Dell XPS 8300 RAM Question

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pnutzlaw

New Member
While I have a general knowledge of how computers work, I am a complete novice, especially when it comes to the necessary amount of RAM and the proper graphics card. A purchase of a Canon HD camcorder has forced me to upgrade my 6 year old Dell Dimension with 1GB of RAM because it takes forever to transfer HD video from the camcorder and cannot properly play back HD video recorded at the highest quality (pixelation problems, freezing up, etc.).

I am considering purchasing a Dell XPS 8300 and am working with the customization options under the Premium configuration on Dell's website. This configuration includes dual optical drives (including a Blu Ray burner), a 24" HD LED monitor, 2TB hard drive, 8GB RAM and an AMD Radeon HD 6670 1GB DDR5 video card.

Dell is giving me the option to upgrade to 12GB or 16GB RAM and either the AMD Radeon HD 6770 or 6870 video card.

I am not a gamer, but use my PC for internet browsing, word processing, viewing/editing/printing photos, listening to music and burning CDs and DVDs. I would like to start getting into editing and burning by HD video from my new camcorder.

In light of the foregoing, do I need to upgrade to 12 or 16GB RAM and a better video card? Cost is a concern, but not a deal breaker. Also, is the advertised 460W PSU sufficient? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
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don't get that, dell isn't the best band and you would be fine with just 4gb's, and 8gb's would be plenty, and those gpus are pure overkill, don't need anything close to a >100 buck card for this stuff, i'll look and find something more suited for what you wanted.

and you should look at the thread for building a comp, if you would like to try it you can get something much more powerful than that for the same price, along with better quality and better warranties too
 
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jonnyp11 said:
don't get that, dell isn't the best band and you would be fine with just 4gb's, and 8gb's would be plenty, and those gpus are pure overkill, don't need anything close to a >100 buck card for this stuff, i'll look and find something more suited for what you wanted.

and you should look at the thread for building a comp, if you would like to try it you can get something much more powerful than that for the same price, along with better quality and better warranties too
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thats true but also if he has the money this will last him longer then getting cheaper parts, and if he does get in to editing videos and such this would be alright
 
ixiboneheadixi said:
thats true but also if he has the money this will last him longer then getting cheaper parts, and if he does get in to editing videos and such this would be alright
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Putting $$$$$ aside, are the 8GB of RAM and AMD Radeon HD 6670 1GB DDR5 video card sufficient? Thanks.
 
pnutzlaw said:
The RAM is listed as "8GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 DIMMs"

This is Greek to me. What's your opinion?
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its half decent, alot better then mine which is only at 535 MHz, althought i would recommend something at 1600 or higher, i would say prob 1866 or something would be good
 
like i said, the 8gb's is plenty, 1333 is perfectly fine, 1600 is prefered but it isn't on the options (i looked at it when i first read the post), and for what he wants a cheaper card is fine, and it will last a long time, graphics editing only pulls when you are doing professional animation, video editing isn't very intensive, an upper entry level to low end gaming card will do all you want and more, for what you want the cpu is more important, get a good i5-2400/2500/2500k, k is for overclocking, otherwise the others are plenty fast, and if you want the fastest you can get the i7 2600 or 2600k will go faster, but i'd save the hundred. but i still have to say building it is the way to go.
 
well, file transfer speed isn't just about your RAM, there other more important factors to consider, for example if you are using a USB cable your speed will be limited by USB speed no matter what size of RAM you get, also hard disk IO speed! (rounds per minute..etc)
 
yes, true, but it doesn't take too long to load the info to the ram, and once in there it will work much faster.
 
You might as well go with 8GB of DDR3 1600 because the stuff is cheap as chips! There's nothing wrong with 1333, and you'll have to do a little set up with the 1600 stuff in the BIOS, but it's a decent performance boost at little cost.

If you haven't bought the system yet, I'd suggest building your own! You will get much more higher quality parts and manufacturer warranty on everything. RAM has lifetime warranty, CPU's and GPU's have 3-5 year warranty, along with hard drives. Power supplies carry up to 7 year warranty and so on.

As for building the system, it's no daunting task, but it does require a little planning and consulting of parts manuals. And common sense. It's really quite easy, take a look here:

http://www.computerforum.com/104641-how-build-computer-step-step-photos.html
 
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