Which PC to buy?

[dNj]

These two machines are the same price, but one comes with XP os and the other doesn't. Any help as to which one I should purchase is greatly appreciated.
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DUAL AMD 2ghz Athlon MP
Case Enermax Full Tower
Motherboard Asus A7M266-D
RAM 1GB
Power Supply 500W Antec
Video Card MSI GeForce 4 Ti4200
Sound Card Sound Blaster Audigy LS
Hard Drive Maxtor 120gb Caviar Edition
CD- Burner Sony CRX315E
DVD- Burner Sony DWU10
X DVD-R, 2.5X DVD-RW, 2.5X DVD+R, 2.5X DVD+RW, 24X CD-R, and 10X CD-RW media
CD- Burner Sony CRX315E
This machine does not include an OS
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2nd machine
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (benchmarks same as Pentium IV @ 2.8 Ghz) 2.08 Ghz Barton core 333 Mhz FSB 512 Kb L2 cache with on-chip "HyperTransport 1.0" memory controller

Antec model SL400 400 watt power supply
MSI K7N2 Delta ILSR motherboard SATA RAID capable nVidia nForce 2 Ultra 400 chipset
1.00 Gb PC2700 DUAL CHANNEL 333 Mhz DDR SDRAM (2 X 512Mb)
120 Gb 7200 rpm 8 mb cache EIDE Ultra ATA 133 Maxtor Hard Drive
I/O Magic DUAL LAYER ~ 8.5 Gb multi format + and - R, R/W 16X DVD burner/CD burner combo and a secondary 56X CDROM drive plus a standard floppy drive
128 Mb Ge Force FX5200 AGP 8X video card with DVO & SVHS
NVidia nForce Dolby Digital 5.1 onboard surround sound
Onboard 10/100T NIC port ready for broadband DSL/Cable connection
5 - USB 2.0 ports plus all other standard ports
IEEE 1394 Firewire card for direct connection of devices like digital cameras

Once again thanks for taking the time to read my post and help me out.

Thanks

[Showtime]

how much is each one and what do you plan to use it for? a dell deal is most likely better option.

[Bires]

Like Showtime mentioned-check out the dell deals on the deal page.

Honestly, niether computer is all that great. They are both based on 2-year-old technology and have very weak video cards (no new games).

How much is your budget?

[dNj]

they are both $400. I'm not a gamer so the video is not an issue for me. My use is basically listening to music and dowloading. The app I use to download and J. River Media Center (media player) are what consume the most memory and CPU usage. Both of the above mentioned programs will be running 24/7. Whatever machine I do buy will be replaced in 6 months or so by a laptop.

$400 is what I wanted to spend, because I only need a machine to get me through early next year. After shipping costs and upgrades from Dell thats another $100 bucks or so I would need to add into my budget.

[Bires]

If that's all you are doing with your computer, save your money and buy a cheap, used comp from www.computer-show.com .

You can get a $200 computer and use the other 200 toward your new computer.

[shocky123]

pay special attention to the "Dual" part of the first system. That roughly translates to the number two, as in two processors.
The first one is by far superior, however, Windows however to my knowledge does not properly support SMP(multi-cpu) systems.. or rather hasnt developed this to the extent that Linux/Unix has already. So if you're using Windows, I'd say not to waste the money on the dual cpu system unless you plan on keeping it for some reason after you 'replace' it with your laptop.

Ohh, and the 'Dual-Channel' Ram you're getting in the 2nd box is merely a buzzword. The Athlon x86 (non-64bit) chips have never, and will never support dual channel memory capabilities. This includes the Barton XP2800+ cpu in this box.

Also to quickly point out some of the differences: (I've listed the better choice for each component:)
Harddrive: Box1
CPU: Box1
RAM: ( both the same speed, however box1 will achieve better performance out of it)
Graphics card: (personal bias..) I'd say Box1, it has a solid card.
Sound: Box1
CD/DVD: Both about the same
NIC: Identical
PowerSupply: Box1
Onboard USB/FWire/etc.: Box2
OperatingSystem: Box2

So depending on the prices.... I'd personally go with Box1, you'll get more out of it.
But if you're tossing the computer in a year and wont put any serious load on the box, go with Box2 as you wont have to mess with an Operating System.

Good Luck,
~Kyle, mostly unbias'd opinion.

[skyline34]

if you have the money, i'll will get apple g5 or Dell's XPS gen 5. If your on a budget get a mac mini for $499 and up or simply build your own.

[_=DeltaForce=_]

Build your own or get one of the Dell Deals..

[Jeffbx]

The first one is by far superior, however, Windows however to my knowledge does not properly support SMP(multi-cpu) systems.. or rather hasnt developed this to the extent that Linux/Unix has already. So if you're using Windows, I'd say not to waste the money on the dual cpu system unless you plan on keeping it for some reason after you 'replace' it with your laptop.

This is true if you're using Windows 98 or ME.

W2K & XP support dual procs easily, but he'll see no difference at all in computing speed for the apps he'll be running. The 2nd proc is just a waste of $$.

I'll agree with everyone else on looking at Dell - you can get a complete system from them INCLUDING a 17" LCD for around $400:

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/outrageous_desktops?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd