For what it is worth, this would give me pause, at least in the short term.
That said, the spec looks like a good one. I wouldn't pay Dell a dime for anything, as their support seems to come with hours of runaround before they get to honoring the support you paid for. But the spec itself looks solid. The new i7s should be very good, and 8GB of RAM is a good place to start, especially with that much room to expand. Can't comment directly on any of the graphics cards, but I am a believer in GeForce & Radeon over Quadro and FireGL. For basic Revit at least.

Gordon

I don't like Dell, I don't like HP. They prevent you from going to your local computershop if something gets broken. Nice, the 3 years warranty, but WHEN will they fix it? In other terms: HP requires you to ship your laptop/pc, takes about 6 weeks to get it back. Last week, my powercable went dead on friday evening. Couldn't get a new one in a store (had to order online, closed until monday, will be there on tuesday), couldn't get it fixed or replaced with a generic power cable. Was it under the warranty? Yes, but you choose between losing it for 6 weeks or paying for a new cable for 80 bucks... From what I hear, Dell uses the same playbook.

So again: what's the Service Level Agreement on the warranty?

Dell or HP? I think all are sub-par. Custom built all the way!!

My pc is custom build. I love that thing...
But I bought my laptop before I knew these can also be custom built.

I love my Dell. lol

I got a M6500 Covet laptop in January of last year.
I7 820 chip
8G ram
Nvidia Quadro FX 3800m 1G video card.
awesome orange color. :thumbsup:

It runs revit like a champ. Although, with that much power the battery only lasts a few hours if I'm lucky. The charger is as big as a brick and weighs about as much as two of them. lol

I wouldn't argue with what anyone's said about Dell/HP, but, at least here in the US with a next business-day service plan, aside from being forced to waste a ton of time on the phone, they are pretty good at getting someone out to fix on site. They don't have much techincal competence, but you don't have to have any either, where as you do if you want to DIY.

The GF420 Radeon 5450 are very entry-level. The Radeon 5670 should be passable on the lower-mid range. The GF 560 looks like the new sweet spot for a Revit graphics card. However, the Vostro 460 only has a 350W PSU, which is really not enough to comfortably power the higher end graphics cards like the GF 460/560 (and the PSU may lack the proper additional power connectors).

I have to say, from a customer support standpoint Apple really is second to none. If I was starting a small architecture firm, and I had an Apple store close by, I would go with iMac for that reason alone. But iru makes a good point about technical know how and DIY machines. Personally, when I was doing IT as well, we switched from Dell to a very good local builder. Instead of 24 hours to an onsite person it might be me just running over to get a replacement graphics card (I can handle switching out cards and RAM), or waiting an hour for a new mother board to be put in. Total time might have actually been the same as with Dell, but I got my machines back faster, and I could get a high end workstation graphics card without the extra expenses that Dell forced on you to get that card, or the totally not upgradable mother boards that force you to buy a whole new machine when all you really need is a new CPU! All in all I found it to work very well. BUT, it only works if you have a really good local builder. For someone without that luxury one of the big manufacturers is maybe the best choice. Bummer of a choice, but still maybe the best option.

Good call on the PSU, iru. I have not been dealing with that aspect, and totally forgot to even consider it. Guess that means I am lucky to have someone here at the office who is. And we are lucky to have someone here at RFo who is.
And I just checked, and we are getting Antec 650 watt PSUs for our new machines. So yeah, that 350 looks a little anemic by comparison.

EDIT: A more complete look at the Sandy Bridge chipset problem, over at AnandTech.
Take home quote "Intel will begin shipping the fixed version of the chipset in late February".
Second take home quote "Interestingly enough the problem doesn’t affect ports 0 & 1 on the 6-series chipset. Remember that Intel has two 6Gbps ports and four 3Gbps ports on P67/H67, only the latter four are impacted by this problem."
So as long as you are running 1 or 2 6Gbps drives, you would be fine until a replacement part is available. Still a bummer of a decision to have to make: old CPU, or new one with a known flaw in the chipset. Ugh.

Gordon

Oh NO! I just ordered a new computer Thursday last week!!!!:banghead: Sandy bridge 3.4 ghz I guess I better contact the builder to chat about a replacement chip

Update: Computer order on hold - the assembler will await instructions from their supplier. O well another few week with the old beast.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...-cost-chip-fix