Dell doesn't have the new SandyBridge CPUs which are substantially faster than their quad core Xeon 3XXX and 5XXX competitors. As you can see, the Intel Xeon X5675 approximately, $1500, has a slight performance boost over the Intel I7-2600K. (http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html) The Xeon E3 line is basically the same thing as the i7-2600K. Here's the kicker, the Xeon E3-1270 is about $340. So to get an equivalent system from dell I have to spend substantially more. Also, they don't have a 16GB RAM option, I have to spend ~1000 for 24GBs of RAM, where as I spent 250. Of course I can buy 6GB and upgrade it manually. But then there goes 6 1GB sticks as soon as I want to upgrade. (Based off the T710.) Using an integrated controller for RAID 10 is horrible idea. One should always use an external RAID card for RAID 5 and above.

Last edited by sluthra; 04/26/2011 1:01 AM.
Sandeep Luthra | LTMedical.net
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