[SOLVED] Is Dell a reliable outlet for prebuilt machines?

[consptheory77]

Back in 2015, I built my own desktop, a Haswell, making various upgrades over the years, but now I feel the time is approaching for me to look at getting a new system. I have more money than I did back then, but I have less time and more responsibility, so the prospect of building a new system is pretty much out of the question. It's not as if my current is system is seriously impaired, but even with the SSD boot drive, I think I've approached the "Windows slows with time" issue, and that could be resolved by a system refresh, but I absolutely hate doing those.

Chrome crashes a lot nowadays, it looks like it's not a memory issue (and I did the MEMTEST and it's not the RAM) and I have 32GB which should be more than enough, so I don't know if that's a Chrome issue (or Chrome extensions, more likely) or my processor/memory is too old to "keep up".

My budget is about $1K. I'm seriously considering the 2022 XPS 8950 from Dell. So far, what I've gathered is that the stock air coolers are crap, so buy a K chip so they send you a better cooler - or, I can get the liquid cooling (but I've never had a PC with that before). There's also the option to get a 750W instead of a 400W PSU and I think I'll go with that even though I'm not immediately concerned with gaming.

While, like any other company, Dell has had its complaints, my overall experience with them through the years has been good, arguably the best (HP being the worst) so I feel confident in getting a prebuilt from them, but I'm open to hearing caveats.

 

[punkncat]

Traditionally, Dell has made very good business class machines. This is the reason you see so many refurbished OptiPlex available. I wouldn't go so far as to say the XPS line is 'total' junk, but they are plagued with cooling issues not only from poor stock coolers, but also due to poor case design and air flow. The parts to these Dell "gaming" machines are often not standard which makes upgrading them within case difficult if not impossible.

If you are a buy your machine, don't do anything (at all) to it aside from use and clean, you could be happy with one...

 

[consptheory77]

Traditionally, Dell has made very good business class machines. This is the reason you see so many refurbished OptiPlex available. I wouldn't go so far as to say the XPS line is 'total' junk, but they are plagued with cooling issues not only from poor stock coolers, but also due to poor case design and air flow. The parts to these Dell "gaming" machines are often not standard which makes upgrading them within case difficult if not impossible.

If you are a buy your machine, don't do anything (at all) to it aside from use and clean, you could be happy with one...

I bought bare bones Optiplex systems off Ebay for both my boss and my girlfriend, for office systems, each for under $200, they function perfectly fine for their needs. I had a Latitude D600 laptop for years in the late aughts. I had a Inspiron laptop after that. My girlfriend had a Dell Inspiron desktop system before the Optiplex I bought for her, which was fine except for the fact that she grossly overpaid for it at the time. I have had UltraSharp monitors, and would recommend them to anyone who can afford them - indeed, my office is now using my bright 1200p U2412M hand-me-down, a considerable improvement over the dinky sub-HD LG my boss thought "was a good deal".

The 2022 XPS desktop supposedly has corrected for the airflow issues, as the hard drives slots are on top instead of blocking the front.

The local shop seller who sold me the D600 did tell me at the time (2007) to buy Dell business class models because the parts were standardized and common, easily replaceable, whereas Inspiron (and presumably, XPS at the other end) were often individualized to the model and then hard to come by aftermarket.

I already know the XPS motherboard and PSU aren't standard issue, caveat emptor

 

[punkncat]

I have some experience with the XPS systems myself, and LOADS of experience with the OptiPlex line(s) in their various size formats. My last XPS I cannot recall the model number on, but the white case with black front, very commonly used case for a few years and had the i7 2600 in it. For its time and the power of components then, it wasn't any better or worse than many other office based cases. The couple of issues I had were that the cooler was some strange one-off shroud thing that Dell uses from time to time (HP as well) and could not be replaced with a standard cooler. The other issue was that the BIOS was locked to three different graphics cards, only the ones that were available as an option direct from Dell. The base system turned out to be usable well beyond its ability to game with...out of a "gaming" build.

I promised myself I would not do that to me again.

The biggest issue with the OptiPlex lines are the proprietary PSU and front panel connectors. They are insanely durable machines and parts are everywhere. They are commonly being used as cheap gaming alternatives, particularly in the MT size format. There are a bevy of aftermarket harness adapters available such as to change the PSU out to something standard, as well as to put them inside a standard case.
I don't have much personal experience with them beyond the 30/70/9020 series age. I have seen some pictures that seem to indicate they are now using an off standard board much like HP is but cannot confirm.

