The last time I checked a reliability issue at PC World, every PC maker's quality had dropped. I haven't had horrible experiences with Dell products, but haven't had great experiences with them. I still have a working 7 year-old laptop where a number of keys don't work anymore (the diagonal bank of 8, I, K, and comma) and the DVD drive isn't greatly reliable, but it got a lot of use. I also have a newer laptop where the DVD burner was burning eratically and their tech support never completely corrected the problem, but they sent a replacement drive that also didn't work right. Their tech support oddly separated hardware from software problems and they would not provide software support within the warranty. Installing Roxio DVD Creator fixed whatever was messed up in the registry. The battery, on the 3 year-old system is down to about an hour remote usage, but that is probably the norm for something that old. Dell are the only authorized computers at work and one of the four I used had a power supply go bad. I haven't had a perdect record with Dell, but nothing too traumatic.

I just looked at Dell's refurbished site and there aren't any quad core systems in there today for desktops.

I was going to buy a Gateway computer, but they've recently dropped out of the make-to-order mode. That meant spending a grand to get a quad system because of how they've set up available systems. I've learned over the years to buy the least expensive machine with all the features I want. Technology changes so fast that the fastest, most expensive computer bought today will be middle-of-the road next year, bottom line in about two years, and slipping towards obsolete in later years. Features last longer. I had a computer CD burner years before they were fashionable and the same for DVDs. A quad core chip will provide significant render times savings over much faster dual core systems years from now.

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I WOULD be careful though and check memery slots available.. many budget machines only have 2 slots,and that limits how much ram they can hold.

The specs say 4 DIMM slots and I've been assuming that each DIMM uses up only one slot. The 2Gb I'm getting should leave two free DIMMs.
Below are the generic specs.
 Externally Accessible

Video: 1 DVI, VGA and 1 S-Video (with add-in PCI-Express video card)

IEEE 1394 (optional): 1 6-pin serial connector

USB: 10 ports (4 Front, 4 back) + 2 internal

Audio: Six back-panel connectors for line-in, line-out, microphone, rear surround, side surround, two front-panel connectors for headphones/microphone, integrated 7.1 channel sound

Network: Integrated 10/100 network interface

Expansion Slots

PCI: 2 Slots

PCIe x1: 1 Slot

PCIe x16 (Graphics): 1 Slots

Chassis

300 Watt DC Power Supply
3.5" Bays: 3 bays (one external; two internal)

5.25" Bays: 2 bays

Memory DIMM slots: 4 available

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