New computer system, advice needed

[AJackson]

I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to computers, so advice would be appreciated.

This will be a poker and financial transaction only computer. I have very large hand dbs and want everything to run smoothly and be able to record while using PAHUD.

I'm waiting on an answer from Dell as to if I can replace Vista with XP. On other systems they have this option, but I have a $350 coupon for the Insprion that I'd like to use. Should this be a deal breaker? I see others have had problems getting all the different programs working well in Vista and I'm not good at fixing those sorts of problems.

System as listed with coupon is $1391 with shipping

[Shoe Lace]

Seems like a poor choice for $1400ish.

AMD = bad , Intel (C2D) = good
4GB of memory is overkill, and you won't be able to use all of it unless you specifically get vista 64 bit (or XP 64 bit).

Does the video card have 2 ports allowing you to use 2 monitors if you decide to do that later?

The price difference for a 320GB HD and 500GB HD is $80 on dell's site, but a 320GB HD by itself costs $80 and a 500 GB drive is $10-20 more. You're paying $80 for an extra 180GB but you use the computer for nothing except poker and standard web browsing. Seems cost inefficient to get the larger drive because 320GB is already a ton for what you're doing.

[fozzy71]

I have a gateway, that I bought in January. $700 from Circ City. I bought it a month before Vista. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

AMD Dual-core 4200+
2gb Ram
250gb HD

Plenty of machine for multi-tasking heavy applications, while multi-tabling. I often have Photoshop and Media Player running, while multi-tabling with PTracker, etc. Plenty of HD for most users (I download all my TV shoes, etc - so I wouldnt mind a 500gb personally [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] )

[Shoe Lace]

Yeah, you really don't need much for a non-gaming machine. I was able to run PT+HUD+etc on my old P4 3.0c with 1GB, no delay or lag at all. It also handles photoshop/visual studio without issues. This was built over 4 years ago.

My main system is a c2d e6420/2gb ram/320gb hd/7600gt combo. All in all it was $620 shipped after rebates 3 months ago for the whole thing w/o monitor/OS. It's not from Dell but if you know where to shop and have no technical knowledge you can put together a quality system for very little cost. If you have the ability to build it yourself you'll be able to save even more.

Dell is only really good IMO when they occasionally run ridiculous deals. Their laptops are reasonable too.