Spec comparison for 'design' pc

[oldskooladdict]

OK, so I am sorting out a PC for a colleague which will be doing a fair amount of design work involving inDesign and Acrobat etc.

The basic spec on both machines is quad core processor and 4gb of RAM, however, there are differences between the two specs, which I will outline below, spec A is £400 more than spec B..

Spec A:
Processor: Intel Xeon E5420 (2.50GHZ, 1333Mhz,2x6MB,Quad Core)
RAM: 4GB DDR2 667 Quad Channel FBD Memory (2x2GB)
Graphics: DUAL 256MB PCIe x16 nVidia Quadro FX 570,Dual Monitor DVI or VGA Graphics Card(ELGA11)
HDD: 160GB (7,200 rpm) SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive with NCQ and 8MB DataBurst Cache

Spec B:
Processor: Intel® Processor Q6600 Quad Core™ (2.40GHz,1066Mhz FSB, 8MB cache)
RAM: 4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [4x1024]
Graphics: SINGLE 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT Card
HDD: Hard Drive 500GB Serial ATA non Raid (7200 Rpm)

There are other differences between the two machines, but nothing major in my opinion.

So, are the differences in the spec that large, and is spec A worth £400 more?

As I said, this is a PC which will be used for design programs, nothing too sophistocated, just CS3 really and some Office 2007. It will be used in an office environment.

Spec A is a Dell Precision Workstation, Spec B is a Dell XPS.

Your thoughts?!

Thanks!

[b0redom]

Go for spec B.

Quadro FX cards can't be run in SLi, so unless you're using 4 displays it's a complete waste of money. Similarly you're unlikely to get the use out of a Xeon over a standard C2Q

[oldskooladdict]

Thanks for that b0redom, we will only be using one display, so that would indeed be a waste of money!

I'm not really up on the ins and outs of hardware much these days, I have a basic grounding but I don't keep up with all the new technology that much.

[staffsMike]

Deffinatly spec B, XPS warranties are pretty good too if you need and extended one.

[oldskooladdict]

Thanks staffsMike - I've decided to go for the XPS one - the extra £400 or so is just not justified for our purposes.

It's nice to know the warranties are good - I seem to remember a colleague who had purchased an XPS laptop saying this too.

[samir883]

I would agree with the other guys the Dell XPS is the premium range too so they are built for performance. The specs look great and i am lookin gto purchase a very similar one for 3D Animation work and rendering so for the type of use you are after it is perfect. If i were you though, check out Dell outlet as they have factory seconds for way cheaper than brand new plus you can add additional warranties or even better are ITC sales as a lot of their Dell XPS systems had 3yr premium xps warranty service as part of the price and they were some great prices although i didnt buy from them as the $GB RAM machines seemed to go like hot cakes and the few left were only 667 MHz.

[jw007]

I'd have to agree with everyone on this - the XPS would be my pick too!

If you go via the Small Business website then the PC doesn't come loaded with loads of trial version of Office, Norton, etc. Makes this a look cleaner and saves you from having to uninstall all they pointless software they load onto the Home versions.

I've also heard from a couple of friends that the XPS 420 - not sure about the rest of the range - is fairly quiet, but I guess in an office environment that may not be all that important.

[ionicle]

spec b, definatly, good choise

[Orpheus22]

Whats his budget? I was looking around for a designing PC, but i was looking at configuring prebuilt systems on alot of different, well respected websites. Taking existing systems and changing all the options to give a kick ass rig on the cheap (well cheaper!)

It might work out better value than a XPS

Also how easy are Dells to upgrade nowadays? I know they used to be bit of a bitch.

[stevencage7]

spec b, but definatly go for raid if u can, boost a lot in PS

[jw007]

Orpheus22 - Regarding updgrading Dells, I think there are still some issues with upgrading, but compatible is the key word, check before you make any purchases. Most of the issues seem to relate to the motherboards used, as long as the updgrades fit the motherboard specifications then it should be fine.

[Nelsaidi]

If he's using adobe CS4, you might want to consider a better graphics card because of hardware acceleration, which should boost performance in some scenarios.

But, spec b looks good Get that over spec a.

[francium]

Like the above poster said, I would go for spec B but maybe invest in a better graphics card in order to make full use of Adobe's hardware acceleration in CS4.