 

[consptheory77]

I have some experience with the XPS systems myself, and LOADS of experience with the OptiPlex line(s) in their various size formats. My last XPS I cannot recall the model number on, but the white case with black front, very commonly used case for a few years and had the i7 2600 in it. For its time and the power of components then, it wasn't any better or worse than many other office based cases. The couple of issues I had were that the cooler was some strange one-off shroud thing that Dell uses from time to time (HP as well) and could not be replaced with a standard cooler. The other issue was that the BIOS was locked to three different graphics cards, only the ones that were available as an option direct from Dell. The base system turned out to be usable well beyond its ability to game with...out of a "gaming" build.

I promised myself I would not do that to me again.

The biggest issue with the OptiPlex lines are the proprietary PSU and front panel connectors. They are insanely durable machines and parts are everywhere. They are commonly being used as cheap gaming alternatives, particularly in the MT size format. There are a bevy of aftermarket harness adapters available such as to change the PSU out to something standard, as well as to put them inside a standard case.
I don't have much personal experience with them beyond the 30/70/9020 series age. I have seen some pictures that seem to indicate they are now using an off standard board much like HP is but cannot confirm.

For my girlfriend, in 2020, I got her an OptiPlex 7010 MT Desktop Intel i5-3550 3.30Ghz 8GB RAM 500GB HDD/ Trial OS, added in actual Win 10 Pro on an SSD and more RAM myself

For my boss, last year, for the office, I ordered an OptiPlex 7050 SFF, Intel i5-7500 3.40Ghz - 8GB RAM 256GB SSD - Win10 Pro, added in more RAM myself

No problems with either one so far. The SFF is a little cramped, but our last office desktop, circa 2010 (which ordered from Dell directly at the time), was also SFF

Of course I remember telling him that both back then and last year that his Dell unit was going to be vastly overpriced for what he needed, I guess I should take my own advice

 

[punkncat]

I guess in this case it really comes down to how little time you have/valuable your time is. If you aren't gaming on this system IDK what your requirements are for a dedicated graphics card, but $1K is enough budget to build quite a nice system either way on a DIY.

 

[geofelt]

What is the purpose of this pc?

Give a call to Lenovo.
Their reps are knowledgeable about their products and know when sales are coming up.
The desktops will be using standard parts.

 

[Bob.B]

Back in 2015, I built my own desktop, a Haswell, making various upgrades over the years, but now I feel the time is approaching for me to look at getting a new system. I have more money than I did back then, but I have less time and more responsibility, so the prospect of building a new system is pretty much out of the question. It's not as if my current is system is seriously impaired, but even with the SSD boot drive, I think I've approached the "Windows slows with time" issue, and that could be resolved by a system refresh, but I absolutely hate doing those.

Chrome crashes a lot nowadays, it looks like it's not a memory issue (and I did the MEMTEST and it's not the RAM) and I have 32GB which should be more than enough, so I don't know if that's a Chrome issue (or Chrome extensions, more likely) or my processor/memory is too old to "keep up".

My budget is about $1K. I'm seriously considering the 2022 XPS 8950 from Dell. So far, what I've gathered is that the stock air coolers are crap, so buy a K chip so they send you a better cooler - or, I can get the liquid cooling (but I've never had a PC with that before). There's also the option to get a 750W instead of a 400W PSU and I think I'll go with that even though I'm not immediately concerned with gaming.

While, like any other company, Dell has had its complaints, my overall experience with them through the years has been good, arguably the best (HP being the worst) so I feel confident in getting a prebuilt from them, but I'm open to hearing caveats.

The first hurdle is want or need.......your call.

If it's want go for it.

Need?......perhaps a little house cleaning can help that area.

 

[consptheory77]

I guess in this case it really comes down to how little time you have/valuable your time is. If you aren't gaming on this system IDK what your requirements are for a dedicated graphics card, but $1K is enough budget to build quite a nice system either way on a DIY.

Any gaming would be extremely casual, like I don't care about so much about playing some new game from the past three years but rather playing some game from ten years ago in 4K across 3 screens. But that is all very secondary.

I don't have 1K to drop right now, so I have to think about whether I have time.

