OK. I am new here, but not to forums. My intention is not to debate whether Dell is a great system or not. Nor will I debate about building my own. Been there, done that.

What I would like to know from those of you who follow these things more closely than I have time for is this. I am going to buy either a E521 with a AMD 64 X2 3800 or the E520 with the Intel Core 2 Duo 6300. When I config out I end up about $110 apart. This is using a basic stock configuration and will probably add some after market items (DVD Burner, possibly a video card etc) at a later date. The question boils down to this, for what I do, digital picture manipulation and some creating of home movies (no gaming) will I see any real difference in the speed for my $110? It seems to me that I could get the AMD and use the price difference to add another gig of RAM and probably see a speed gain that way. Or maybe move up to a 4200 or 4400 CPU.

Thoughts, please?

While I do not know if there is a noticible performance between the two, I would choose the Intel for the reason that it draws less power. Less power means less heat means it runs cooler.

The Dell comes with a 305W PSU so if you can save power consumption, I would go for it.

Kinneer.