Is an RCI computer an upgrade?

Hello,

My office is currently looking to upgrade our currently outdated computers on a very limited budget.  Currently, we have 8 computers that are operating with a Celeron 2.5ghz processor, 256 or 512MB of RAM and 40gb hard drive.  These computers were purchased approximately seven years ago and are all running very slow despite numerous attempts to upgrade.  So slow that it is hard for staff to complete work.

Currently, the best available computer through RCI is a Dell Pentium 4 2.8-3.0ghz processor with 512MB Ram and a minimum 40 gb hard drive.  I am trying to figure out if this would be that much of an upgrade, and if so, why?

Can someone help me?

Thanks!

Depending on what type of work you are doing, I would say the computer hardware is fine, but your operating system / hard drive may need a good cleaning. The amount of RAM or memory is on the low side by today's standards, but everything else should be find for an average business computer.

I would take one computer and after backing up the hard drive, delete and re-install the operating system. If you are running Windows 98, then you should upgrade that to XP or Windows 2000. Then re-install your applications. 256MB may be enough memory, but I would plan on upgrading to 512MB for most and more for any power-users you may have if the computer will support it.

Doing a clean operating system will "defrag" the hard drive, and I suspect that a fragmented hard drive and OS that has accumulated a bunch of junk is what is causing you problems. As you are thinking, the machines you are considering buying are not much different except that they are "clean and fresh" and would be an "upgrade" only because they are new.

Hard question to answer without being able to see the RCI computers in front of me.  The specs look very similar, but I would wager they are faster machines.  They can be upgraded to larger amounts of RAM.  They may (or may not) come with Hyper Threading technology on the CPU.  The front side bus will be faster (data can move around quicker).  The hard drive might even be faster (ATA133, higher RPMs...).  And the RAM will most certainly be faster (perhaps DDR).  Will it be noticeable?  Most likely.  But it could be for the reasons Christian pointed out above.  So try and follow what he suggests and see how one performs.  My gut feeling is that the RCI ones will be faster, but I have no true and honest data or details on it.

The Celeron processor is slower than an equivalent  non-Celeron processor. So, even though the speeds are only slightly higher in GHz, I am willing to bet that the RCI machines are considerably faster.

With that being said, if your applications are starved for RAM, the processor speed will be of little consolation.

Take a good look at the applications you plan on using, and make note of the highest system recommendation. I would dare say that you can afford to go a bit under the highest recommendation, but that, of course, will just mean a shorter lifespan for your replacement machine.

My non professional 2 cents..

You say very limited budget.  What I do is buy off lease used dell optiplex machines.  I make sure they are optiplex which are business grade.  I paid approx. $150 each without a monitor for gx270 with 1gig of ram.  I buy a couple extra in case I need parts or one fails.  I always buy identical machines so that they are easy to image.  I have had great luck with the optiplex.    The first time I bought 20 dell optiplex gx210s and none failed and the second time I bought 20 gx270s and so far none of them have failed.  I make sure they come with the windows xp pro certificate.  New machines can be very cheap but I question how the quality compares.  I didn't feel like trying to figure out vista yet.

I agree that your problem is likely software.  I find that if I do a clean install and then *** do not *** give the users the ability to install ***anything*** the machines run very fast.  If you give someone admin privileges they can have a top of the line machine running very slow very quickly.  I wouldn't allow Power Users either.  My gx210s with 700mhz processor, 256ram, winxp pro and office 2003 ran at a very decent and usable speed.  With 512ram and 2.5ghz processor you should have no problem for regular office use. 

Having identical machines saves a lot of time and headaches.

From your specs the worst problem would seem to be the machines with 256 ram.  If they all had 512 then the specs seem adequate for regular office use.

I run some slower machines at home (two with  < 2 GHz). Recently added more memory so that I'm at/above 1 GB, and it made a huge difference.

I've been watching my RAM useage for the last few of weeks, and XP (both Home and Professional, at home and at work) seems so settle in around 600 - 800 MB of physical RAM.
(the latest version of Process Explorer includes a graph showing the actual amount of RAM you are using. very handy)

Yeah, I use a 1.5GHz Pentium M laptop with 2GB of RAM for my primary machine and I run MS Office 2007, Windows 7 RC, Skype, Firefox and a bunch of RDP connections all at once without any slowdown.  This thing is 6+ years old.  I love it.

You can also consider the Sun server offering. You'll need to purchase Windows XP or Vista from here; however, the specs are much higher than the RCI machines and they're only $225 each.

However the Sun offering is a rack mount server, so it would not be very convenient for a workstation, plus it doesn't have sound or very high end video as a server product.

Dave