I followed Tom's advice and went to the Dell outlet
<http://www.dell.com/content/segmenter.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dfo> and got a
"scratch and dent" XPS 410 running Win XP with Intel Core 2 Duo E6700,
2GB RAM, 250GB SATA II and NVIDIA 7900 256MB card with dual DVI for a
little over $1,000 after NY state tax. It will be here sometime during
the coming week.
I watched several other similar systems come and go over a couple of
days as I tried to understand the feature set and make up my mind. The
inventory comes and goes there in a real-time whirlwind. Figure out
what you'd like and then wait for something similar to show.
Chuck Norcutt
Tom Scales wrote:
> 1) Photo editing takes almost no video card power. Just get a decent
> midrange card. Make sure it doesn't share system memory (TurboCache or
> HyperMemory are both code words for 'steals system memory'). An nVidia
> 7600gs would be plenty. I drive two monitors, one 1920x1200 and one
> 1920x1080 with mine.
>
> 2) 10K drives aren't worth the money, in my opinion. The best bang for the
> buck is the Seagate 750GB drive. It is almost as fast as a 10K, since the
> platters are so dense, and cheaper. I have 6 of them :)
>
> 3) Go for an Intel Core 2 Duo. Get at least the E6600, as it has the 4MB
> cache. AMD and Intel leapfrog, but right now, Intel is the top of the heap.
>
> Personally I'd just wait for a sale and get the Dell Dimension 9200 from
> their small business site. Loaded, shipped for $873 when I bought mine. XP
> and Vista, although those deals are gone.
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