidia Quadro NVS 300. Some on eBay for <$50, where seller says, "ships worldwide". Be sure to get the DMS-59, "Y" cable. Some seller split the card and the cable into two separate sales. Easy to get cables separately on eBay, however.
Would not be buying a new card, just changing the spec. Thailand only came back to life 2 days ago after the long holiday so been emailing back and forth with Dell on the cables. Ready to finalise the order but for this item, and got the 'no can do' response just now. Much of South-East Asia will be growing at 6% or more for the next few years, PC sales are in a slump, and Dell still does business here as an afterthought.
If you look at the Recommendations/Power Info tab, the recommendation for trading is either of the 2 cards I mentioned. The Quadro 300 only takes 2 monitors, so would need 2 cards.
Correct. Most of us who trade >2 monitors prefer 2 or 3, dual head cards.... less cost, less hassle if one port goes down. With a quad card, if you lose one port, you effectively lose all 4.... personally, would use a quad card only if I couldn't make dualheads work. (I don't know whose "recommendations" they are, but if they're from Dell Sales, they're likely not well informed.) You can use any of the common dualheads/quads with either ATI, Matrox, or Nvidia graphics engines. Lots of people swear off of ATI cards and prefer Nvidia, however. I also used ATI cards long ago but have used only Nvidia Quadro NVS for trading for about the last 10 years. I mentioned Quadro NVS in case they are easier for you to get.)