Specifications (as tested): 2x 2.0 GHz Xeon processors; 512 MB PC800 RDRAM; 2 x 40 GB ATA-100 hard drives; 48X IDE CD-ROM and 24X/10X/40X CD-RW; Nvidia Quadro7 700XGL graphics card
Pros: Excellent price for a powerhouse machine; works out-of-the-box with Red Hat 7.3 drivers; plenty of expansion space for storage and cards
Cons: Mini-tower chassis is huge; cover is hard to close
Until a few months ago, my personal Linux software development workstation was an old HP server, with dual 600 MHz Pentium III processors, three 18 GB SCSI hard drives, half a gig of memory, and a copper gigabit NIC. For years, I’ve reused old servers as desktop machines because I wanted the extra power and reliability that a server-class platform offered. Now, for the first time in at least five years, I’m back to a desktop machine: Dell’s Precision 530n Workstation, with dual 2.0 GHz Intel Xeon processors. When I got it, it was the first desktop (that I knew of) to offer that kind of power — and I’ve never looked back.
First, the tech specs. The Dell 530n has two Intel Pentium 4 Xeon processors, a 400 MHz front-side bus, a 256 KB L2…
Please log in to view this content.
Not Yet a Member?
Register with LinuxMagazine.com and get free access to the entire archive, including:
