Good Afternoon All,

I'm planning to order a new Dell OptiPlex 320 desktop PC to replace my almost seven year old Dell Dimension 4100 and need some experienced advice in selecting the processor and memory. BTW, my Dell Dim 4100 stills runs like a charm under Windows XP Professional, so it's not so much that I need a new PC as a case of simply wanting a new desktop because the price is right.

Here's the link to Dell's OptiPlex 320 build/configurator page:
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=bpdwafj&s=bsd

There are five CPU choices offered, and I would like to select the CPU option that has the best performance to value ratio. Eliminating the base Pentium D 925, I am left with a Pentium D 935 or 945 and a Core Duo E4300 or E4400. The differences in price between all these CPUs are relatively small so that's not an issue, but I do want to select the processor with the snappiest performance and longest legs.

Unfortunately the Dell Processor Performance web page found here: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/dimen/topics/en/dhs_cpu_landing?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs doesn't offer benchmarks for all these CPUs, so one is left to 'guesstimate' where a particular CPU might fall on their performance spectrum graphs.

To me, it seems there wouldn't much of performance difference between the Pentium D 935 and 945, but I'm less certain about how these two processors compare to the E4300 and the E4400 and how the E4300 compares to the E4400. In this machine as currently offered, they all run a FSB speed of 800 MHz, but it's possible the motherboard may support Intel Core 2 Duo E6000 series CPUs running a 1066 MHz FSB (which would be great if I choose to upgrade the CPU somewhere down the road when E6000 series processors drop into value-priced territory).

Online searches of hardware formus like Anand Tech show the E4300 to a great performance value due to its overclockabiltiy, but that is of no real help here because we're talking a Dell Intel motherboard and BIOS where the ability to overclock is preempted by design.

Asking Dell Support for a straight answer about hardware upgradeability is, in my experience, usually a fruitless exercise and waste of time because they don't like to or are not permitted to answer questions about hardware configurations that haven't been validated in Dell labs, which I guess is understandable and reasonable response from their point of view. Resultantly, one is left to review Dell's machine specs that are available at Dell Support.

For those of you who have the time and care to look, here are the Dell links to the OptiPlex 320's manuals in all supported languages: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/op320/ and in English: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/op320/en/index.htm.

Besides CPU selection I have a question about memory because I noted in the OptiPlex 320 configurator that both DDR2 memory at 533 MHz and at 667 MHz are offered as options. This is new for this machine as in the very recent past they only offered 533 MHz DDR2 memory, reserving the higher performance CPUs and memory so-it-seems for the OptiPlex 745 which is a more costly machine and one that they rarely promote with value-pricing.

In any case, I am presuming that the 667 MHz DDR2 memory will offer a performance boost and operate in true dual-channel fashion and is therefore desirable to order but, I find myself once again unsure about this because the memory selector at Crucial.com seems to state otherwise. Also, I don't have a clue what memory timings Dell uses in these modules.

Well I guess that's about it for now, and I thank you in advance for reading and reviewing the available information about Dell's OptiPlex 320 prior to making recommendations.

As always,  your advice, comments and/or suggestions about how to 'spec-out' this machine so it delivers the most bang-for-the buck and 'smiles-per-mile' is gratefully appreciated and acknowledged.

If you're reading this and live in the USA, enjoy a safe and Happy July 4th holiday! I remain,

Very truly yours,
Jeffrey Ottie

`~ )


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