Keep Dell 531or Dimension 9100?

[caseym]

Hello,

I recently spotted a good deal and purchased a Dell 531 with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4400+ and 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8300GS video card. I'm trying to decide if I should sell my current Dimension 9100 and sell the 531. The 9100 has a Pentium 4, 3.0ghz with a Radeon X300 video card.

Which system is faster? I'm not too familiar with AMD so I'm not sure how those processors stack against each other. One thing I have to consider too is that the new system will have Vista while the old system has XP.

Please let me know what your opinion on this is!

Thanks,
Casey

 

[lostandwandering]

Take the 531. It uses a dual core processor and a faster video card. How much RAM does each system have?

 

[caseym]

Both have 1GB of RAM, so they're equal in that regard.

 

[lostandwandering]

OK, the 531 still gets my vote. You may want to consider adding another GB if you are using Vista. Lack of RAM is where you will see a performance drop with Vista on the 531.

 

[delluser1]

The X2 4400+ is twice as powerful as a P4 3.0.
The I 531 is upgradeable to the X2 5600+ and thanx to the ATX style of the box it can be upgraded with a dual slot video card if you wish.
The existing psu is capable of powering cards up to the 8800GT if you use adaptors, or is upgradeable with almost any standard ATX 2.2 unit.
I'll second l&w's reccomendation to keep the 531 and get more ram.