For office machines like you describe, the performance of a single core machine will be indistinguishable from a multi-core machine. The sweet spot price-wise right now is the dual cores, so get one of those. For your needs I wouldn't pay a penny extra for any more than that.
That your newer machine seems faster when having more apps open is probably just due to the newer Windows install. Wipe the old machine and install WinXP clean and I bet you'll see no difference. It's unlikely office apps are actually *using cpu* at the same time anyway. Just having them 'open' doesn't use cpu at all. I wouldn't buy WinXP now. Get Vista, it's clearly the future of Windows, and you're going to have to learn it eventually. On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 12:43 PM, Fred Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I will be buying a new Dell computer next week and I'm a little confused > about all of the new processors even after reading wikipedia articles so I > thought I would ask you guys (always a big help in the past - THANKS very > much and TIA here too!). > So the question is - which processor would be best for me - best bang for > the buck? > Other than the internet I mostly use MS office and an older dos based > accounting program I need to keep. I don't play games or do any video or > photoshop stuff. > I will be replacing a 3 year old Dell OptiPlex 620 that has a 3.60 gigahertz > Intel Pentium 4, Windows XP and 2gb RAM. > Earlier this year I bought a Dell Optiplex 755 with a 3.00 gigahertz Intel > Core2 Duo (e8400 I think), Windows XP, 2gb RAM. > Comparing the two computers the Optiplex 755 with Core2 Duo is noticably > faster thank Pentium 4 when running several applications at the same time - > part of what I thought benefited the most from multi core processors. > Now I see all sorts of options for multi core processors. Will a quad core > processor likely make that much difference for me? What would be the best > bang for the buck in a new processor? > thanks for any help ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
