Help with Processors? Athlon V Pentium 4

[Lionel Ritchie]

Looking at a spec for a new PC (dell) at the moment. Dell have a couple of interesting budget machines on offer -one has a Pentium 4, the other an Athlon.

My inclination is toward the Pentium 4 but the other ones got bigger Hard drive etc...

what does anyone reckon?

Here's the specs sure

Machine 1:
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 531 (3.00GHz, 800MHz, 1MB Cache)
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
16x DVD+/-RW Drive
17" Analogue Flat Panel Monitor (17.0" v.i.s)
Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator 900
Hard Drive - Now 160GB (Was 80GB)
2 DAYS LEFT!
Memory - Now 1024MB (Was 512MB)
Due to End 01/11/2006


Machine 2:
DimensionTM C521

AMD® AthlonTM 64 processor 3200+
Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition
16x DVD+/-RW Drive
17" Analogue Flat Panel Monitor (17.0" v.i.s)
128MB PCI Express ATI X1300
Hard Drive - Now 250GB (Was 160GB)
2 DAYS LEFT!
Introductory Offer - FREE Double Memory
Due to End 01/11/2006.

[Dawn_Run]

Depends really on what you want to use it for Lionel. For the run of the mill stuff, they are as good as eachother imo.

[Peadar]

The Intel one has 1GB of RAM but the other one only says "FREE Double Memory."
It's 6 of one, half dozen of the other.

[paul_oshea]

horses for courses, again if you want it as a games machines you should go with the athlon, if you don't want it for games, then either are good enough.

[Mr A]

The first machine has Media Edition of XP- which is going to be great if you want to use it as a living room machine to play movie and stream audio and so on.

The second has a far better graphics card and should probably therefore be the better for gaming- the first one probably doesn't even have a PCI Express slot so can't be really upgraded in the graphics department.

I'd definately go for the second, unless you really want Media Center.