Dracoro

Prob gonna get a Dell XPS as below. There are some options I would like some tips on. Basically is it REALLY worth upgrading certain components etc. Not a gamer but want a good spec, so....

XPS 420 with Vista ultimate etc. all in for around £950.

Questions I have are:
PROCESSOR OPTIONS -
XPS 420 Viiv Intel® Processor Q6600 Quad Core™ 2.40GHz, 1066Mhz FSB, 8MB cache
XPS 420 E8500 Core 2 Duo Processor 3.16GHz, 6MB, 1333MHz [add £60.00]
Which is really best? I thought Quads were the next level up from Duo's (hence the name!) Why is the duo £60 more? any real benefit?

MONITOR OPTION
UltraSharp TrueLife 22-inch SP2208WFP Widescreen LCD Flat Panel Monitor (Arctic Silver, TCO'99) [add £40]
Dell™ 22" Black Wide Flat Panel (E228WFP)
Is the Ultrasharp one gonna be much better? what is really the difference? higher native resolution??

RAM - Really worth paying for 800MHz over 667?
4096MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [4x1024]
4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [4x1024] [add £20.00]

OFFICE basic - outlook, word, excel yes??

HARD DRIVE
640GB Dual Hard Drive Raid 0 Stripe (2x320GB - 7200rpm)
1TB Dual Hard Drive Raid 0 Stripe (2x500GB - 7200rpm) [add £30.00 or £1/month1]
Now, does this mean I actually have a 320 or 500GB (duplicated, i.e. raid) or 640 and 1TB? Basically I want to know how much space I have to store stuff, 320 or 640?

Cheers chaps.

D16GER

The Duo is more expensive simply because it's one of the latest CPU's with 1333 bus.

Not sure about the screen, but pretty much all of the Dell screens are awsome.

Ram - not much point really, unless you plan to overclock.

Hard drive - Raid 0 stripes the 2 drives together, so you get better performance. You will still have the full amount of space available, as there is no duplication.

Dracoro

I thought Quads superceded Duos?

Will I see any real difference between 3 or 4 gb ram?

staffs Mike

The new Duo is built on an 45nm process which allows it to use less power and stay cooler. That said, it's only really an advantage for overclocking (which is in fact negated by the fact that 45nm chips are more fragile when overclocked lol). The Q6600 is the older 65nm process but thats not to say its a power drain by any means. With a 95w version, they run very cool even when overclocked/

I would go for the Q6600 as 4 cores will be utilised more and more as years pass by and 2.4GHz is plenty enough for games right now

You won't see any difference between 3 and 4GB of RAM if you run a 32bit version of windows, 64Bit will improve but not vastly.

john banks

I chose an E8400 (45nm Duo) overclocked to 4GHz on air over the Q6600 for a machine to play present games. Super PI 1M which uses 1 core runs nearly twice as fast on this compared to a stock speed Q6600. Maybe not a fair comparison though! In future when there is a cheap 45nm quad core 4GHz+ model available I'll upgrade.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

I'd pay the extra for the better monitor as usually there are a little better. Just make sure it is a better screen, and no just a cost increase for pointless USB ports and speakers.

MMT WRX

I have a Dell XPS 420, Viiv Q6600 (Go stepping), 3GB ram, 2x 500gb DataSafe (Were Samsung now Western Digital) HDD's Raid 1, 512 8800gt, TV Tuner and AVIO / Xcelerator, Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer, 16X DVD+/-RW, 19-in-1 Media Card Reader, Zylux Dell A525 spks + Subwoofer, Logitech MX3200 Cordless Keyboard + Mouse, Vista Home Premium, 3yr Consumer XPS Premium Hardware Support from Dell. Samsung Syncmaster 2232BW 22" Monitor from PC world.

I had a few issues with the Raid controller hence the Samsung HDD were swapped for the Western Digitals. Apart from that its a stonking piece of kit.

Have you looked at the Dell forum XPS section here.

You know you can buy the XPS420 off the shelf from PC World now.