tzframpton Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 A Vostro is what you get when a bean counter buys a "CAD" computer. Bean counters should, by law, be prohibited from buying any computer that will be used for doing CAD work. That also goes for many IT departments.Haha, I like the way you think ReMark. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f700es Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Okay, the Vostro is a mini-tower. This computer isn't going to work at all. It'll have to be a new tower altogether IMHO. The pictures show a full tower. I think you are confusing "mini tower" with one of those slim design jobs. It should hold a normal size video card. My Optiplex 9020 is considered a "mini tower" as well. In general the slim Dell towers have an "s" after their model number. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Did you get the opportunity to spec your own computer Tanner? I can't recall now exactly where you are job-wise. Are you still out on your own? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 It wouldn't surprise me if there were multiple flavors of the Vostro. The description I found online said it was a mini-tower. It also said it shipped with an integrated graphics chip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f700es Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Well an i7-3770 is not a secretary CPU (hyper threaded quad core) so it was not a bad spec in the day depending on the graphics card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzframpton Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 The pictures show a full tower. I think you are confusing "mini tower" with one of those slim design jobs.It should hold a normal size video card. My Optiplex 9020 is considered a "mini tower" as well. In general the slim Dell towers have an "s" after their model number. Ah, gotcha. Thanks for clarifying Sean. Did you get the opportunity to spec your own computer Tanner? I can't recall now exactly where you are job-wise. Are you still out on your own?Mark, I almost bit off into the full time self-employment realm but my wife was hesitant, so I passed the baton over to a friend of mine who two years ago went into business for himself as an MEP BIM designer. He has all my old contacts, other than one company, which I still do work for. They give me just the right amount of work to have a great side-work income. I am currently employed at Hill & Wilkinson General Contractors in Richardson, TX which is consistently voted one of the top companies to work at in Dallas. It's a great place to work. My boss and I sat down and spec'd our laptops together and they are beasts to say the least. They were so expensive I really was hesitant to have the company purchase them at first. Laptops that sport a Core i7-4910MQ, 32GB RAM, dual nVidia GTX 880M graphics, four high-performance 500GB SSD's in RAID, with dual 27" IPS 2560x1440 monitors. These are getting to be a year old now, and still rockin' strong. I can't complain to say the least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Not sure why your wife would be hesitant. It's not like you have ever been a slacker. Specs to-die-for that for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Well an i7-3770 is not a secretary CPU (hyper threaded quad core) so it was not a bad spec in the day depending on the graphics card. Maybe the OP got the "sport" model. Chrome wheels, leather trim, heated seats, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f700es Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 It wouldn't surprise me if there were multiple flavors of the Vostro. The description I found online said it was a mini-tower. It also said it shipped with an integrated graphics chip. A mini tower refers to a short desktop w 2 optical drive slots. It is a standard width unit. My old Lenovo workstation (full tower) had 3 optical drive slots. Just about all Dells ship with integrated graphics standard (mine would have). Up to the user to either upgrade at purchase or add on later. Unit is supposed to have an Intel H77 chipset which supports PCIe 2.0. Intel info http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/mainstream-chipsets/chipset-h77.html Dell Vostro 470 manual ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_desktop/esuprt_vostro_desktop/vostro-470_Owner%27s%20Manual_en-us.pdf http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/vostro-470/manuals Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f700es Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Ah, gotcha. Thanks for clarifying Sean. No prob brah! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzza Posted December 9, 2014 Author Share Posted December 9, 2014 Ah, gotcha. Thanks for clarifying Sean. Mark, I almost bit off into the full time self-employment realm but my wife was hesitant, so I passed the baton over to a friend of mine who two years ago went into business for himself as an MEP BIM designer. He has all my old contacts, other than one company, which I still do work for. They give me just the right amount of work to have a great side-work income. I am currently employed at Hill & Wilkinson General Contractors in Richardson, TX which is consistently voted one of the top companies to work at in Dallas. It's a great place to work. My boss and I sat down and spec'd our laptops together and they are beasts to say the least. They were so expensive I really was hesitant to have the company purchase them at first. Laptops that sport a Core i7-4910MQ, 32GB RAM, dual nVidia GTX 880M graphics, four high-performance 500GB SSD's in RAID, with dual 27" IPS 2560x1440 monitors. These are getting to be a year old now, and still rockin' strong. I can't complain to say the least. Sounds like it will be rocking for a few more years yet!! Beast. I definitely have an i7 not i5, it was one of the customization options at the time along with the GT640. Not sure if that meant they