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[Japo]

I just bought a Dell too and found it very competitive price-wise. I compared with other possibilities, including building a computer from components, but getting the same machine that way was much more expensive actually, at least with high-end components. If I had wanted just something to browse the web, read email and write documents I might have chosen different, there are great deals in shops for low-powered machines, any manufacturer can make that and there's much competition.

Originally Posted by AlumiuN

Be ready to have your eardrums blown out by the jet engine cooling.

Yeah my father's Dell is noisy as Hell; but it's a Dimension 5150C, a Pentium D enclosed in a tiny case, very difficult ventilation (and lousy mechanical design). However my new XPS is all but silent--it's huge though.

[Juanca]

well it is your decision and thats ok.
But you could have saved around 100 dollars buliding it and ordering the parts (i did a little search of all the components of the gx520 and thats what I found) or even better getting a better cpu... just for starters look at this price on a screen(http://www.google.com/products/catal...tle#ps-sellers) which is sometimes the costliest part...

BTw everywhere it says that it comes with win xp so you don't need 4gb of ram, I think win xp can only read up to 3 gb of ram (that is already a lot). are you thinking on runnig it on Vista or win7?


anyway, the way you did it is easier and you can "feel" more safe...
congrats
what are you going to play now on that computer?

[Japo]

Originally Posted by Juanca

BTw everywhere it says that it comes with win xp so you don't need 4gb of ram, I think win xp can only read up to 3 gb of ram (that is already a lot). are you thinking on runnig it on Vista or win7?

It doesn't depend on XP or Vista, but on 32-bit or x64. Both XP and Vista x64 can address virtually unlimited memory, and both XP and Vista 32-bit address 4 GB (=2³² bytes). Of these 4 GB the default setting is reserve 2 GB for applications and the other 2 GB for kernel-mode processes. You can tweak this to 3 and 1, although I don't know if that's a good idea depending on what (my guess is that you're in the clear if it doesn't cause Windows to crash).

[Saccade]

I change my memory allocation, on PC, to be programmes3:1background if I need to use things like Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Illustrator and Photoshop, Office and FireFox at the same time.

If I use games, I set it the other way.

I haven't experienced any problems so far... I've never bought a PC ready made - always built them.

Only problem I have is power-supply and RAM.
It's hard to find a PSU that is affordable and has enough output and cables for everything you need now.
And I'm just stupid with RAM. I always get the one option that doesn't fit.

[Juanca]

Originally Posted by Japofran

It doesn't depend on XP or Vista, but on 32-bit or x64. Both XP and Vista x64 can address virtually unlimited memory, and both XP and Vista 32-bit address 4 GB (=2³² bytes). Of these 4 GB the default setting is reserve 2 GB for applications and the other 2 GB for kernel-mode processes. You can tweak this to 3 and 1, although I don't know if that's a good idea depending on what (my guess is that you're in the clear if it doesn't cause Windows to crash).

I was referring to this from the fifth horseman on an old thread about Doubler's new computer
"
Quote:
2x1Gb DDR3 (or 4x1Gb)

The 32-bit version of Windows XP has a limitation of memory adressing space to 4GB. That is both RAM and pagefile combined, so if you get 4 GB of RAM the pagefile will have to go (and good riddance - it wears down your HDD faster).
It seems the OS won't detect full 4 GB of RAM anyway, so I suggest to draw the line at 3 GB (2x1 + 2x512). "