Pentium 4 Systems: To Buy or Not To Buy / To Cry Or Not to Cry

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Feature Comparison

Now that you had a good look at the configuration of the four competitors it's time to compare the features of the low-end and the high-end systems side by side.

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Header Cell - Column 0 Dell Dimension 8100Limited EditionPentium 4 1.3 GHz$1588 Gateway Select 1000CustomizedAthlon 1 GHz$1594
Processor Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz AMD Athlon 1 GHz(200 MHz FSB)
Memory 128 MB PC600 RDRAM 128 MB PC133 SDRAM
Hard Drive 20 GB 20 GB
CDROM/DVD 48x CDROM 48x CDROM
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 32 MB NVIDIA GeForce2 Pro 32 MB
Sound Card Soundblaster 64V PCI Soundblaster AudioPCI128D
Modem V90/56K Telephony 56K / Home Networking Combo Card
Network Card n/a 56K / Home Networking Combo Card
Monitor 19" Dell OEM 19" Gateway OEM
Speakers Harman-Kardon Boston Acoustics BA265
Operating System Microsoft Windows ME Microsoft Windows ME
Software Microsoft Works 2001Microsoft Money 2001 StandardNorton Antivirus 2001 Microsoft Works 2001Microsoft Word 2000Microsoft EncartaQuicken 2001Norton Antivirus

Dell's 'little' 'Limited Edition' Pentium 4 is not equipped that much worse than Gateway's Athlon system. There are a few remarkable things however.

First of all, Dell is realizing the 'low price' by equipping the Pentium 4 1.3 GHz with PC600 RDRAM. This memory type is no less than 25% slower than PC800 RDRAM, having a very bad impact on the memory bandwidth-sensitive Pentium 4. A Pentium 4 1.5 GHz with PC600 RDRAM is 5-8% slower than with PC800 RDRAM. If you should ever decide to go for a Pentium 4 system, please take my advice and invest in PC800.

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The other and most important difference between the Dell and the Gateway system is clearly the 3D-card, which I marked in red. NVIDIA's GeForce2 Pro is of course way faster than the GeForce2 MX. This graphics card alone will assure that the Gateway system will kill Dell's Pentium 4 box in any 3D-benchmark. The good 3D-performance of Pentium 4 has simply been cancelled out.

Last but not least the Gateway system comes with a home networking card and a bit more software for the same price. The other components seem pretty much on par.