Re: A similar front end from a well supported OEM like Dell costs little more than one from Rackserver.
I went to Rackmountpro's site and Dell's site and configured systems at each:
With dual Athlon 1.2GHZ or dual PIII 1.26GHZ here's how it added up:
Since it's a front end server I minimized disk (one 18gig SCSI drive for each system) but gave them plenty of RAM (2gig each, both using 4x512meg DIMMs.
I configured both without any OS, keyboard, monitor, etc.
Both come with floppy, dual onboard NICs, onboard video and slim format CD.
Dell price: $5,040
Rackmountpro price: $3,215
That's a difference of $1,825, or 75% more for the Dell. Especially if you're considering dozens or hundreds of units, that can become a very big deal.
Now, consider that the AMD chip is available at speeds up to 25% faster than the Intel, which means that fewer boxes could be used, meaning lower administration costs.
By the way, P4's weren't available in a 1U form factor from Dell - dissipating 190 watts from 2 P4's in a 1U case seems to be too much to handle for Dell. The lower power consumption of Athlon MP lets them scale higher in small form factor cases. Of course, given P4's mediocre performance on server applications, it's something of a moot point, but buyers are still stuck with the "old" Intel processor compared to the "new" AMD processor.
Sounds like the Dell system is nearly obsolete, doesn't it? |
