Dell went a ways up the power grid with this one... 1. X38 Express chipset. 2. 2, PCIEx16 slots 3. "Hot as you'd want" CPU Pretty hot rig, but mid-priced...
Dell has always had their "pedestrian" rigs... and high-end overpriced ones... This T line is a rather surprising breath of fresh air...
Wow! That's pretty amazing. They are taking $355 off their Precision T3400 unit that comes with the 525 watt power supply! Comes to $729.00 with free shipping! Supports dual PCI-Express 16x video cards too, along with tons of hard drive configurations. But the unit offered for $729.00 comes with a 256mb nVidia NVS-290. The FX-570 Quadro will set you back another $80.00 Again, this is a "base" unit and only comes with the E4300 Core2-Duo at 1.80 GHz and 2 MB of L2 cache at only an 800 front side bus. It also only comes with only 1 Gig of the 667 MHz DDR2 memory. Upgrading to the E6850 at 3.00 GHz and 4 MB of L2 cache ( like the Vostro that I found at the outlet ) with a 1333 MGhz FSB will add $379.00 Adding another Gig of memory will cost you an additional $160, or going with the faster 800 MHz (PC-6400) memory will cost you an additional $190. Add another $80.00 for a 16x DVD R/W. So right there, you are up to $1,363.00 At least you start out with that amazing Intel X38 chipset and you do get XP Pro and a 3-year service contract though. Makes for a lot of flexibility, no doubt!
Dimension is adequate for trading (as is Vostro). But this Precision T line is a jump up in performance for a decent price.
Never thought of myself as a "power jockey". LOL! But as you know, I bought the T-3400 recently. This is one fine piece of machinery. There's alot of flexibility as to how you configure this. And of course, as you add some of the options the price goes up. That said, while this certainly didn't cost me "bottom dollar", I thought it was reasonable for what I got, and in fact, less than I've spent for Dimensions in the past. By the way, I got something Dell calls "Gold Tech Support". If you call these guys, they answer the phone in a matter of a minute or two. They speak English, at least as well as someone in Tennessee speaks English. These guys are good. OldTrader
Of course, to Nitro this T3400 is little more than "the stuff a cowboy might scrape off his boots" (power jockey that he is), but for the rest of us.. pretty spiffy.