Well, I can't recommend a recent DELL, but my DELL 4600i Pentium4/2.66ghz, 2gb RAM and ATI Radeon X850 Pro is still going strong after 7 years. The only thing replaced/upgraded was the video card (originally an ATI Radeon 9800 PRO) and the battery on the motherboard (died after 6 years, kept losing my time/date/BIOS settings on every cold start). My mom and our neighbor both bought DELLs shortly after mine (both Celerons) and they are still used everyday as main systems with no problems. I'm pretty sure recent DELLs are the same in quality. Tech-support is another matter though, but it sounds like you have some technical experience so you won't need to deal with support as much as 'normal' DELL buyers...
But they're having issues right now, the video card is a little weak, and I'd still have to throw Windows on there for work.
I've heard that the 27" LCDs are having problems with the glass breaking or scratches and that a fix is coming in a few weeks. From what I read, you can't get one until the fix is in place. Maybe someone has some more info on that? The vid card is usually an older version of what we use in PC's but the OS is also different (not counting that you have to install Windows as well) and has optimizations for the hardware present. Since Apple controls the configurations they can squeeze every last drop out of the vid cards and other components...
I just put together a nice custom Core i5-750/2.66ghz, Gigabyte P55M-UD2, 2gb of Kingston DDR3 PC3-10600 RAM (skimped on the RAM some but plan to upgrade later on), HIS ATI Radeon HD5770 and Intel X-25V 40gb SSD HD and spent just a little north of $600. I couldn't be happier with it. Even though I was only building up from a Core2Duo E8400/3.0ghz, Asus P5Q-EM MB, and Visiontek ATI Radeon HD4870, (built in November 2008) I can still see some significant gains...If I was choosing, I would go with a DELL of similar specs to the one I just built (such as the one you listed). I don't think you would be disappointed at all...
=-Rigs-=
This comment was edited on Feb 7, 2010, 17:12.
Survivor of the 12/10/21 Mayfield EF4 tornado'Sorry, we thought you were dead.'
'I was. I'm better now.'