A penny for your thoughts?

J

jsmith145

New Member
I am in the market for a budget desktop while finishing school. I found some guys who sell old Dell Precision 650's for $175. I need a pretty robust desktop for easier CAD (and maybe some gaming if I have the time). I am doing all my modeling on my 4 year old laptop right now, but would like a little more muscle.

Any thoughts on this particular desktop or any other options at <$250? Or a justifiable $350 setup?


From the guys website:

" 2 xeon processors both processors are 3.2ghz with hyper thread yes 2 processors not dual core has a 101.69 gig scsi hard drive array 2 gigs of ecc memory has a cdrom on top and DVD burner for the second has a nvidia quadro fx 1000 video card comes with mouse monitor and keyboard has windows xp pro installed and office 2007"

Thanks
 
I doubt that video card will do anything for gaming. I think thats more of a cad video card.
 
It looks more like a server, but it could work for gaming. it depends on whether the video card is AGP, PCI, or PCI-E if you want to play anything new then pci-e is a must.

On the plus side, you could learn how to use CAD :P
 
1. Make sure you get install discs for both windows and microsoft office, otherwise they may be illicit copies.

2. Those Xeon processors are basically pentium 4's, a dual core core 2 duo would be far more powerful and effecient.

3. That gpu is pretty cheap and old.

4. 2gb of memory isnt a whole lot these days

5. 100gb of hard drive space isnt much.
 
I appreciate all of your comments:

@linkin: The graphics card is AGP.

@bomberboysk: 1. As an engineering student, I get access to Windows 7 at no cost (installed it on my laptop a month before it was released)

2. Can't argue with that, but the cost of those processors would double my initial investment, I don't think I could afford that anytime soon.

3. I will upgrade it if I experience any major problems and can justify the cost (which means I will probably sell a kidney sometime soon to find the spare cash).

4. The RAM maxes out at 4 gigs, (which should be acceptable, especially for the price of the unit...right?) that will be my first upgrade.

5. There should be some extra bays for hard drives, I have an external one that will due until I (once again) can justify the expense.


Thanks again for commenting, I feel like there is alot of room to grow with this setup. That is one of the reasons I am attracted to it.

You guys think any problems would come up if I upgraded to Windows 7 on it?
Any suggestions for the GPU or hard drive?
Or any other options at my price range?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top