For the 6400; logic behind this chip pricing?

Am returning my 6400 for a new one; I had the 9400 before is it worth to just get the 955o for the same price? And, why is the 9500 more expensive?

I had a heat issue with my last 6400 due to the Nvidia GPU and usgae of two external monitors. Will going with a faster processor produce alot more of a thermal problem?

Lastly, I had the Seagate7200rpm 250GB/HD wiht my last one. Should I go with the same HD this time around or should I buy another not from DELL?

Pricing:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz, 3M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) [subtract $120]


Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8600 (2.40GHz, 3M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) [subtract $120]


Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8700 (2.53GHz, 3M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) [subtract $70]


Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P9500 (2.53GHz, 6M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) [add $60]


Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P9600 (2.66GHz, 6M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) [add $60]


Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9400 (2.53GHz, 6M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) add $0


Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9550 (2.66GHz, 6M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) [Included in Price]


Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9600 (2.80GHz, 6M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) [add $230]


Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9800 (2.93GHz, 6M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) [add $230]

 

Just go with an P version rather than a T as they are 25watt opposed to the T 35watt, so less heat.

 

The real-life difference in power consumption between the P and T series processors has been shown to be small. The TDP ratings are applicable only under load, but most machines spend most of their time at idle. Subsequently, unless you're doing some serious number crunching on the go, you won't see a huge difference in heat or power consumption between a P and T series processor. The P9500 is more expensive than the T9400 because of the lower thermal specs.

If you don't need the extra GPU power, I'd definitely get the Intel. I'm downgrading to an X4500 machine myself. Furthermore, I'd buy an SSD over any regular HDD, but that's just me

 

Yeah-definitley going with the Intel-the Nvidia was giving me alot of problems.
I currently have the 9400; should I just get the 9550 b/c its the same price?
As for the solid states; dont know too much about them...

 

There's no reason not to get the T9550 if they're the same price. They're both officially 35W parts and while the T9550 may be slightly warmer in practice, it's not going to be significant. In general all of the solid state drives offered by Dell are good; it's the cheap ones by OCZ, G.Skill, etc, that aren't.

 

The P series CPUs also have proportionally lower idle and sleep power drains compared to the T series.

John

 

Yeah go P series - eventually you will be using the CPU why not have it be more ecomonical when you do?

 

I guess ill go with the p9500 then.
As for the HD, should I go with their cheapest model and buy a larger/faster one on my own?
Any recs?

 

That's what I did. Using my original drive in an enclosure at the moment. I mean, it's like memory: for what they charge you to upgrade the drive, you could almost buy the drive to which you are upgrading from Newegg, etc.

 

Im going to get BOTH memory and an HD from elsewhere.
Do you guys have any recommendations as to a brand/model HD I should get and where to get extra memory from?
(With how cheap RAM is, could/should I go with 6gigs total?)