Dell 5100 or 9100?

[bobogs]

Without getting into a debate on the merits of Dell vs anything else, does anyone have any thoughts on the choice of the 5100 or 9100 model lines? General thoughts are welcome, not just those that relate to video editing.

I've had a Dell 4500 for a few years, and it's performed well, even in video editing and dvd authoring (after a few upgrades).

From the configurations I've spec'd out, it seems that both models use the BTX case design for better cooling and quieter operation, they both have a max of 4gb of ram, and they both have a 800mhz frontside bus. The only differences I can see are that the 9100 is a taller tower, which means more expandability, and the 9100 can accept a Pentium D cpu.

I'd like to add a second physical drive for better editing/authoring performance, so hopefully the 5100 case can handle that.

I'm not looking for extreme power, and I'm not really much of a gamer. I just figured now would be a good time to pass the 4500 down to my daughter, so she can play her games on her own pc instead of on my laptop.

Thanks for any comments.
Gary

[TBoneit]

Well I'd look at what the intel chipset is and then check it's specs. For example I've seen a intel chipset that supports 4 Gb ram, of course it olny lets you use 3.45 gb out of that 4 gb. So that is one thing you might want to look into. I don't remember exactly why only 3.45 but it was right in the ASUS mb manual.

I'm not really familar with either model from hands on... But you seem to be saying the 5100 model uses the older P4 whereas the 9100 uses the newer P4 D. If I'm interpreting what you are saying correctly you might want to check things out in the processor beyond just FSB. Look at things like processor cache size.

Plus you might want to see if/when Dell will be selling the Intel Dual core processors in their systems. Dual core should be faster tha a HT only P4.

And Yes Dells are generaly very quiet, just not as expandable generally as a White box unit. For example the dells I see can usually hold up to 4 drives, 2 optical and 2 hdd and optionally a floppy. Whereas the ones we build may not be a quite as quiet but hold 10 drives total, 4 optical bays 2 floppy bays and 4 hdd bays. The aluminum case I use myself (Lian Li) holds 12 drives, 4 front USB ports and the Asus MB I use supports 8 IDE and 2 SATA and 2 Floppy drives

However for what you say you want the Dell will be fine. One thing to ask them is are they giving you a full set of disks on those two models? The 3000 and the 4700 new models I've seen they don't supply disks anymore just use part of the hdd as a recovery partition. Note to those that may say my 3000/4700 came with disks, yes they used to bur the last 3 I opened the sealed Dell shipping box to add a DVD burner, only a Wordperfect disk was there.

Good Luck

[tanerb]

I recently got a 9100, ofcourse customized it abit. I am overall happy with the model. Chipset they use is not great (i think Intel 945 P vs 945G in 5100) but both supports up to 4Gb of ram also they have a campaign here which they upgrade from 512 to 1gb Ram free on purchase. and i am overall happy with the model. Here (in France) they offered me NVidia Gforce 6800 with 9100 but not with 5100 (i should choose either 128MB ATI X300 or 256 MB X600 with 5100)My biggest concern is both DVD-ROM and also hard disk is a bit noisy

[bobogs]

How's this for a ringing endorsement for the 5100?

http://reviews.cnet.com/Dell_Dimension_5100/4505-3118_7-31429803.html?tag=tab

It would seem that my decision has become easier.

Gary

[Bodyslide]

Yes I would go with the 9100 model...