Dell Precision T3600 Review: Dell's New Enterprise

Conclusion: Most Improved Since 2011

Where build and design are concerned, Dell's Precision T3600 (along with the T5600 and T7600) are like night and day compared to last year's line. The Precision T1600 wasn't a bad desktop, but the revised design here is preferable in every conceivable way, and those design cues are echoed across the entire lineup (including the new T1650).

While Dell would like to talk to you about performance and just how fast their Precision desktops are, realistically that's not actually their strong suit when taken in context. HP can for the most part build desktops just as fast as Dell can because they're sourcing their parts from the same places. The underlying mantra with Dell's revised chassis design, and the thing that the end user should really be focusing on, is one word: "uptime."

In a perfect world computer parts just wouldn't break down, but this isn't a perfect world, so Dell did the next best thing: they tried to make the least reliable parts in a computer system as easy to service as humanly possible. Their RMT addresses memory-related issues and stability while toolless mounts for hard drives and especially the power supply ensure that should any of these parts actually fail, it's easy to just replace it and keep going. Simply put, Dell has designed around minimizing downtime due to service. Better still, they've made the systems easy enough to service that even a relative neophyte can do it.

The other thing I'd ordinarily want to address with the T3600 would be pricing, but this review is as much a preview as it is a review. The T3600 and its kin aren't going to be available until next month, and so until then we have no idea just how badly the end user is going to get gouged—and rest assured, they will be gouged. This is as true for HP as it is for Dell; you're paying for service and reliability, and in the process you're going to pay an arm and a leg for certain upgrades. There's a very good reason companies chase after the enterprise sector.

Ultimately, though, I think Dell has done very right by their customers with the new Precision towers. The T3600, at least in our review configuration, is as fast as Dell wants you to believe. They've also made the systems as easy to diagnose and service as humanly possible. We have a competing system from HP in house that we'll be reviewing soon, but the bar has been set.