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General discussion

laptop decsion need help !!!

Aug 15, 2004 11:11AM PDT

Hi all,
Here is my situation:
Currently I own an Inspiron 8200 configured as:
P4 1.8 with 768 megs of ram PC2100
64 meg ATI Raedon 9000
60 gig 7200 Hitachi drive (main drive-O/S)
60 gig 7200 rpm ibm (modular bay-DATA STORAGE)
orinoco gold b/g client card
15" uxga screen
DVD/CDRW COMBO DRIVE


I am looking for a Dell Machine that will give me desktop performance
Is it better to upgrade it to a 2.5 GHZ CPU and add 2 gigs of ram of PC 2700 (333 mhz)
these upgrades costs approx. $950 (& the ram can be migrated to a new system later)

Or is better to just invest in a new machine ??

in reality how much of a performance gain am I going to see by upgrading it to the 2.5GHZ CPU and 2 gigs of ram ??


I use the machine for everything but I do not play games,
I do alot of digital photography,converting RAW files to jpegs and then editing them,
I also use Photoshop CS quite frequently and other imaging programs,and basic office apps,burning CD's and the web
the 3 spindle design is also very important to me because I don't know of any laptops the hold 2 hard drives and a burner at the same time !!!!
The warrany for the Inspiron 8200 runs out in
December of 2005
The 2 hard drives is really the most important feature to me and then the desktop like performance
can you please put me in the right direction ????
If a new machine is the anwser which one 8600 or 9100 ??

please feel free to E-mail me at
shkj2@comcast.net

thanks........Stu

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