Hoping someone can give me some advice please ... I have been offered a choice of a new Acer computer (Desktop) One with AMD 64x2 dualcore 4200 with Vista Home Basic, or the other one is with a AMD (64) L.E. 1640 with Vista Home Premium, both are the same price. Not knowing much about processors I would appreciate your advice.

Thanks in advance.

Just based on the very little you told us, including the most important thing - the intended purpose of the computer - I would go for the LE-1640 because it is newer technology. That typically means I can stretch the useful lifetime of the computer another couple years down the rode as upgrades and replacements for the newer generation will be around longer.

The fact that it comes with Vista Home Premium suggests that it has a better graphics system, and hopefully more RAM too - though that would need to be verified.

To make a true, informed decision, at a minimum, the following should be known:

CPUs (you already know that)
RAM - Amount and type/speed
Graphics solution - Add-in card or "on-board". A card is always better than on-board graphics.

Power supply - The PSU is an often overlooked, but still critical component - I would not discount a PC because of an inadequate PSU, but I would figure in the cost to replace it with a decent one.

The below, pretty much in order, all factor in the overall value, in terms of cost, but more importantly, in terms of meeting your computing needs.

Number, size, and type of drives
Monitor

Motherboard make and model would be nice too.

Is it a sturdy case? Does one case support more drives? What size and how many fans are there? Does the case support more fans?

Finally, any commercial software that comes with it - word processor, speadsheet program, etc.

Thanks Digerati for your prompt and informative reply, very much appreciated. My apologies for the minimum details about the PC but in answer to your questions here goes ...

AMD 64 LE 1640 Acer Aspire M1100 Desktop (Vista Home Premium) :

250 gb Sata hard-drive (C @ 111gb D @ 111 gb) ATI graphics, 2gb DDR11 memory, DVD burner, strong well built case, Photo card slots (SD etc) 6 Usb's, Firewire (not gotta clue what that is) ADM motherboard, 16" Acer flat-screen monitor, Built-in graphics, Integrated audio (ATI) Integrated LAN 10/100/1000 ? Supermulti optical. Keyboard and mouse. Total price 399 Euros !!! (approx 650 US $ .

Thanks again, Dave
(Luckydog)

Hmmm, not sure what you want now - thanks for the specs, but you did not say the specs of the other PC - so still not enough information to decide which is "better". And to make sure there is no confusion - That would not be DDR11, but DDRII or DDR2.

16" monitor? Sure you are not looking at the 6 upside down? - 19"?

Sorry, seems to be some confusion .. I thought you wanted to know the specs, not to worry and the screen is 16", small but very good quality indeed.

Thanks.

I did. You opened this thread saying you have been offered two computers, and you wanted to know what was the best choice. Well, to know the best choice, we need to know the specs of both computers.

The 2nd machine is basically the same except it has AMD Athlon 64x2 dualcore ....Home Basic and with a 19" Monitor (19") and firewire (not too sure what that is for) * Price is same.

Thanks for your help.

** DDRII

This post has been edited by luckydog1: May 8 2008, 12:43 AM

No it isn't. One machine is based on the 939 socket and that family of CPUs, and the other on the AM2 socket and its family of CPUs - that means the motherboards have some significant differences.

Still, I would go with the latest technology - the AM2 system.

Sorry - you have mentioned it twice - Firewire, more correctly called IEEE 1394 interface, is another high-speed serial bus communications method, similar (in function) to USB. Many PCs, laptops, cameras, external storage devices use the IEEE 1394 interface. Apple paid for the R&D and named it FireWire - Sony contributed and calls theirs i.LINK.

To learn more, enter:

firewire

in your favorite search engine.