My Potential Dell XPS 9000 Built-feedback?

[ttothe]

This is the system I'm thinking of ordering.
I use my PC for a lot of web multitasking, music listening, movie watching, photo editing, ect.


XPS 9000

Intel® Core™ i7-920 processor(8MB L3 Cache, 2.66GHz)
6GB Tri-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs
2 Hard Drives, both 500GB 7200 RPM SATA
Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ dbl layer write capable
ATI Radeon HD 4350 512MB Graphics Card
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
2.1 AY410 Multimedia Speaker System

Any feedback about this configuration is very appreciated.

 

[itadakimasu]

You should look on ebay and dell.com/outlet.

A co-worker got a studio 430t ( i think ) w\ the same specs as that system for $650+tax+shipping.

 

[rockyjohn]

Suggestions:

1. HD
Instead of paying them $150 for a generic 500 GB HD, pay $90 for this top of the line Seagate 1 TB drive and install it yourself which is easy to do – twice the drive for just a little more than half the price – or save even more and get its 500 GB cousin. Unless you are planing to RAID and need to match drives and want to leave the setup to them.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433

2. Memory
Be aware that you are paying Dell a premium of about $50 for the extra 3 GB of RAM - you can purchase good RAM - 3 x 1GB for about $100 at newegg. When I purchased my Dell awhile back - I bought it with mininum RAM and upgraded myself. I was able to match the RAM exactly. But since I don't know what RAM they use, I don't know how big of risk you would be taking.

3. I don't know anything about those speakers but I am guessing you could save $20 to $30 (30% to 50%) by purchasing the same or similar at newegg. If nothing else you would have a lot more selection and could choose speakers you know about.Whatever you decide about the above - you should have one fast computer that easily and quickly accomplishes the tasks you listed - the only one likely to challenge the system is the video editing and certainly the i7 920 is a great CPU for that.

Your chosen system should easily accomplish the tasks you listed. The only one challenging it will be the video editing and the i7 920 is certainly a great CPU for that,

 

[ttothe]

Thanks, those are some great suggestions.
The reason why I want 2 500 gb hard drives is because I've read that 2 are better than one(http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7588_102-0.html?threadID=171657), and configuring my build with two 500s instead of one 1tb hard drive saves about $75.
What is your take on 2 drives versus one, other than the cost?

 

[rockyjohn]

What is your take on 2 drives versus one, other than the cost?

Frankly that is something I have wondered about myself.

I am sure that it will depend on your configuration, but I assume you would put OS on one and applications on the other. I just don't know if sharing the load makes it faster when there may then also need to be some communication (not directly but conceptually) with having the OS have to go back and forth so to speak between the two. I am not very knowledgeable in this area and don't even know if I am framing this correctly. I have asked it myself on two threads - once on anothers and once on one I started with the question - and never received any responses. Perhaps the experts would say if you intend to use two anyway why not go with RAID 0.

On my next build I am planning on using two drives and partitioning both such that I have a partition on each for RAID 0 for the OS and applications, another partition on each in RAID 1 for data so I have a secure backup, and finally a third, non-RAID partition on each for video and music - things I don't need to back up because I have the original CDs. Unless of course SSD gets a lot cheaper and I put the OS and applications on one of those.