Need help choosing Desktop.

B

Beejee

New Member
Hello there, I'm buying my first desktop and I'm having some difficulty choosing one. I'm currently looking at

1. HP Pavillion Slimline S3100N
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+
• 250GB hard drive
• Built-in 802.11gb wireless
• Burns DVDs and CDs
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• 1GB of DDR2 memory
• NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6150 LE

2. Dell Optiplex 745 SFF
•Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E4400
•2 GB DDR2 Non-ECC SDRAM 667MHz
•160 GB SATA II Hard Drive
•16X DVD +/- RW
•Windows Vista Basic
*Not sure what graphics card

Both cost around $550, have 1 year warranty, but the Dell is refurbished. I'm not a power user, nor do I play computer games. I basically browse, listen to music, multi-task, and sometimes like to switch OS to linux. I know a lot of people here prefer to build a computer, but I don't have the time and I think a prebuilt one should fit me well. I want to have the computer for about 4 to 5 years. I'm also open to different computers, brand, whatever.

The reason I need the help deciding is because I'm not sure of the hardware and what good and what is not. I like the dell because of the core 2 duo and 2gb ram. I like the hp because it's brand new, bigger hard drive, and unlike the dell, I don't have to buy it over the internet(I would buy the Slimline from CircuitCity). Also, I've owned an HP laptop and it never gave me any problems. I don't have any experience with Dell.

Just wondering what's the better choice for my needs. I'm also open to suggestion or opinions about other computers. I have a budget of $600.
 
I'd like to be the first to say, Welcome to our forum!

The HP computer seems like a good choice for your needs. I personally like to lean more towards HP then Dell since I have more experience with HP. Both computers should satisfy nearly all your needs, but since the Dell is refurbished and the HP seems like the better choice, I personally would recommend the HP.
 
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I would get the hp and buy one more gig of ram for like $20-30, but you might be better off building your own but thats up to you
 
I like the the idea of upgrading the ram, but I don't know what type of ram to get. How hard would it be for a novice to do this task? Here are all the specs. I've also heard it's hard to upgrade on a small form factor computer.
 
As most people will try to convince you here... building is the way to go for two main reasons. a) Cheaper b) Can make it exactly what you want. I had never built a computer (or anything like that other than installing new ram and a video card, which is just pushing something into a slot) before this build and after doing it I would recommend it to anyone... its really easy and everyone here will help you through it, they did for me...
 
The HP seems a good choice for what you're going to use it for. As the other said , upgrade the RAM and I'm sure if you really want the Core 2 Duo, you can always buy it and change the AMD (have to check if it's possible with the motherboard first).
 
Thanks everybody. I thought more people would say the dell, but using the slimline, I really don't need the core 2 duo. I've been using the HP since about 5pm (est) and it's smooth. I haven't started doing any heavy stuff on it yet, though.
 
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