Replacing HP desktops for small office

Phos

The company I work for is a small office with 18 computers and currently 15 users. We've been working on HP Compaq D530 small form factors for 5 years + now and I've been tasked with upgrading a few that are on their last leg.

Anyone who happens to work IT have some suggestions, the only restriction being that the boss has a hard on for HP.

Usage: Microsoft NAV, Office, lots of PDFs.
Would Like: Multi display, decent graphics for the occasional large image fiiles.

I'm looking at:

HP Pavilion Elite e9250t series - Base config at $800 would probably be sufficient for our needs
Vs
HP Pavilion p6280t series - Would have to upgrade some, looking at $700'ish with 6 gigs ram and the ATI 4350.

I'm leaning towards the Elite despite being somewhat overkill, would probably give some nice longevity. Anyone have any experience with either series and care to comment, or suggest an alternative?

Going to buy 4 to start and additional units at a later time.

Decius

My workplace is an HP shop.

Stay far away from Pavilion hardware as it's their consumer line, and isn't exactly the best built. We've had some Pavilion laptops and Desktops in our office that came in due to mergers and acquisitions of other companies, and they tend to be the most problematic.

In a heartbeat I'd recommend using HP's business class hardware. The system I've been rolling out for offices and divisions that need a cheap but effective desktop computer is the HP Compaq 6000 Pro. They're solid systems, well built, and easy to work on. HP's business support is also light years ahead of their consumer support channel.

travathian

6 gigs of ram and a quad core processor for an office PC? Yer nuts and spending twice as much as you should. This is half the price and more fitting for an office PC, and if somehow 1gig of memory aint enough, you can buy sticks of DDR2 for $15. You need 6gigs and a decent graphics card for the occasional large image file, sorry no you don't. And also don't give me this dual display crap. With the money you save buying a more fitting desktop you can spring for 24" wide screen monitors for everyone and probably end up cheaper than buying two 21" monitors for each station. These will give you plenty of longevity in an office environment. If you have a power user or two that need to do video editing, serious photoshop work, or something else, fine spring for a higher end system, but the typical cube monkey has no need for what equates to a moderately decent system for gaming.

I used to work for HP doing pre-sales consults and wouldn't ever recommend wasting money on a system like what you picked out. The systems you have now apparently do everything they need to and the only reason you are looking at replacing them is because they are failing? What is the point of buying supercomputers then? There isn't. You're doing your boss a disservice by pissing away his money on technology that won't help. Buy low end desktops and put the difference into a better server, backup solution, network infrastructure, etc. Keep in mind that low end computers from today still vastly outperform high end computers from 5 years ago. Get out of the mindset that low end equals piece of crap. If you have a 5x5' patch of lawn in your back yard you dont buy a riding lawnmower to cut the grass, you buy technology that has been around for 150+ years, a push reel mower. Buy the right tool for the job, not the shiniest tool.

Phos

Thanks for the info. I'm going to check out those 6000 pro's.

travathian, I was looking more for opinions on the systems mentioned or something comparable. I gave the bare essential info which I guess you took as me being uninformed in regards to computers.

Yes I need dual display for a select few machines(I'm on a dual display setup right now), no 1GB is not enough for our needs, and when I say large image files I'm not talking 800x600 digital camera pics.

I had an email exchange with the owner yesterday that basically summed up a few of your points (although less 3rd degree... don't want to be talking down to the boss now) and got a "spend this much, don't buy crap equipment and don't bother me with the details".

Your reaction is understandable though given the minimal info I put out there, but again... I just wanted opinions on the machines, not what we should and shouldn't need.

Thanks.