would upgrade the PSU from the 350w version. The machine suited me at the time for the price / amount of CAD work I was doing. I have been doing a lot more recently though and will continue to do so hence thinking of the upgrade. Not sure on the case spec but it measures 450 x 360 x 180mm, you could opt for the smaller cases but chose not to. Edit: A mini tower refers to a short desktop w 2 optical drive slots. It is a standard width unit. My old Lenovo workstation (full tower) had 3 optical drive slots. Just about all Dells ship with integrated graphics standard (mine would have). Up to the user to either upgrade at purchase or add on later. Unit is supposed to have an Intel H77 chipset which supports PCIe 2.0. Intel info http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/mainstream-chipsets/chipset-h77.html Dell Vostro 470 manual ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_desktop/esuprt_vostro_desktop/vostro-470_Owner%27s%20Manual_en-us.pdf http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/vostro-470/manuals A Mini Tower it is then (has 2 bay at standard width). Thanks f700es Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzframpton Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Not sure why your wife would be hesitant. It's not like you have ever been a slacker.Well, between you and me (and the anonymous forum members) the reason my wife was hesitant is..... *drumroll please*.... money. We had enough in our savings to last 12 months of an even more conservative lifestyle than we already had, but she couldn't give up her free-spending money that was budgeted. I kept saying to her that in time the money would come, along with owning and building a great and profitable company offering all types of BIM services but she wasn't having any of it. Once a wife gets comfortable it's hard to get her to sway from the daily pleasures she was used to (shopping, eating out, etc). So looks like I'll be a member of "the man" for the remainder of my working life, unless something else comes my way later in life. But I don't mind at all. As a Christian man, prayer has revealed to me that being employed and being an asset to a good company is where I need to be. It's much easier to sit back and receive a paycheck rather than get out and generate one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 I hear you man. Wives...enough said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Handiman Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Jumping on the bandwagon is not a bad thing. It is a good choice a lot of the time and saves money if you dont need it. The Dell power supply more than likely will not have the plugs required for a higher end video card. If you need another power supply be sure it will fit. You should be able to find the port specs from a search of the Dell computer specs or if you can find a board model number google might be your friend. Good Luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 All the specs I came across did not get into the nitty-gritty of whether the PCIe slots were version 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0. Doesn't Dell have their power supplies custom built? Maybe that was years ago....can't recall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f700es Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 All the specs I came across did not get into the nitty-gritty of whether the PCIe slots were version 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0. Doesn't Dell have their power supplies custom built? Maybe that was years ago....can't recall. I looked up the motherboard chipset and it seems to be 2.0 (posted above). They are not custom built per-say but they do use ones for OEMs (no switch on back). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Handiman Posted December 9, 2014 Share Posted December 9, 2014 Check the PWR SUP size before buying a new one. I had a Dell mini chassis before and it took the boss 3 tries to get one that fit. And we went to a video card that had 512mb memory. The power supply was a 225w super power. Just enough to run what was brung. Not a watt more. If he has a PCI 2.0 board the GTX cards will work but not as much performance as they promote. Bummer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike_Taylor Posted December 15, 2014 Share Posted December 15, 2014 You can pretty much rig anything to work with the current cords for a power supply so that really shouldn't be an issue. IF you decide to go with upgrading a computer would you being going through a company like Dell or somewhere local where you can get much better customization? The reason I ask is that if you go somewhere local, you can buy a card for now (assuming everything in your current build will allow for it) and order a new machine without a graphics card and throw the card in there when you get the new one. We do this occasionally here to help with budgeting a bit (essentially prolong the life of a computer for another 3-6 months then get a new one). One small advantage to going with a local place is you can much more easily upgrade a computer in the future. You can ask for a mother board with a chipset that will allow for future processors rather than building on the now only. It can make for a very much easier way to budget computer upgrades. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted December 15, 2014 Share Posted December 15, 2014 What do you mean by this? "You can pretty much rig anything to work with the current cords for a power supply so that really shouldn't be an issue." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f700es Posted December 15, 2014 Share Posted December 15, 2014 What do you mean by this? "You can pretty much rig anything to work with the current cords for a power supply so that really shouldn't be an issue." I wouldn't do that either 0_o Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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