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I need to replace 15 older desktops with Windows 7 that are used for everyday clerical work, running ascender and camera software. I was looking at Dell OptiPlex 7020 Desktop Computer - Intel Core i5 14th Gen i5-14500T - 16 GB - 256 GB SSD - Windows 11 Pro because it is in our price range ($770). Do you think this would be a good choice that will last us 5 years or do you have any other suggestions that might work better within the price range? Or, should I go back to the board and ask for an increase in funds to purchase better desktop towers?

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I don’t think those are terrible specs, as long as they are currently Win11 compliant. As an example, my nvidia graphics card recently fell of the Win11 support list due to updates to the OS.

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I wouldn’t buy anything with a disk smaller than 512GB. even that is on the small side.

every device I manage with a 256GB drive is always in an error state for low storage.

I don’t understand why manufactures still offer anything less than 16GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD

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That should be a good system for basic office use. The SSD is a bit on the small side but if it’s only a single user/profile using the system and they save all data to Onedrive or a network share then it should probably be OK. If you need more than maybe 3-5 profiles logging on to one system you’re going to be constantly fighting low disk space. You could always upgrade to a larger SSD later if it becomes a problem.

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As someone who worked in schools. Your specs sound fine - assuming that all their data is saved on the server or cloud somewhere. 256GB is more than enough for my current/former clients as all their data is on cloud or windows server.

Only time it might be an issue is if you have Outlook or something and you have multiple users logging on to same machine each with email boxes 50GB in size. But that’s not really how it ever worked at any of my schools. Most of them have now moved to logging into Office 365 webmail.

Check your current hard drive usage first. My clients personally will never need 512GB drives. We use 256GB and have no issues with running out of space. But requirements vary from industry to industry.

I would consider looking at Lenovo Desktops as well. I recently reviewed Lenovo/Dell as I needed to find a new supplier as Fujitsu have exited the computer/laptop market. Long story, cut short, I decided to go with Lenovo over Dell as I felt that Lenovo were generally better build quality/reliability than Dell. Dell have a lot of weird issues from what I gathered from my research.

For reference I went with the thinkpad T series laptops. I am not sure what the equivalent model is for desktop. But I would go with business class Lenovo not the budget range.

You should get at least 8 years out of a computer. Piece of advice. Replace the monitor at the same time. The old monitors are probably too small and sometimes new computers seem to cause old monitors to fail.

PS - I would not get Windows 11 Pro. Get W11 Education - then you don’t get all the home games crap that comes with the home and now Pro versions of W10/W11. In addition, don’t get a tower - get a desktop pc (one where you place the monitor on the computer) or even a ultra SFF pc should be more than sufficient for your needs. The days of huge computer cases is over. Having said that, you may need a desktop not a sff for your camera requirements.

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I would usually get low-end i7, then add Dell onsite support for 5yrs or 7yrs. Then get the pricing from your Dell Sales Rep as you might find better discounts (espcially for schools)

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Why a Core i7? Unless you are gaming or video editing or transcoding, I very much doubt that you will see any noticeable difference. These are office machines. Ram and NVME hard drive will make more difference.

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Not true…we had several lappy using i5 (16GB RAM, SSDs) which were laggy opening large pptx and PDFs where you can see CPU shoot up 100% for like 15-45min.

We used the same model that had i7 CPUs, the files literally opened immediately.

For a small price diff of like $50-$100 between the top range i5 vs entry i7… I would highly recommend i7s. We are not talking about the highend i7 (or almost i9) CPU range.

Then for schools that may even have a 50% to 90% discount (especially on older models as Dell vendors may have ex-stock)…why not i7 CPU or 16GB RAM and 5yrs completecover as well ?

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Fair point. I suspect again it is industry related. I am not aware of any instance where my end users have that particular problem. I only deal with primary schools, not secondary (high schools) and the education sector is very different from many businesses who have very different requirements.

I don’t think that we have files that are so big, that the cpu actually makes a difference. But I will look into it as I was not aware that the size of the file would affect the cpu so much. I would expect memory to be more relevant.