Let's say I want to get a 12700K (i5 or i7). All these compatibility checkers tell me that I will have to update the BIOS before I can install the chip, it seems like this is with any board I could buy. But in any case, I can out together all the comparable individual parts, and so far I'm only getting $100 in saving by DIY - and no liquid cooling.

 

[punkncat]

Any gaming would be extremely casual, like I don't care about so much about playing some new game from the past three years but rather playing some game from ten years ago in 4K across 3 screens. But that is all very secondary.

I don't have 1K to drop right now, so I have to think about whether I have time.

Let's say I want to get a 12700K (i5 or i7). All these compatibility checkers tell me that I will have to update the BIOS before I can install the chip, it seems like this is with any board I could buy. But in any case, I can out together all the comparable individual parts, and so far I'm only getting $100 in saving by DIY - and no liquid cooling.

Gaming at 4K resolution typically requires powerful graphics cards where just consuming media at that resolution really doesn't take much.

12700K or other 12th gen Intel CPU are going to natively work with 600 series chipsets and 'Z' for overclocking. So far as I am aware the 700 series motherboards should also work with the 12th gen without issue. 13th gen on 600 would require BIOS update.
The aspect I would pay attention to here is the RAM type. DDR4 motherboards are less expensive and in most cases the memory is cheaper as well. So far, the performance difference hasn't been a major concern.

 

[DSzymborski]

You wouldn't get immediate savings building yourself, you'd get long-term savings. The Dell PC is going to have a lot of proprietary parts, especially motherboard and PSU, which means that any upgrade will require upgrading a lot of things. A simple upgrade of GPU might require a new PSU, a new motherboard, and a new case. And chances are, you'll get cheap RAM too. You may not even be able to upgrade the CPU on the same motherboard even, as prebuilt BIOS are notoriously locked down.

Basically, if this is a disposable PC, which you'll use for six years and then send out to recycling for something completely new, you'll save money with a Dell prebuilt. If this is a build you want to upgrade over time, getting a highly proprietary prebuilt is a very expensive idea.

This is what buying a prebuilt is like now.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DMg6hUudHE

 

[logainofhades]

I would also recommend lenovo.

 

[consptheory77]

Gaming at 4K resolution typically requires powerful graphics cards where just consuming media at that resolution really doesn't take much.

12700K or other 12th gen Intel CPU are going to natively work with 600 series chipsets and 'Z' for overclocking. So far as I am aware the 700 series motherboards should also work with the 12th gen without issue. 13th gen on 600 would require BIOS update.
The aspect I would pay attention to here is the RAM type. DDR4 motherboards are less expensive and in most cases the memory is cheaper as well. So far, the performance difference hasn't been a major concern.

I've got an RX 580. With that, I was thinking I can either play a game at 4K on one monitor, or across three monitors at 1080p. I'm not picky about the frame rate. But I haven't even gotten around to that yet and I bought the card three years ago. I've got one 4K monitor, and hope to get another two. I watch way more movies that I play games, but it is disappointing that as far as I know there are no UHD drives. The 4K monitor I have I usually keep on normal brightness rather the UHD brightness, but the resolution at 27 inches is great.

 

[consptheory77]

You wouldn't get immediate savings building yourself, you'd get long-term savings. The Dell PC is going to have a lot of proprietary parts, especially motherboard and PSU, which means that any upgrade will require upgrading a lot of things. A simple upgrade of GPU might require a new PSU, a new motherboard, and a new case. And chances are, you'll get cheap RAM too. You may not even be able to upgrade the CPU on the same motherboard even, as prebuilt BIOS are notoriously locked down.

Basically, if this is a disposable PC, which you'll use for six years and then send out to recycling for something completely new, you'll save money with a Dell prebuilt. If this is a build you want to upgrade over time, getting a highly proprietary prebuilt is a very expensive idea.

This is what buying a prebuilt is like now.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DMg6hUudHE

I watched the whole video. Thank you. That is a very detailed, specific answer to the question. Basically, any marginal savings would be negated if anything went wrong with the unit and had to be replaced, and when sketchy billing practices are added in, there won't be any savings at all, especially in time if I would choose to fight them about it.

 

[DavidM012]

Dell is like escargot, an acquired taste. Otherwise you might eat it if you wuz starving or you might prefer to die.