Business systems are often defined not just by how quickly they complete their assigned tasks, but how quickly the systems themselves get to market. For that reason, the Dell Vostro 470 deserves some significant plaudits: This is one of the first professional PCs we've seen using Intel's 2012 third-generation Core (aka Ivy Bridge) technology. And, unsurprisingly, its advanced hardware gives it a serious leg up against its competition in terms of performance, helping it surpass last year's Lenovo ThinkCentre M91pSEE IT to earn our Editors' Choice Award for enterprise-aimed PCs.

Design and Features
Like many business desktops, the Vostro 470 doesn't dazzle with design: It’s little more than a basic-black box with a few silver accents. What matters more are its layout and ease of use, and the Vostro 470 does well on those fronts. Both of its 5.25-inch external bays are hidden from view behind two panels; press the button on the side of the top one to reveal the dual-layer DVD burner hidden away inside. (The other bay is empty.) The front-panel ports are located behind a drop-down door on the front of the machine, and it’s a fair selection: microphone and headphone, as you’d expect, along with four USB ports equally divided between the 2.0 and 3.0 varieties. Six more USB ports—four 2.0, two 3.0—are located on the back panel, along with the Gigabit Ethernet jack, audio ports, and video outputs for both the integrated video (VGA, HDMI) and the included 1GB Radeon HD 7570 discrete video card (DVI, HDMI).

The CPU at the heart of the system is the Intel Core i7-3770, a quad-core chip running at 3.4GHz that’s capable of marshaling up to eight simultaneous processing threads by way of Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology. Accompanying this is 8GB of RAM, which you can expand up to as much as 32GB, though to get there you'll need to replace the existing memory and not just fill the two free DIMM slots. Primary storage space is respectable: 1TB, provided on a single 7,200rpm hard drive. There’s also a 19-in-1 card reader for accessing still more removable storage.

Some other nice features grace the Vostro 470 as well, including 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. If you want to open the system, you can do so just by loosening a couple of thumbscrews and pulling off the side panel. The interior is well organized, with all the cables and wires neatly tied, providing easy access to the one free internal 3.5-inch drive bay and three available PCI Express (PCIe) x1 expansion slots. The 350-watt power supply may be a bit on the wimpy side if you want to add much more hardware. The keyboard and mouse that come with the Vostro are graduates of the no-frills school.

Windows 7 Professional, in its 64-bit incarnation, is the operating system of choice, and it comes with a bit of bloatware in place including Microsoft Office Starter 2010 and Adobe Reader; a 15-month trial of Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security and 2GB of Datasafe 2.0 online backup are included in your purchase price. The Vostro 470 is covered with a one-year basic limited warranty and one year of Next Business Day On-site service (after remote diagnosis); extra support options, including around-the-clock phone support and access to advanced technicians are available with the ProSupport package, will add $50 to $163 to your bill (depending on the duration, up to three years).

Performance
Although Dell intended the Vostro 470 as a productivity system, our benchmark tests indicated that it’s well suited to a wide range of applications. Its score on our Futuremark PCMark 7 full-system benchmark test was 3,483, higher than we've seen from other systems in this class, such as the Lenovo ThinkCentre M91p (2,558). The Vostro 470 also turned out a fine score on CineBench R11.5 (7.49) and solid times on our Handbrake video encoding (1 minute 4 seconds) and Photoshop CS5 filter application (2:46) tests, putting it not just in the upper echelon of systems in this class but at the very top of the rankings in each case.

The same is true of gaming (although, of course, we know no user would ever consider using the Vostro 470 for such a thing). At 1,280-by-720 resolution and with Medium quality settings, the DirectX 10 (DX10) title Crysis ran comfortably: with a frame rate of 73.5 frames per second (or fps). Lost Planet 2 stumbled a bit more in DX11 mode, though its 36.3fps result (at the same resolution, and with all details set to Middle) is still within the realm of playability. Unfortunately, the AMD video card balked when we adjusted the settings upward: Neither game at 1,920 by 1,080 was playable, so we recommend sticking with more moderate video settings if you want to wind down after a long day of work. Even so, the Vostro stands alone as far as speed is concerned.

Supplanting the Lenovo ThinkCentre M91p as our Editors' Choice, the Dell Vostro 470 sets a fine new standard for Ivy Bridge business PCs on traditional processing and graphics challenges alike. The Vostro won't entirely fit the bill for all heavy-duty drafting and rendering—you'll want a system with a dedicated workstation card for that, and that will cost you quite a bit more. But for everyday tasks, whether CPU- or GPU-accelerated, the Dell Vostro 470 won't steer you wrong.

More Desktop reviews:
•   Maingear F131 (2018)
•   Acer Predator Orion 9000
•   Dell Inspiron Gaming Desktop (5680)
•   Acer Aspire S24
•   MSI Vortex G25VR
•  more