Expert: Bobbert - 8/9/2010

Question
QUESTION: Hi Bobbert,

You have been so helpful in the recent past in recommending the features for the computer to buy & I hope that you saw the ratings that I gave you.  Current PCs don't seem to provide more than 1 optical drive & don't provide fax/modems either.

I've narrowed my search to a few PCs as follows:

Dell Inspiron 580S (I'm told that expansion space is the same as for the Inspiron 580.)  Right now, the 580S is less expensive than the comparable 580.  Both the 580 & 580S are Consumer Reports' recommended PCs, at least specific versions.
CPU i3-540
Optical Drive 16x DVD +/- RW
RAM 6Gb DDR3 SDRAM @ 1333 MHz-3DIMMS
Hard Drive 750Gb SATAII 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM 16 Mb Cache
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD
Price $549.99 + tax %26 shipping
Note:  Oddly, Dell has this same PC with 4Gb RAM instead of 6Gb RAM on another website location for the same $549.99 price.

Dell Inspiron 580S
CPU i5-650
Optical Drive 16x DVD +/- RW
RAM 4Gb DDR3 SDRAM @ 1333 MHz-4DIMMS
Hard Drive 750Gb SATAII 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM 16 Mb Cache
512Mb NVIDIA GeForce G-310 Video Card
Price $599.99 + tax  Shipping may be free for this one since it exceeds $599.

HP Pavillion 6570t
CPU i3-540
Optical Drive Lightscribe 16x max DVD +/- R/RW SuperMulti
RAM 4Gb DDR3 SDRAM @ 1333 MHz-2DIMMS  (I don't know the maximum amount of RAM this PC can accept.)
Hard Drive 640Gb SATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM
Integrated Intel HD Graphics (VGA)
Price:  $529.99 + tax  Shipping may be free but I'm not sure.

Questions:
Dell:  Which combination offers more computing power:  i3-540 CPU with 6Gb DDR3 SDRAM @ 1333 MHz-3DIMMS RAM, or i5-650 CPU with 4Gb DDR3 SDRAM @ 1333 MHz-4DIMMS RAM?  (I don't know the maximum amount of RAM these PCs can accept.)

Optical Drives, Dell Vs HP:  Does the Lightscribe offer any advantages over the Dell-provided optical drive?

Optical Drives:  How important is it to have a second drive for copying purposes?

Thanks in advance for any help that you can provide.

Harold

ANSWER: The Core i5 should offer more compute power, the extra memory isn't worth it unless you're a professional/industrial user (regardless of what many "tech review" or "consumer review" websites insist - anything beyond 4GB is wasted capacity, but memory is cheap and manufacturers like to entice buyers with huge figures).

However, unless you're doing intensive tasks with any of these machines, you won't notice any difference between the i5 and the i3 in terms of compute power as they're both more than enough for everyday usage (again, manufacturers like to wow consumers with huge figures).

Lightscribe is a technology that lets the drive burn logos onto supported media, so if you have Lightscribe discs you can flip the disc in the drive and burn a picture onto the disc - isn't a bad feature to have but it isn't a dealbreaker (buying a drive raw you can expect to pay about a dollar more for Lightscribe, the media is more expensive).

As far as a second optical drive - why do you need this?

And as far as a modem, I see no reason whatsoever for such a device in a modern computer - if you aren't using broadband Internet in 2010 there isn't a point in being connected to the Internet, plain and simple, content is just too heavy for a 56k modem to keep up. Most MFCs support quite a bit of fax functionality as well, so you should be taken care of there.

Honestly I'd probably go with the HP, it's the cheapest of the bunch and will do more or less anything aside from intensive videogames, the Dell's offer somewhat more disk storage (you'd be surprised how cheap hard disks are though), and the $600+ Dell offers a *slightly* better graphics adapter (For the $70 you save on the HP you can purchase something significantly better though).

-bob


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Bob,

Thanks for your prompt answers.  

The question about the second drive is that I thought it could be useful for copying files from one CD to another.

I'm a little confused by the last paragraph, especially the last sentence.  You recommend the HP machine then, in the last sentence state that "For the $70 you save on the HP you can purchase something significantly better though."  Do I understand correctly that you are in fact now recommending the $600 Dell machine instead fo the HP machine?

Thanks,

Harold

Answer
Copying of discs with a computer isn't quite the same as copying a diskette or using a disc duplicator - your best bet is to use a commercial software application like PowerISO or Nero and actually capture what is called a "disc image" of the disc you'd like to copy, that will be saved to your hard-drive, and then you'll burn that image to a new CD (making a 1:1 exact copy of the original disc). If you're doing high volume copying, I would suggest a duplicator as they'll make multiple discs at once and streamline this entire process.

So in a sense, no, you don't really need a second optical drive for copying optical discs - just the available disc space to store the disc images while you're writing the new disc (up to around 9GB if you're copying a dual layer DVD).

The last sentence was referring to a graphics adapter - for $70 you can purchase a graphics adapter which is better than the GeForce 310 than you get in the $600 Dell - the HP machine is a better deal and that is what I would suggest. If you need the graphics power, take the $70 you saved and put it towards something better.

-bob