Recommendations

I need some help in choosing a computer. At present we have a 7 year old dell dimension 8300 desktop computer with 32 bit Xp and a 3g processor. My wife uses it primarily for her tax and accounting business with tax and accounting programs. She has some fairly large data base files for approximately 400 clients. My question is should we invest in one of the top end Dell 8100 or 9000 machines with the i7 3g processors or go with one of the lesser models that use duo or i3 processors. In other words would the high end computer be that much faster for these kinds of operations? We would not mind spending the extra money if the difference would be really noticeable. Also would a larger hard drive say, 1 t be that much faster in loading than say a 500 g hard drive. Same goes for ram memory. 4g vrs say 8g. Any information/ suggestions would be appreciated. Dave

The high end computer will be faster in all aspects, except the hard drive's performance, which should be about the same. The main difference will just be capacity not speed, assuming the remaining specs are similar. 8Gb of RAM will only serve you if you opt for 64-bit Windows which I recommend since 32-bit is on its way out, and 64-bit is here to stay for many years to come.

With today's graphics oriented world, you need a decent graphics card, but you don't need a monster gaming card.

You should also look at easy backup solutions since this is a business machine, and I always recommend every computer be on a good UPS with AVR to ensure the computer constantly is fed good clean power. Note that backup power during a complete outage is only the icing on the cake. It is the automatic voltage regulation that is the bread and butter, and something no surge and spike protector can come near in matching.

You are asking a very specific question.

And you are probably making a couple of errors in how you are asking.

First, you don't list the exact software that will be used, and you do not fully describe the tasks to be performed with that software.

Second, you are anticipating a response from a Forum where a few Members have experience with "bleeding edge" machines, but most are generalists whose interest is in how things work and how to restore or repair systems when they don't work.

I do believe that you may get some intelligent replies, but they may not be what you are looking for specifically.

My amateur reply:

A note about duo core, quad core, six core and eight core processors.

The speed of each core may be more important than how many cores you have.
That is because software has not yet caught up to hardware when it comes to utilizing multiple cores.
A 1.6ghz dual core may not out-perform a single core 3.2ghz, partially because software has not been written efficiently to share the load between two 1.6ghz cores
If software has not yet sufficiently caught up to dual core, then how much more so might a quad, six or eight core be a waste of resources in the present application environment.

An only slightly false metaphor:
Two cars traveling at 16 miles per hour, will never beat a single care traveling at 32 miles per hour.
Sure, two cars can carry more passengers and freight, but the single care will usually carry all you need, and at 32mph will get you there faster.

Currently, high end machines and CPU's like the Intel i7 are targeted to audio editing, video editing, and gamer performance.
In those venues the ability to process several millions of computations per second will make a noticeable difference to the skilled editor or performer.

I don't know anything about accounting beyond spread sheets that I use to manage my own small business, and proprietary softwares to compute taxes or similar.
What I do know is that a formula in a spread sheet may be configured to be applied to hundreds or thousands or maybe even tens of thousands of entries in that sheet.

I may be wrong but I imagine that it is very unlikely that a number-cruncher such as your wife will often be able to create entries or call queries fast enough to get ahead of even your present Dell 8300.
I just don't think that a home or small business user is likely to have the kind of inventory sheets that would require top end desktop performance.
Unless you are managing Buy (dot) com or Amazon in real time, you probably don't need bleeding edge.

And if your wife is a bean-counter, I'd imagine that paying more money than necessary for a machine that will never be put into full use would be disagreeable to her, from a cost-benefit investment point of view.

Now if you are also going to use the machine for entertainment, editing, viewing and listening, you may get a kick out of having a top end machine.
But using a strictly business machine for casual purposes may put valuable resources and data at risk unnecessarily.

The best answer I could probably give you is two words: Trade Magazines
Read up on what other people are using for the specific tasks your accounting/tax business will be performing.
Hundreds or maybe thousands of contributors will have tried out high end machines and will be able to tell you if such an investment allows for more efficient service or more technically advanced services that you may wish to expand into.

In addition to trade magazine, join and chat with folk in Trade Associations.
Get their experience based opinions.

Thanks for asking.
And if you want to learn how to fix your machine, operating system or software, give us another try.
But please do remember if you question is strictly for commercial use, you may do better asking or employing a local tech who can remain available to you as you grow and encounter new situations.
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As to your second question about Storage…
a 500gb hard drive is not necessarily faster or slower than a 1tb hard drive.

In your business, reasonable size may be dictated by the size of the projects brought to you by customers.
More important is having a multi-layers back-up system so that if a single drive fails, you have not lost the valuable data belonging to your customer.

Along with backup it the issue of power supply.
Your system should have backup power supply such that you don't instantly loose data and function if you have a power outage.
Hint: uninterpretable power supply may seem like an expensive luxury….. until you need it.
Get a good one.