Dell Pro Tower

The Dell Pro Tower is a reliable business desktop with a Ryzen 5 8500G, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 512GB SSD. It's great for office work and productivity, but the integrated graphics make it a poor choice for gaming. Shop around, prices vary by nearly $500 between vendors.

The Ryzen 5 8500G sits right around the middle of the pack in our database for CPU performance. That sounds like faint praise, but for a business machine, it's actually the sweet spot. Six cores and 12 threads chew through multitasking workloads without generating much heat or noise. We saw smooth performance with 20-plus browser tabs open, a couple of Office apps running, and a video call in the background.

The 16GB of DDR5 at 4800 MT/s is solid, middle of the road territory. It's enough for most office tasks and even light content creation. The 512GB NVMe SSD is a bit on the small side, falling below average for this category. You'll want to keep an eye on storage if you deal with large files. The integrated Radeon 740M graphics are fine for driving dual monitors via the HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4a outputs, but gaming performance is one of the worst we've seen. This is not a machine for anything beyond casual browser games.

Stacked against the HP OMEN GT22-3080 or the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i, the Dell Pro Tower looks like it showed up to a drag race with a minivan. Those machines come with dedicated GPUs and are built for gaming and heavy creative work. The Dell is built for uptime and manageability. Different tools for different jobs.

The Apple Mac Studio M4 Max is in another universe entirely for performance, but it also costs significantly more and runs a different OS. The CLX SET TGMSETRTU5204BM is a gaming-focused build that will crush the Dell in any graphics workload. But none of those competitors offer the same straightforward, no-nonsense business deployment experience. If you need a fleet of machines that just work, the Dell makes sense. If you need one machine that does everything, look elsewhere.

Pricing on the Dell Pro Tower is all over the place. We found it listed anywhere from $1,069 to $1,542 depending on the vendor, which is a $473 spread. That's a huge gap for the exact same machine. If you're buying, shop around. The lower end of that range feels fair for what you get. The higher end does not. For comparison, you can find gaming towers with dedicated GPUs in that same price bracket, though they won't have the same business-focused reliability or Windows 11 Pro out of the box. If your priority is dependable office work, this Dell earns its keep. If you want performance per dollar, there are better options.

The Dell Pro Tower is a business desktop that knows exactly what it is. You get an AMD Ryzen 5 8500G with six cores running at 3.5GHz, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 512GB NVMe SSD. It's not flashy, but it's built for the kind of work that pays the bills. Spreadsheets, email, video calls, light photo editing, all handled without breaking a sweat.

Dell includes a USB keyboard and mouse in the box, which is a nice touch if you're setting up a new office or replacing an aging fleet machine. Windows 11 Pro comes preinstalled, so it slots right into a domain environment without any upgrade fees. The tower form factor means you can open it up and add a full-size GPU or extra storage later, assuming the 180W power supply can keep up.

If you've been searching for a reliable business desktop under $1,500 that won't need constant IT attention, this one is worth a look. Just don't expect it to moonlight as a gaming rig. The integrated Radeon 740M graphics are fine for desktop work and video playback, but that's about where the fun ends.

Skip the Dell Pro Tower if you're a gamer, a video editor, or anyone who needs real graphics horsepower. The integrated Radeon 740M simply can't keep up with dedicated GPUs. If you're a home user looking for a single machine that can handle work and play, look at something like the Lenovo Legion Tower 5i or the HP OMEN GT22-3080 instead. You'll sacrifice some business features, but you'll gain a massive performance boost for the same money. Also skip it if you're on a tight budget and only need basic web browsing and email. A cheaper mini PC or even a decent laptop will cover those needs for less.

Should you buy the Dell Pro Tower? If you're outfitting an office, replacing an old business desktop, or need a reliable machine for daily productivity, yes. It's a solid, dependable workhorse with good build quality and the right software for a business environment. The port selection is generous, and the included keyboard and mouse mean you're up and running immediately.

But if you have any aspirations of gaming, video editing, or 3D work, this is not the machine for you. The integrated graphics are a hard stop. And if you're buying a single machine for home use, you can get more performance for the same money elsewhere. This is a purpose-built business tool, and it's very good at that specific job.