Dell cuts workstation prices

Dell Computer says it is cutting prices on its Pentium III workstation computers by as much as 17 percent, making one model cost less than $1,700.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor

Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.

See full bio

Brooke Crothers

Jan. 2, 2002 4:43 p.m. PT

2 min read

Dell Computer today said it is cutting prices on its Pentium III workstation computers by as much as 17 percent, making one model cost less than $1,700.

Dell Computer said that the prices of select models in its Precision line will be cut, including one model with two Pentium III processors.

A Dell Precision WorkStation 210 with dual 450-MHz Pentium III processors, 64MB of memory, two 6.4GB hard disk drives, a CD-ROM drive, a Diamond Permedia2 graphics subsystem, and Windows NT is now priced at $2,241, a reduction of 17 percent, the company said.

The Pentium III is Intel's newest chip, introduced back in February and runs at speeds up to 500 MHz and will be released later this year at 550 MHz. Dell is the last major PC maker in the United States to use Intel processors exclusively in its computer lineup.

Prices for an entry-level 210 model, including a monitor, now start at $1,668. This model also includes a 450-MHz Pentium III and Diamond video subsystem.

In addition, prices were cut on the midrange model 410 by up to 15.5 percent and on the high-end Precision 610 model by as much as 7.4 percent. The 610 comes with either 500- or 550-MHz Pentium III processors.

Dell has risen quickly to become one of the top workstation suppliers worldwide.

Until about three years ago, workstations were pricey machines--often costing as much as $10,000 or more--running almost exclusively on the Unix operating system and RISC processors. Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM dominated this market with their proprietary offerings.

But Windows-Intel technology has driven down the cost of workstations to well below $2,000 in some cases.