Oh wait, you're getting a pre-built?
Well...
If you're going to get pre-built, you're already walking into a mess.
I don't do pre-built. Now, if you have the skills, or know someone that has them, you should get it custom-made. It's alot cheaper.
And ONLY get computers from dell if you are getting a system under $400. The dell's $2000 systems you can build for under $700
I know there are other good pre-built system places that have real good gaming systems for a good price. Not sure about that, will look up if someone hasn't posted link by the time I have a chance to look it up
Build your own PC. For the same price as an XPS 400, you can build yourself a system with about 1.5x the power.
But if you insit on a Dell:
A) Do not get the 3.4 ghZ.
A 3.4 GHz processor is not going to give you much of a speed boost compared to a 3.0 ghz procesesor. With a dual core however, you can run a game like F.E.A.R and burn a DVD at the same time. At 2.8 GhZ, you'll get a lot more things done.
Don't buy 512 MB of RAM. Ram is cheap these days and the more RAM the better. You should at least buy 1 GB, but 2 GB is better if you don't have financial problems.
C) For the video card, it depends on what you will be doing. If you are a gamer, then get a nVidia card. The exception would be the ATI Radeon X1900XTX, but I don't think anyone needs that much power for now. If you only use a PC to check your e-mail., surf the web, you're better off with an Intel Integrated Ghx.
D) If you are a multitasker, get a dual drive. If not, then get a single drive. A dual drive is useful for burning a CD you bought at a store and transfering it to another disc. A single drive would be enough if you want to burn an iso of Linux or a movie you got off of a p2p program.
That's my advice. I haven't bought a computer for years, but this is based off of information I have read from some place. It may have some mistakes though
I would not buy ANY pre-built rigs from any company, such as Dell, Gateway, Sony, etc. They overprice and you are just paying for the slew of crappy programs on the computer which just clutter the hard drive and have many, and I mean MANY, back ground programs running. Built from scratch is your best bet and it's not that hard, I mean if I can learn it, anyone with competent motor skills can learn it.
Anything from Dell generally sucks, they are now so popular is because most people don't have a clue as to what's good and bad about computers, so they take their word for it.
I checked, and my computer man can command the pieces I want, and build the pc for me. Lol, good thing I posted here, or I would have been off buying an evil dell computer.
One question I had, for the 2 RAID-ed hard drives, which capacity should they both be?
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Don't buy 512 MB of RAM. Ram is cheap these days and the more RAM the better. You should at least buy 1 GB, but 2 GB is better if you don't have financial problems.
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