9300 / XPS M170 specs, some advice please

OK, am about to buy either a Dell 9300 or an XPS M170. Am leaning towards the XPS, but need some advice re customisation. First of all, is it worth the extra £235 for 2.26 GHz processor instead of the 2.13GHz?

Secondly, what difference would the RAM being 2048 (2 * 1024) instead of 1024 (2 * 512). This costs an extra £282.

Are either of these upgrades worth it? I am getting the 7800 graphics chip & the 100GB (7200 rpm) hard drive.

Thanks in advance

 

The 100GB 7200RPM hard drive is nice - I'd actually take it down to 80GB to save money if you can.

The 2.26GHz processor is not worth it. Don't bother with the 2.13 either - go with the 2.0GHz, that's a much better value and you won't notice a difference between it an the 2.13/2.26.

Also, I'm not sure why you would need 2GB of RAM. One of the only applications I know you would need 2GB for would be extreme photoshopping. Dell charges way too much for RAM - I'd just get the minimum configuration and then upgrade yourself.

 

Thanks for that, I thought the processor would probably not be worth it, but thought that the extra RAM would maybe make gaming etc quicker. Appears not though.

 

With that fast HDD, 1GB RAM should be sufficient and that CPU upgrade is a waste. You can always upgrade your RAM later, at a much lower cost than buying from Dell. In fact, I'd get the minimum they offer and add more yourself.

 

OK, Thanks for the advice.

 

>Get the m170, forget about 9300
>2ghz, its plenty fast and it will run at 100% for hours np...
>I would advise you to get the 2gb, unless you dont get a good discount, then upgrade later.
>You need the 7800 gpu, and I would get the 5400 rpm 100giga for the price...mines a Seagate

Enjoy

 

Cool. Ordered it yesterday - 2.13ghz, the RAM was too expensive so just got 1gb, will probs upgrade later if needed. 100gig hard drive at 7200rpm & 7800 gpu. Am upgrading from a crappy old laptop so cant wait.

 

Well first of all, what are you going to be doing? The i9300 is still a great machine that can play the latest games and is way cheaper than the m170.

 

gaming, lots of work stuff, internet & some multi media. Have ordered it now & just fingers crossed that the screen is OK