Dell AMD boxes vastly cheaper than Intel

[bbbl67]

Saving money on ribbon cable folding? It seems that many people, even
DIYers are getting by with one optical drive now; personally I still prefer
a DVD-ROM as well as a burner.

Probably more likely saving money on avoiding the big PATA connector
that takes up such a large chunk of real-estate on these motherboards,
especially small form-factor ones.

Yousuf Khan

 

[George Macdonald]

I'm sure in this case they simply never connected traces to the parts
of the chipset dealing with the PATA connectors. Thus saving some money
in the motherboard design, and also some board real-estate.

Not sure how the de-featured market works - obviously nVidia did a
reference design; mbrds are designed for the retail market which are not
emasculated. It'd be additional fixed cost expense to make a separate
design and production line for the defeatured board, for a minimal savings
in marginal production cost.

We see this in the retail baords, where there is often only one or two
basic board designs and the only differences between the various "Plus",
"Super", "Ultra" and "DeLuxe" versions is components - you see the solder
pads where the chips/connectors are missing.

The SATA
connectors are extremely easy to accomodate on even the smallest
form-factors. PATA aren't. And Dell is one of the driving members of
the SATA committee. They have likely got big deal set up with one of
the HD makers for SATA drives and therefore they would never be buying
PATA hard drives anyways, so PATA connectors on the mobo would be just
sitting uselessly for them.

Again, there are u-ATX boards out there with 2xPATA connectors; I have my
doubts that the designers would redo the place and route and do a
reschedule of stuffing for a cheap version... more likely just miss a
couple of stuff-stations and test-rigs... but I'm no authority on this.
Maybe someone else can comment on how the junk market is umm, provided?
You're probably right about Dell's motives... though the Plextor is the
only current seller of SATA DVD-R/RWs that I see.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Not sure how the de-featured market works - obviously nVidia did a
reference design; mbrds are designed for the retail market which are not
emasculated. It'd be additional fixed cost expense to make a separate
design and production line for the defeatured board, for a minimal savings
in marginal production cost.

We see this in the retail baords, where there is often only one or two
basic board designs and the only differences between the various "Plus",
"Super", "Ultra" and "DeLuxe" versions is components - you see the solder
pads where the chips/connectors are missing.

I'm sure the big tier-1's are enough volume by themselves to justify a
special design for just them. At one time Dell even had a special ATX
power supply connector, not sure if that's still true right now. Dell
just rearranged the pins on the ATX PS plug to make sure that nobody
tries to replace their motherboards with non-Dell supplied ones. That
little feature alone must've cost a few thousand dollars in R&D, but
Dell may have generated enough volumes for that mobo maker to recoup that.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Felger Carbon]

As for disabling PATA, Dell is the one who supplies all of the hard
drives and optical drives anyways for these systems, so likely they
don't even bother to carry PATA stuff anymore, it's all SATA for them
now.

Dell carries/uses SATA optical drives? Newegg is selling PATA DVD-R drives
for $30 and free shipping. What's the cheapest SATA equivalent you know of,
and where can you buy it?

 

[Tony Hill]

Dell carries/uses SATA optical drives?

Apparently so. Neither the AMD-based E521 or the Intel-based E520
systems have a PATA connector, just 4 SATA connectors. You can find
this in the service manual for the two systems:

E521:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dimE521/en/SM_EN/index.htm

E520:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dimE520/en/SM_EN/index.htm


Or more specifically, if you check out their instructions on
installing/removing a CD drive you'll notice that it's a SATA drive:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dimE521/en/SM_EN/parts.htm#wp1056445

Newegg is selling PATA DVD-R drives
for $30 and free shipping. What's the cheapest SATA equivalent you know of,
and where can you buy it?

Dell seems to be the cheapest, at $45:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=313-4662

It's been a long time coming, but it seems that SATA optical drives
are finally starting to appear. I see that NewEgg has a cheap SATA
Combo drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106040

Though their only DVD-RW SATA drives are the Plextor models which are
hovering around $100. Not much more than a Plextor IDE drive, but
expensive as compared to the other companies.

 

[George Macdonald]

I'm sure the big tier-1's are enough volume by themselves to justify a
special design for just them. At one time Dell even had a special ATX
power supply connector, not sure if that's still true right now. Dell
just rearranged the pins on the ATX PS plug to make sure that nobody
tries to replace their motherboards with non-Dell supplied ones. That
little feature alone must've cost a few thousand dollars in R&D, but
Dell may have generated enough volumes for that mobo maker to recoup that.

It'd be interesting to know for sure - I guess it's even possible that
nVidia did a special ref design for them. Someone with a Dell system might
be able to take a peek at their mbrd for signs of solder pads instead of
PATA connectors - there are pics of all the major mbrds at NewEgg for
comparison.

It was mentioned a while back that Dell had given up the special ATX
connector on *some* systems but it's never been clear if that was a policy
change or just a one-off... or maybe even a case of Dell using an off the
shelf board occasionally.

 

[George Macdonald]

Dell carries/uses SATA optical drives? Newegg is selling PATA DVD-R drives
for $30 and free shipping. What's the cheapest SATA equivalent you know of,
and where can you buy it?

They don't have a DVD-ROM drive - only the burner. Note that DVD-ROM
drives are fading away - the best one (the Asus and only one worth buying
?) has been out of stock in black at NewEgg and anyplace else for a month
now. At the office, I've had three Lite-On DVD-ROMs fail after 2 years of
very light use... pure junk!

For burners, the only retail DVD+-/R-RW in SATA is the Plextor but ISTR
that I read that it was produced by Sanyo. I guess Dell could also have
the mfr build in a SATA/PATA converter to the drive's connector.

 

[max]

It'd be interesting to know for sure - I guess it's even possible that
nVidia did a special ref design for them. Someone with a Dell system might
be able to take a peek at their mbrd for signs of solder pads instead of
PATA connectors - there are pics of all the major mbrds at NewEgg for
comparison.

I've upgraded a number of Dells for friends over the years, and in
every case I can recall, missing features were as you described - same
MB as higher-end models, but with connectors missing from the MB.
Presumably the BIOS is modded to take that into account, but I
couldn't vouch for that.

max

 

[George Macdonald]

I've upgraded a number of Dells for friends over the years, and in
every case I can recall, missing features were as you described - same
MB as higher-end models, but with connectors missing from the MB.
Presumably the BIOS is modded to take that into account, but I
couldn't vouch for that.

Thanks max. Any word on what the deal is with Dell PSUs now? Are they all
standard now or is there no consistenct answer?

 

[max]

Thanks max. Any word on what the deal is with Dell PSUs now? Are they all
standard now or is there no consistenct answer?

I understand they're standard now, but of the various things I've
upgraded/repaired on Dells, I haven't had a PS fail yet, for whatever
reason. I've had lots of them die on cheap whitebox systems, usually
after the fan fails.

I've got a Dell I'll be sticking a new SATA drive in soon, so maybe
I'll pull out the meter and check out the PS.

max

 

[krw]

I understand they're standard now, but of the various things I've
upgraded/repaired on Dells, I haven't had a PS fail yet, for whatever
reason. I've had lots of them die on cheap whitebox systems, usually
after the fan fails.

I've got a Dell I'll be sticking a new SATA drive in soon, so maybe
I'll pull out the meter and check out the PS.

I don't think you even need a meter. AFAIK the color codes on the
power cable will tell all.