Dear Friend,

The difference between the 933mhz & 866mhz, is speed. Even though the 933mhz, is almost 100mhz faster, the 866mhz is EXTREMELY FAST! If it fits your budget, I would purchase either of the two. It all depends on what you will be using the computer for, and if speed really matters that much. The speed difference between these two, will probably be little noticed.

I would upgrade to the 12X DVD-ROM, becasue it meets todays technology, and many software titles coming in the future will REQUIRE a DVD-ROM.

A DVD-ROM will play both(CD's, and DVD's)

Sean

Feel free to e-mail me

Scott,
I don't think I'll be watching any movies on my computer. Somewhere along the line, I heard that you can store more data on dvd-rom. I also heard that a cd-rom works better with a cd-rw. I don't know very much about this. I'm trying to figure it out so I can order my computer. Thank you for your reply.

It depends what you are looking to do a dvd would enable you to watch movies on your computer and it can be used for cd roms. One other advantage is that some of the new software for gaming is going to be dvd. So it depends what you want a dvd-cd rom is about 100 dollars extra and because of the reasons stated above i had a dvd-cd installed on my computer.

I would probably hold off on the dvd-rom. Given that there is very little software available at present that can utilize or requires it's capabilities ( both storage and digital reproduction), you are paying a premium for something that really only allows you to play movies on your cpu: a dubious benefit at best.

Because the cdrw has become so popular and useful, either for burning music cds or as backup device, it has extended the life of cd over dvd, and will probably be around for some time to come.

By the time dvd becomes really useful: i.e.,mainstream software being written to take advantage of its full capacities, or a standardized RW format is established for it, you will probably find that you will be able to get a 48X dvd, for half the price you will now pay for the 8-12X currently available.

I have the 933 system with both DVD ROM and CD-RW drives. There are no problems having both and the DVD drive is as fast as you are likely to need for use with data CDs. There is an advantage in having it aside from the obvious ones of being able to play movies or utilise software written on DVD. This is it, my old P120 system had a 4X Mitsumi CD ROM drive which became unreliable and I bought a new drive for it which happened to be a Memorex 48X. The new drive was much noisier than the DVD drive in my new 4100. I add that although I do not play games very often, a game like RIVEN which is on 5 CDs would be much more convenient to play from a single DVD, and that is the future of software, particularly for games. As for the difference between processors I bought the 933 because the rest of system was what I wanted at the right price, but I expect that the 866 would be little slower and 256 MD of RAM plus an 866 would probably be as much or more "bang for the buck" as a 933 with 128 MB.

I have the 933 w/SB live and I can not get mike vol up so I can make a sound recording,also have a Hp C200 digital camera that conn to Pc via the serial port on this 933 it takes 7 min 33 sec to save 2-175 mb pictures to c drive. on my old EXP 300 it only took 1 min 33 sec. I have been on the ph all week if you want to hold off a few days I will give this one away
Jim Riggs