After I totalled up all the money I'm about to spend for a new PC build I figured why not just go ahead and get a Dell. I can buy the Dell machine for the same, actually less, money as my built-it-myself.

My build it myself project includes a Globalwin YCC-61F1-B case, Asus P4PE, 2.4 GHz P4, 512 Mb RAM, etc. I'd config the Dell basically the same.

So, my question is: how quiet or noisey are these Dell machines?

It seems that they get good reviews for quietness. In fact someone on another forum linked to here and said that this site recommended the Dell's. So, what do you guys think?

Dell makes way too many for us to simply "recommend Dell" -- impossible. There is a Dell that has been favorably reviewed by a reader -- see the main site under Systems. The BIG issue we have with Dell is not whether they are quiet -- but that they simply do not provide ANY noise information at all -- at least not the last time I looked.

So how will you choose? You know they are not ALL quiet, and you don't know HOW quiet. That's one significant advantage of a smaller PC maker like ARM Systems who are willing to submit samples to us for testing. The big PC makers generally ignore SPCR & hardly even reply to emails.

This continues to be an issue with the big PC makers. Most provide little if any noise info. HP provides dBA power info only on their biz line, which is odd. Evidently, they have the info on their home line & choose not to publish it.

If all you're after is quiet, fine, but remember that Dells are not particularly upgradeable. You can change the RAM or HDD but the MoBo, PSU and case are basically propietary so you'd have a difficult time trying to upgrade or change them later on down the road. I constantly see dozens of posts from people looking for advice on how to upgrade their Dells and they go away dissapointed when they're told they can't do too much.

I have a brand new Dell (optiplex somethingsomething) at work, I *can't* hear it. When I push the power button I don't hear a difference. I have to look at the LED on my keyboard to see whether it's on.

My mom has a 2.4ghz deminsion 4500, and im sitting right by it, and while I can say its not loud, its definately not silent, it has a slight hum coming from the power supply just enough to be annoying. And buy the way dells have a markup of about $500-$1000 depending on when you buy from dell you get better deals, buy you can ALWAYS build the exact same system for $500 cheaper if you look for good deals. Oh the 61f1 is a nice case but its expensive, you would do better to just buy an antec case or a generic case with a spot for a 120mm fan and put a quite power supply in it.
Basically, if you have the knowledge and confidence to build your own computer than you should definately not buy from dell. It may be easier to buy from dell but you will get a better, faster, quieter, and cheaper computer if you are smart about what parts you buy, and you put it together yourself.

Some pc-room at my university are now equiped with new dell optiplex computers and they are really quite (and there are !!+40 pc's in each room...)

Yeah we have those optiplexes as well. There's just one fan in them .

Yeah, I'm the system administrator for a dormitory computer lab, and the 4550's just came in yesterday. They're very quiet; although they are not as quiet as a specially-built system, among the standard ambience (air circulation) it'll be inaudible from about 1m.