PC Buying Guide Guest Column: 'Take Her Up to 2.4 GHz, Mr. Scott'

By Peter Kastner

For the past three months, a 2.0-GHz Pentium 4 microprocessor has been considered the standard for the corporate mainstream desktop, representing the best value in performance and price for the vast majority of enterprise workers. Not anymore.

Continuing the trend toward faster, smaller, and cheaper, Dell, HP, and IBM recently added the 2.4-GHz Pentium 4 microprocessor to their single-price lower Pentium 4 price tier. Typically, this means corporate IT managers can order a desktop machine with a 1.8-, 2.0-, 2.2-, or 2.4-GHz Pentium 4 microprocessor and pay the exact same price at checkout.

The upside: Businesses can take advantage of the higher megahertz and faster front-side bus (533 MHz versus 400 MHz) in the 2.4-GHz Pentiums. But there's also a downside to the free lunch. The 533-MHz machines may require a new BIOS version, making in necessary for the IT department to create a new hard drive image that includes the BIOS change. However, since all future desktop Pentiums for the foreseeable future will use the 533-MHz front-side bus, the change is clearly a case of "pay me now or pay me later."

Dell's SFF: Smaller Is Not Always Better
Small Form Factor (SFF) packaging is appealing to many enterprise buyers. The base unit sans keyboard, mouse, and monitor of SFF PCs is about the size of a city phonebook. IBM's NetVista S42, for example, is just 12.2 inches high, 3.3 inches wide, and 13.6 inches deep. Compared with traditional desktops with-monitors-on-top, a SFF PC takes up roughly 10 percent of the desktop real estate (or about half the volume of a small desktop tower, a common corporate desktop style).

Enterprise PC users reveal the obvious: Cube-bound workers -- like cartoon characters Dilbert and Alice -- crave more desktop space. The old desktops ate half the desk, leaving precious little room for non-computer work. However, an SFF box is not limited to a desktop because it is small enough to attach to a wall, a task center such as a warehouse shipping station, or a restaurant-cashier booth. It can even be attached to the side of the foot-well of an office desk, meaning that an SFF can become a zero-footprint PC, save for the peripheral monitor, keyboard, and mouse. For all these ergonomic reasons, the SFF has been the fastest growing segment of enterprise desktops.

Dell, Gateway, HP, and IBM all offer SFF machines. At $1,089, Dell enjoys a $115 price advantage over Gateway, and almost a $200 advantage over HP and IBM for comparably configured machines. (These prices are as of Dec. 17, and include rebates and shipping charges).

The Dell price advantage goes away as soon as the user switches from the desktop DX260 to the new SFF SX260. In short, the nicely integrated, oh-so-small SX260 costs $300 more than its heftier sibling, the DX260.

The uplift for SFF reverses Dell's price relationship with the competition. In SFF reference machines, Gateway is the price leader at $1,204. Gateway has no cost uplift for the SFF configuration. IBM tacks on $10 and Compaq $54. This leaves Dell with a $49-to-$185 price disadvantage to the competition on machines with equivalent configurations and warranties.

There's another demerit for the Dell SX260 worth discussing: performance. In order to create the jewel-box tiny package, Dell's engineers chose to use notebook peripherals. The plus is that Dell multi-bay optical peripherals such as CD burners can be swapped into the SX260 without IT department intervention. The downside is that the hard drive only spins at 5,400 RPM. The competition uses faster standard 7,200-RPM desktop hard drives. As a result, the Dell SX260 could be as much as 10 percent slower in high-I/O applications -- enough to be noticeable to users.

Recommended Enterprise Reference Desktop PC
With the upgrade to the microprocessor speed, mainstream desktop personal computers that offer the best combination of price, value, and longevity include the following:

• Microprocessor: Pentium 4 at 2.4 GHz (533 MHz front-side bus).
• Memory: 256 Mbytes DDR SDRAM (minimum).
• Hard Drive: 7,200 RPM 20 Gbytes or better. (We price 40 Gbytes for consistency).
• Optical: CD-ROM
• Floppy: Optional. (We favor USB-driven memory drives in 2003).
• Monitor: 15-inch or 17-inch XGA resolution LCD flat panel.
• Communications: 10/100 Ethernet or better. No modem.
• Operating system: Windows XP Pro service pack 1.
• Warranty: Three years, next business day on-site repair.
• Software: Antivirus and Microsoft Office XP.

This recommendation is based on the tracking of managed enterprise PCs, with a focus on the Dell GX260, the Gateway E-4000 Special Deluxe, the HP Compaq Evo D510SB, and IBM's NetVista M42 8303.

Peter S. Kastner is executive vice president and chief research officer for the Consumer Digital Technology Practice at Aberdeen Group. Kastner leads Aberdeen's research in hardware platforms, pervasive computing, and semiconductors. His primary research focus is on workgroup, departmental, and Internet edge servers; blade servers; Infiniband; personal computing; and consumer Information Technology (IT) products. He has more than 30 years of IT industry experience in both user and vendor organizations.