Dell Desktops with AMD processors or Intel

My 6 year old dell has recently died, hard drive crashed, so I shopping for a new PC desktop system, & am looking at dells, my mother will be getting one through an emplyee purchase program with an intrest free loan, & they do not want it to be an entertainment machine, more for bussiness.

I will be using the PC for video editing & photography, but I need the system to not look like an entertainment machine or the city government will disapprove of it, will not get the interest free loan.

What dell systems would be good for what I do? I do standard def video now, but may move to high def, as this is seems to be how the technoloy is moving.

I notice some sysyems have the quad core AMD processors & others have the intel core 2 duo quad core, which is better? It seems the newer PCs are going to quad cores now.

I am on a budget & would like to get a powerful system that will last me a long time; at least 6 or more years, this is my one shot at a new desktop system through this city program. I would like to keep the whole system under US $1000.00 dollars, & even better would be US $ 800.00 or less.

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Last edited by Sossity; 15-07-2009 at 02:31. Reason: spelling

The Intel Quad cores are more powerful than the AMD quad cores.
If you do ALOT of HD video manipulation/encoding work, then the Quad core CPU's are good for you.
If you do casual HD video work, then a much Higher Clock Dual Core might work out better for you, faster system overall, snappier response & etc.

Photography will likely benefit from a much faster dual core, than it will from a low clock Quad Core.

When you buy the dell, get one with an *OPTION* for a decent video card, but get it with the basic onboard video chip. Dell charges the earth for a basic 3D accelerator, when you could be getting mid-range/high end card for the same additional price.
The 3D accelerator will help *PLAYBACK* of HD video, using the HD player software, but is otherwise useless, unless you are playing games.

Get a full sized tower PC, rather than a slimline tower. The extra space = extra airflow ability

when I went into to dell for intel quad core, the systems it pulled up were mostly the studio line, could you go in & find a system you think would work well for what I need, one selects at the right among differnt options, & I just choose to search by intel core 2 duo quad core.

Another issue, is this PC will be used by my family, & since my mother will be using it as well, she would prefer to stick with windows XP, some of the dell systems come with a downgrade for extra. would XP work with high def or more modern video formats? if the XP PC has a quad or dual core processor with a good amount of RAM?

what is the minimum amount of RAM I could get away with?

Actually no .. Dell sends me straight to the Australian Dell website, which is crap compared to the US site.

Just ensure that you DON'T get a slimline, or the hybrids, which are super-compact and are the guts of a laptop, but in a non-portable case.

Keep in mind that dells "UPGRADES" cost more than if you just wandered out and bought the same "upgrade" from most shops .. and then you can install your new part, and ebay the original dell part
And often, Dell parts are very low-spec to what you can get in the shops for the same price.

That goes for CPU's, RAM, HDD's, Video Cards.
Do some shopping around.

XP will do pretty much everything that Vista will do. However, Bluray requires ANYDVDHD, or at least a UDF driver, because the UDF version used by bluray & AVC-HD (that's bluray files on a DVD or DL-DVD) came out years after windows XP.

The actual video formats will work fine in XP.

Be aware that Windows XP can only use 3.5GB of Ram, even if you install 8 or 12 GB's of ram, because it's a 32b Operating System. Be aware that Dell often bundles Vista x32, which has the same problem.
To use more than 4GB addressable space, you must have a 64bit operating system.
2GB's is OK for XP, Vista really requires 4GB.
***4GB's is what you should aim for now.***

Dell will offer "Downgrades" to WinXP if you buy Vista Business Premium, or from the business category of the site.

Is windows XP pro a 64 bit system? will software makers eventually drop support for windows XP? would I be able to do high def with win XP?

All popular, and commerically available, versions of Windows XP are 32b - You will never get Windows XP64 from Dell.

Windows XP - 64b was released - but is generally NOT available, and was a spectacular failure due to very poor hardware & software support from ... just about everyone.

Windows XP support will likely be dropped in the next 4-5years, in which time, hopefully either M$ will have released a decent new OS, Vista & Windows7 are quite poorly, or open-source, and free, linux will have won the OS war, and everyone will be happy

I notice dell offers downgrades to windows XP or vista PCs, my mom would prefer to stay with windows XP, but I want this machine to last & not dated too quickly, if I get software in the future, I want to be able to use it on the dell. should I go with vista?

could I install linux on a vista dell PC?

The Dell "downgraded rights" PC come with Windows XP & Vista install CD/DVD's so you can reinstall either later.
Using the DELL WinXP install cd, you will not need an installation key.
The PC comes with a VISTA key sticker thingy plastered underneath the laptop, or at the top on one of the sides of a desktop.

Using a linux distro or something like the clonezilla set of tools, you can do lossless partitioning to reduce the single winxp partition DELL puts on your drive, and make a second partition for vista. You can then install Vista on the second partition (or linux).
It's a good idea to have clonezilla, or whatever you use, make a backup of your HDD before messing with it though.
Personally, I used an Ubuntu 9.04 Live CD to run "gparted" and reduce the default winXP partition to 50GB (from 300GB), and then make another 10GB partition for Ubuntu, and then the rest as a secondary partition for /home & storage.

Vista recognises WindowsXP installs, and creates a dual boot environment with boot menu.

You can install linux on practically any PC.

Care must be taken when installing Linux with Vista - they don't necessarily get on.
I haven't tried installing any linux distros on the last 6 months sharing the same HDD with Vista, but my previous attempts at installing either after the other, ended up with the other not working - you can mess around and get them to work together, but quite frankly, I change/upgrade my Linux OS every few months, and couldn't be bothered messing around each time. Currently, I just have two separate HDD's, one for each, and switch between them in bios.

Most *current* Linux Distro's & Windows XP get on fine ... on the proviso that you DO NOT HIBERNATE either OS - The Linux Install will create a dual boot environment & provide a boot menu (defaults to linux - but can be changed later from linux).

Hibernation FUBAR's the MBR or similar, and you have to pull out your linux discs & reinstall the boot loader - which is not difficult ... but is annoying - especially for an out& about laptop without net access, nor your linux install discs.

If installing Linux ... you should ensure that all M$ OS's are installed first, before linux, as Linux will recognise M$ OS's and attempt to work with them.

WinXP is the dumbest OS installer ever, and just does it's own thing - it just removes all references to other OS's. They're still there, and working, once you repair the boot loader, but you'll have to repair the boot loader
Vista recognises WinXP ... but eats existing linux installs.

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Last edited by debro; 17-07-2009 at 02:42.

what are the intel i7 cores? are they quad cores? are they faster than the intel core 2 duo quad cores?

Intels new Flagship CPU's.

You can be assured, I have no idea, nor interest. my current Quad core is more than fast enough for everything I need & I haven't bothered looking. Try tomshardware.com, or anandtech.com.
I believe the i7 is a quad core, and the i5 is a dual core .....
The i-series seems to suck power like they're trying to suck the planet dry of oil

A bit confused there. Duo's are two Cores, Quads are 4 cores - Core 2 is the architecture. There was a Core (1) architecture preceding it which was only 32b capable.
As to whether they are slower than the new I5 & I7 Cpu's from Intel ... check the above two sites.

Intel would have everyone believe that the new i5's and i7's are the fastest things on the planet