You, the end user, is the only one who can answer that Question. Whatever system you buy, by the time you get it home it is outdated. The speed of the 8200 is much faster than the 4300 because of the memory.

MY decisions are based on need and $$$. I buy new pc's every 3-4 years and try to keep a $1K budget. Buying the latest & greatest will be worthless in the next four years. The average life of the pc is about 4-5years. My first was a Z80. Computers are a bad investment in my opinon, but have become a neccessity--at least for me.

The 4300 works for me & fits my needs. However, if I had the additional cash to burn, I would have gone for the 8200. Doesn't matter though as I am now saving for the new computer I'll be getting in about 3 years. By then the 8200 will be slow.

Bill

Dimension® 4300 Series,
Pentium® 4 Processor at 1.5 GHz,
768MB 133MHZ SDRAM,
17 in (16.0 in viewable,.26DP) M781s Monitor,
32MB NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 4X AGP Graphics;
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition¹²
40GB Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive
8.4GB Maxtor Hard Drive
CD-RW 16x/10x/40x
Iomega IDE Zip100
USRobotics 56K Performance Pro Modem
10/100 PCI Fast Ethernet NIC
Lexmark Z42 Printer
UMAX Astra 1220S Scanner
Gimme fuel, Gimme fire, Gimme that which I desire

Thanks Billv2.

What I ordered:

Dimension 4300, Pentium 4 Processor at 1.8GHz
512MB SDRAM at 133MHz,2 DIMMs
17 (16.0 Viewable,.26dpi)M781S Monitor
64MB NVIDIA GeForce2 MX Graphics Card with TV-Out
80GB 7200 RPM Ultra ATA Hard Drive
3.5in Floppy Drive
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition,English
Dell Application Back-up CD, Factory Install
Mouse W/Wheel,1.3A, Microsoft,Dimension,MG,
10/100 PCI Fast Ethernet NIC Factory Install
V.90 56K PCI Data/Fax,Copper Modem
16X/10X/40X CD-RW Drive
SB Live! 1024 Digital Sound Card
Harmon Kardon HK-395 Speakers

My Current System:

Gateway 350MHz PII
64 MB RAM
.....

I would hope to see a SUBSTANTIAL improvement in performance in my new system compared to my old one. what do you think? Also, I like your logic regarding picking up a PC <$1,000 every few years. The most cutting edge systems are always very expensive (relative to the rest) right when they become available.

What I plan to use the system for: CD Burning, Spreadsheet Applications, Word Processing, Surfing, Downloading, Personal Financial Management...

Based on these needs, I'd imagine that a system bigger and better than the 4300 (listed above) would not be necessary. Would you agree?

James: Don’t you just hate these ‘after the fact’ experts??? Where were they when you were trying to decide?

You will be more than pleased with your new PC.

IF you aren’t, return it within 30 days and order the other one. Don’t dally, the clock starts ticking the day it is shipped.

If you have any disappointment, act immediately.

ILUVNYC wrote:
> What I plan to use the system for: CD Burning, Spreadsheet Applications, Word Processing, Surfing, Downloading, Personal Financial Management...

> Based on these needs, I'd imagine that a system bigger and better than the 4300 (listed above) would not be necessary. Would you agree?



Absolutely. You probably would not even notice a difference in performance with a more powerful machine for the applications you mentioned above.

Yes, I agree. I think you will be happy with this speed for what you have planned. And, you are only as fast as your weakest link. In my opinion, the biggest mistake someone could make is putting a pc on a credit card that takes years to pay off. Because of the rapid depreciation of the pc combined with high cc interest rates you would be throwing away your hard earned dollars.

I would strongly suggest dumping the GVC Conexant modem & upgrading to a USR. Drop over to the modem section

I hope that Dell has finally replaced all the Datech cpu fans in the 4300 & 8200 systems. So if your system is noisy, check your cpu fan. Dell will replace it at no costs.

Keep in mind the 30 day return policy starting from the invoice date, not the date your pc arrives. This helps with ALL issues you might have.

Bill

Dimension® 4300 Series,
Pentium® 4 Processor at 1.5 GHz,
768MB 133MHZ SDRAM,
17 in (16.0 in viewable,.26DP) M781s Monitor,
32MB NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 4X AGP Graphics;
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition¹²
40GB Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive
8.4GB Maxtor Hard Drive
CD-RW 16x/10x/40x
Iomega IDE Zip100
USRobotics 56K Performance Pro Modem
10/100 PCI Fast Ethernet NIC
Lexmark Z42 Printer
UMAX Astra 1220S Scanner
Gimme fuel, Gimme fire, Gimme that which I desire

Hi. Heck, if you had cash to burn, I'd go with a SCSI RAID setup for even better performance. Then you'll get server-level quality disk performance. Anybody on here using a SCSI RAID setup on a desktop? Thanks. Later.

Hi. If you go to various PC magazine and review websites, they have reviews and benchmarks done on various different computer setups. One of them is your 4300 vs. 8200 setup. As you know the 8200 uses RDRAM and should be faster in all of the apps. Unfortunately, many of today's apps still aren't designed nor written to fully utilize RDRAM for you to notice the practical performance boost. I got a 8200 (RDRAM) system because I know I'll run many programs at once and many computationally intensive programs as well.

If you're probably not going the route of editing digital video movies in the background while streaming a news video clip AT THE SAME TIME, rendering 3-D images, then your 4300 is much more than adequate to give you great performance. I'd have seriously considered DDR SDRAM with a P4 if Dell offered it, since it actually outperformed or matched the RDRAM setup in many of the benchmarks. The DDR setup would be, in my opinion, the best bang for the buck. But you and I both have Dell's (or you will soon when it arrives), so let's just enjoy the new and great machines we have on our hands.

come on dont get any pc with a geforce 2 step up mto any geforce 3 even a ti200. it will kick the snot out of the geforce 2 and also push the games along at blazing speeds. i know because i have the ati the geforce 2 and the geforce 3 and the 3dmark kicks butt.