I was thinking about going ALL OUT on a system this thing will cost 4325 candian dollars which is about...3500-3800 american dollars?

-Pentium® Extreme Edition Dual Core w/ HT Tech (3.20GHz, 800FSB)
-Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition
-1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr At-Home Service, and 1Yr Technical Support
-4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 4 DIMMs
-500GB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 250GB SATA HDDs)
-Dual Drives: 48x CD-RW Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ double layer write capable
-Combo: Sonic DigitalMedia and MyDVD Plus (DVD+RW only)
-24 inch UltraSharp™ 2405FPW Widescreen Digital Flat Panel(only cus i love big screens lol)
-256MB Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX
-Logitech Z5500 500 Watt 5.1 Digital Surround Speakers w/control pod
-Dell USB Enhanced Multimedia Keyboard
-Logitech® MX™ 518 Optical Mouse
-Microsoft Office Professional-Includes Outlook,Word,Excel,PowerPoint,Access
McAfee SecurityCenter with VirusScan, Firewall, Spyware Removal, 36-months(sick of upgrading every year)

the reason i spend so much on this comp is cuz im tired of upgrading every 3 months which adds up i might as well buy the whole lot off the bat. is this worth it? is there recommendations i shouldnt buy? i should change? anything? feedback is greatly appreciated thx

"is this worth it?"

NO. Buying bleeding edge technology is just a waste of money. You'll be upgrading in a year regardless.

And RAID 0 is not the way to go if you value your data. As a matter of fact, RAID probably isn't a good idea at all.

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

Is it worth it? Heck no.

For gaming, dual core isn't the way to go. It may help you in your graphic design apps, but that chip will honestly hurt you for gaming compared to a similarly priced single core solution. Not sure which is more important to you.

Speaking of which, Intel isn't the best choice for gaming. While Intel does have hyperthreading support, if you're going dual core, AMD has the much better technology.

4 gigs of RAM is absolutely rediculous and not needed, and will not be utilized much at all if even used. 2 gigs is more than sufficient.

For a productivity machine, RAID0 is an incredibly bad idea. 2x the chance of a total data loss due to hard drive malfunction or failure. If you're gonna do RAID, do RAID5 or RAID0+1. In my opinion, RAID with good SATA drives isn't necessary at all.

For a productivity machine, I'd go XP Pro.

Why on earth are you buying Dell? Build it yourself, and build it right.

"McAfee SecurityCenter with VirusScan, Firewall, Spyware Removal, 36-months(sick of upgrading every year)"

How about spybot search and destroy, ad-aware personal addition, and Free AVG? Works just as well if not better, uses less system resources, and best part is it's all free.

Finally, dude, don't kid yourself. That machine won't stop the inevitable upgrade, and you can spend FAR less than that and not have to upgrade every three months. I have an Athlon 64 3000 with a gig of RAM, a 6600GT, and a 250 gig SATA drive. Guarantee you I'll be fine without upgrading for a year at the very least. I'll upgrade then only because I just want to.

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That system configuation should handle MS Paint and Outlook Express quite well...lol.
What specific design apps are you refering to? Programs that require vast amounts of rendering? Perhaps, you should reconsider that CPU for one that has more GHZ, larger FSB, and bigger cache size, in particular the 3.73ghz EE with a 1066mhz FSB and 2mb cache. In a world dominated by sigle threading apps Its only logical to get a super fast single core processor. What I mean to say is, dual core tech is still in its infancy, therefore as I stated, not all programs are not going to be multi core aware, thus the extra resources will go virtually unused.

besides that dualie you mentioned is almost three year old technology. Intel's Pentium D CPUs are just two prescott cores slapped onto one chip with HT enabled on both of them, nothing new by any means. Think of it as new tricks for an old dog. Besides, if pure hourse power is what your after then the AMD FX57 beats all intels processors hands down.

Further more, increase the watts on your PSU (pay attention to the apmrage on the 12+ rail, the higher the better). All those high priced components need a steady flow of juice, or thing will go wrong.

4Gbs of RAM is unnecsasary and will offer no benefits. 1gig is mainstream. Soon 2Gbs will be the standard so might wanna prepare for that. I can already name a couple of games that insist on it, but we all know how that goes (marketing). Eveything eles looks... well, like a bank account empting investment.

While your at it, get a big screen HD monitor. Nothing like keeping back and watching High Definition movies.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. --Aristotle--

3d studio max and such and such like 4dxl and programs like that. i figured you guys would say the processor and HD sucks lol but dell offers those for the best ones they got. everyone tells me dell is more for business and not gaming and should go AMD instead of intel. well anyone know of a site where i can create my own cuz id rather have an x850 than geforce 7800

Build it yourself!

www.ncix.com

Help survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Please donate to the American Red Cross.

www.redcross.org

www.newegg.com

He's from the Great White North, you hoser!

Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

www.redcross.org

I agree, pick the X850..... :-)

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P4 3.6 Prescott
ASUS PTGD1 Mobo
2x160GB Samsung SATA
1GB PC3200 DDR400
Tagan 420W PSU
X850XT PE