Help with speccing up new workstation

The guy who normally deals with all our IT at work has left and one of our old workstations has had it. I need to spec up and buy a new workstation for Autocad, Pshop and Indesign but we only have a budget of circa £700, we only require the base unit no monitor etc and it would be good if it came from Dell as we have an account already.

Anyone recently bought something they are impressed with etc?

Thanks

im running a Dell Precision T3400 at work which is pretty good. Its got a Nvidia Quadro FX 570, 4Gb RAM, a raptor drive& a core 2 duo E6850. My only gripe is it runs vista, would have preferred XP. Sorry im not sure what this cost as im not the IT guy but it was purchased over 6 months ago and would expect a similar machine to be within your budget.

I have older Dell desktops runnin' Windows XP Pro SP2.

Both have 1GB memory, both run AutoCAD '07 without any problem whatsoever.

I might add, I don't do much 3D. However, I do receive 3D *.dwg files and I

can view and/or work with them quite easily.

Both desktops have upgraded video cards with 512 MB of onboard memory.

Rather than go with a pre-built system have you thought about going to a local shop to price out your new system? I know here in the states I can build a real wicked pc, case and OS for under 1200 US (700 £ or so?). You could also save money by reusing the tower case and power supply, if it's up to snuff for a more powerful system.

Our company just purchased a Dell Precision as well. Check to see if your company has a corporate account with Dell. If so you'll get a pretty good discount. When I find the specs for the system we just purchased I'll post them as I thought we got a darn good price (less than $1300 U.S.). Like you, we did not require a monitor. I know that we specified 4GB of RAM and a graphics card with 256MB of vidRAM.

Rather than go with a pre-built system have you thought about going to a local shop to price out your new system? I know here in the states I can build a real wicked pc, case and OS for under 1200 US (700 £ or so?). You could also save money by reusing the tower case and power supply, if it's up to snuff for a more powerful system.

Yes I always build my own pc. Times in the past I have not had time so I go to the shop I get the parts from and list what I want in my system. Saves me money and you get a better machine.

"Saves me money..." How so? Are you reusing some parts? Examples: case, power supply, CD or DVD drive.

I would go with something along the lines of:

Quad core AMD (phenom 945 is good) or Intel (core i7 920)

4GB of RAM minimum

Workstation card - fx1500 or firepro 2450 may be in your price range

any size hard drive - Im sure you are working off a server anyway

"Saves me money..." How so? Are you reusing some parts? Examples: case, power supply, CD or DVD drive.

i always build my machines; i'd say you save money. since you can get all quality name brand parts, unlike if you order from dell and get some random brand cheap MB, etc.

then again, in a way, you are right. with prices the way they are on computer equipment, it kind of is cheaper to just order one from dell.

guess i argued myself out of my opinion. i still think i'll stick with building my own.

I used to think the same (i.e. - that it was cheaper) but you and I cannot buy in the volumes that a Dell or HP can buy so the per unit cost of an item for us will be higher. That's why I asked if you were reusing some components.

Don't build a computer based on cost. Build one for the experience. What you learn is worth far more than the cost of the computer itself.