So is a Dell Optiplex a good PC?

Dells are OK, I don't know which model the Optiplex is on their ranges. My biggest issue with Dell is the are not "real" compatible components. Every part has their own little "Tweak" and the only way to get a driver, it download it from Dell, and not the card manufacturer. That and they LOAD it up with bloatware even beyond what Microsoft put of there.

I used the same Dell tower for 12 years at my last place of employment. It was a solid reliable unit. I started building my own systems just to get 100% industry standard interchangeable components. Off the shelf video cards, and memory, and so on.

I guess you will get to have your tech support folks help you with problems.

Personally, I would not spend the money for a Dell anything, but the laptops aren't really that bad. As Glen said, they aren't always universal PC parts compatible, like the power supplies having odd connectors instead of the standard ones. They are better than they used to be and if the company is buying and maintaining it, it should be fine. I have a couple Dell at home that were given to us and they work fine. Nothing fancy but work for guests.

My workplace experience with Dell computers was not very good. More failures than I would've expected. My experience is a bit dated, since I left the workplace a few years ago.

We bought several Dell computers at the old office. Never did get the extended tech support. I took care of that. We bought a used server from a local computer reseller. It was purchased new by Chesapeake Oil Company. They must have bought a lots of Dell equipment. When I was truing to set it up from scratch to get rid of all the bloat ware the computer store put on, I called the tech support line and gave them the Service Tag number. They perked right up and happily FedExed me a new version of Win95 with all the service packs for free. I did not mention it was used computer. That service tag was like a magic number with Dell. It too was a solid computer for the day.

Yep helpdesk is always working with Dell for software setup image.
It is not as fast, have as much memory, hardrive space, or even an SSD like my 3 yo Apple Laptop. But hey, it's not a Mac. Macs are expensive.
It has about the same power as the virtual PC I run on the Mac. And is supposed to do all the stuff Ive been doing on the Mac AND PC?.
Pretty sure I am going to hate it every bit as much as the Boss hates Macs. Not because it's a PC, but because it is so underpowered and slow.

Funny, all the company executives have Macs and they always get new Macs when they upgrade. But the head of the IT hates them enouth to spend way more money to "upgrade" my computer to a lesser box.

Morning all. One day closer to the weekend!!!!

As I remember Mac gave up on the Motorola CPUs and went Intel like PCs, and they are using fairly standard video card architecture. There is no reason not to use a SSD for the boot drive, except saving money over performance.

My biggest hate of Microsoft is all the bloatware they install and then make it hard to remove it. They really seem to think every customer is a millennial or college student using a laptop, and all about games, social media, and syncing to a phone. Microsoft so much need to have a "True professional" version. No games at all, no "apps" like weather, news, and the rest of the crap that just use up memory and clock cycles. I want the computer to be focused on the many thousand dollar software package I am running and forget about shopping on line or Xbox.

They need a button, remove all games. Instead they keep sneaking them on.

Buongiorno, y’all. More rain overnight and this morning here in Seattle South.

I hope it is nicer than last weekend!

We have had 1.65 inches of rain so far this morning. Cushing, OK is the sire of the worlds larges petroleum storage facility on the planet. They just had a "circulation" seen on radar go over the area. Of course the tanks are spread out over many square miles. Don't yet know if there is any damage. It was supposed to be in the 70s today and only 61 degree so far.

It was in the 80s on Easter, then that picture from last Saturday at the trap meet where we got some rain and then several inches of snow. Back to rain here the next few days.

A desktop Mac does not have the same upgrade paths available like a Windows PC. Apple doesn't like to certify new hardware all that quickly so no new Titan for you!

maybe I should move up there, as cheep as I am at least I'd finally loose that weight ...

One reason I have been a Windows user for so long is the flexibility of changing the system. The computer I am typing this on is over 6 years old. I built it originally as just my home PC to run Quicken, and do email and surf the web. I just used the onboard video of the motherboard. and a pair of 1 TB hard drives running in a mirror.

Then after a couple of years I bought a much large case and bigger power supply, and two high end video cards and started running some mapping software on it. That grew into needed a new motherboard with more cores, and 128 gig of ram, so I disassembled my system, and put the two video cards in the new super system. and went back to the cheap video card. Then I needed a real horsepower for Video and put in the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti with 28 Gig of video memory and put in the 2 TB SSD.

I also have 3 other hard drives in the system. It all started life as a Win 7 Pro computer and was upgraded to Win 10 Pro. I would like to build a system with the new CPU like one I built for my partner, with the i8 Next Gen CPU and 24 cores, and 64 gig of RAM. If we get a few of the big projects we have bid on I might get to build that. Then turn this machine back to a personal Quicken, and email box.

Before the new VP of IT, users could choose either Mac or PC. That was when I got my last computer upgrade.
With our new VP of IT only Executives get to choose Mac or PC. VP of IT is only executive using a PC. And it's a hot rodded up homebuilt, no the El Cheapo speced out Dells everyone else it getting. And company spending more on other things that are not an issue. Example: used to have an in-house public ftp server that worked with http like drop box/but better. Glen uses it on my zipbang servers. The software is $300 one time that integrates with active directory. Now doing same with drop box and is well over $300/month.

IIRC, Alienware is part of Dell. Just sayin.

Richard, hosting it yourself isn't the cloud and the cloud is the new Starbucks.

My partner has a Ailenware laptop. It is a "laptop" only for Andre the Giant, wearing asbestos pants. it has two video cards, and 4 hard drives, and 32 Gig of RAM. It is a monster with all that built in.

We use it mostly for demonstrations to clients to show them what our 3D models of the building look like and what that can do with the data we can provide.

I need to find a good gamer laptop for the kid to take to college this fall so I can talk him out of shipping his desktop.

Tomshardware.com, anandtech.com extremetech.com are all pretty trustworthy.

Since I have an alarm system on the house, and it is monitored and will contact the police or fire department I "get" to pay for a license for the privilege. It is just $17 per year, and if I have a false alarm and the cops roll out, I will keep them from fining me. They were having lots of false alarms and wasting money, so they figured out a way to make us pay for it. I have to agree, make the home owners that have false alarms pay for the cost.

Anyway, I received my new sticker today. In the past they were a little square vinyl sticker to put on a window near the front door. Several years ago they started printing them on just regular paper, and they do have an adhesive back. So I stick it on the window, and within a few rain storms the sticker is falling apart. The year for the sticker is not visible the end of the year. They really need to spend a few cents more to make them on vinyl again.