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Its mainly photo…sometimes they wanna create like newsletters etc…then nowadays phones that take photos are super-super high res…

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I worked in a secondary school, covering primaries under the secondary remit. Office staff had basic i5 and 8gb on Win 10. Exam officers ran with an i7 and 16gb. These fulfilled the needs for the role and no issues. Was only the HT that got an i9 and 32gb as more of a status thing, not that it ever got close to any of that.
Kids got laptops which were re-furbished from a UK company and came with cracking support, 3yrs onsite.

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Quite correct. I do core i3 and 8gb for pupils (as they only tend to open one app during lesson) and core i5 and now 16gb ram for staff (as 8gb is starting to become a bottleneck for some staff). Head and business manager gets the same as the rest of the staff. They don’t need a core i9 or even a core i7 (as far as I am aware lol).

I prefer computers for kids - bring the kids to the IT suite, rather than bring the IT Suite to the kids. Computers are so much more cost effective. No issues with uncharged batteries, wireless capacity etc! I have never seen the logic of laptops for pupils in primary schools. It Suite with computers is actually a lot more reliable and cheaper.

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School was one of them hit by RAAC, so laptops were essential for them. Got 200 laptops and 6 charging cabinets for them (all paid for by the DfE), headache was managing the laptops so that there were at least 35 charging ready for the next lesson.
PC’s that were in the labs were coming to end of lease and we couldn’t get in to get them out.
They were quite solid and i have to give the suppliers credit for them, won’t name here in case i get sent to HT office…

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Yes, this is true of laptops. However, OP is looking for desktop workstations. Desktop processors aren’t limited to low wattage or low core counts, and you are very unlikely to encounter a scenario like this with a desktop PC (an i5 struggles to open a file while an i7 flies).

For general productivity (MS Office and web apps), plus some small extras (camera software), a mid-range CPU (eg i5 or Ryzen5) with 16 GB of RAM is wholly sufficient. Discrete graphics is a complete waste - don’t do it, use the GPU built into the CPU. As suggested above, size the disk for the number of users and how you store/save files.

Be cautious with SFF PCs. Those very often have laptop CPUs in them to keep power consumption reasonable for the size of the case/cooling.

Nothing against laptop CPUs, but you will have to spend relatively more to get performance closer to on par with a desktop CPU.

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Holy outdated Batman! Windows 7? I was in schools for 3 decades and even we were never that bad.

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I have never bought SFF computers for that exact reason. I have always felt that the cpu was deliberately throttled to manage cooling. However, I wonder (in a modern machine) how much laptop and SFF cpu’s are really throttled any more. CPU’s run a lot cooler and are a lot more energy efficient than they were 10 years ago. Most people have moved to laptops and use them for really cpu intensive applications and they don’t seem to complain?

My gut feeling is that laptop and SFF cpu’s are not as fast as desktop cpu’s, but not sure how true that statement is for modern day systems?

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This is largely the reason why I have left working in schools. Not specifically to do with running old versions of Windows - but this constant narrative that there is never any money for IT in education, but they always seem to have money to waste on other things. I don’t know about other countries, but working in IT in schools in the UK is now a dead end job. You can’t really make money in most schools any more. So, I have left the public sector now, bar one client that I get on very well with and enjoy looking after.

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I hear you. I retired in 2017 and work part time for a private and fix machines out of my home now. I lost my taste for schools. It is not the same as when I began as a teacher in 1999.

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Have to agree with you here. I was in a school and money was found to create 2 new senior posts(Senior DHT and a 3rd DHT) which added £50k to their spending. Yet they needed a whole new SAN and I had managed to get the costs down to less than £40k by pulling back on licenses for VM’s they didn’t need and moving from 3 to 2 hosts. But that was too expensive and was refused, yes it fell over and no we didn’t have it backed up as it was taken at a higher level than me that they would survive. But the new senior members of staff got a nice pay rise.
Public sector is one place i will never return to.

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Depends on what you’re doing.

Desktop CPU cooling (in general) is capable of dissipating all of the thermal energy it consumes. Thermal throttling should very rarely happen with desktops, regardless of workload. The same cannot be said for the cooling solutions used with mobile CPUs. They are generally not designed to sustain dissipation of the heat from max consumption - only brief periods of high power usage.

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