Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: cheap Dell servers for next 4 days

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Posted by Andrew Piskorski on
Oh, last year's offer was for the 600SC; Dell's prices on that model currently seem noticeably higher and aren't available with the 800 MHz FSB at all. The 400SC sounds a lot like basically the same machine in a smaller case, but that definitely isn't true, or at least it wasn't true last year. The info and pictures in that helpful Unofficial Dell PowerEdge 400SC FAQ page make it clear that the c. July 2003 400SC is quite different from my March 2003 600SC:

My 600SC motherboard appears to have 4 64-bit PCI slots and no AGP slot, while the 400SC had 4 32-bit PCI slots and an AGP slot. Besides the obvious case differences, the the fans and heatsinks are also clearly different: The 400SC is described as usually having only one 92mm 0.68A fan at the back, and a passive heatsink on the CPU. My 600SC has a ~120mm 1.50A fan at the back, ~80mm 0.90A fan in the front, and a smaller 0.25A blower on the CPU.

At any rate, the P4 2.4 GHz configuration is the cheapest CPU with an 800 rather than 533 or 400 MHz front-side bus; minimum price for that configuration (1 small IDE drive, only 128 MB of Dells' usually-overpriced ECC RAM, etc.) is ($498 - $100 rebate) = $398.

Going with the cheapest Celeron 2.0 GHz 400 MHz FSB still only brings the price down to ($399 - $100) = $299, so I don't know where that advertised $179 price is coming from. Perhaps I missed something in Dell's configurator, or prices have changed since yesterday when the techbargains.com info/ad actually went up.