Either will do the job.I would go dual core for smoothness.Also get as much ram as you can afford,same for hardrive size and video card option.

Dell is supposed to be launching the XPS Renegade, targeting the gaming enthusiast.  According to PCMag.com, "It sports a dual-core Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, model 955, overclocked from the factory to 4.26GHz. The standard hard drive configuration is two 10,000 RPM 150GB Raptor drives. The system is cooled by the standard XPS 600 cooling system, though it will use a more powerful power supply, perhaps one from Dell's workstation line ... uses no less than four GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB graphics cards ... Two of the cards are plugged into two x16 PCIe graphics slots in the nForce 4 based custom Dell motherboard, and the other two slave off those two ... to drive Dell's new 30" ultra hi-res LCD monitor, which sports a resolution of 2560x1600 ...  Dell anticipates shipping the new XPS system by the end of January [obviously not], with prices ranging from about $4,000 to 7,000 plus, depending on display and other options."

Case looks like a customized XPS tower with a blood red and flame paint scheme.

So, how deep are your pockets?

Message Edited by Sepp D. on 02-21-2006 05:40 PM

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@pdm01 wrote:

I am purchasing a new computer for my 17 year old.  He is a serious gamer.  Which XPS CPU would be better, the dual core or pentium 4?

 

Thanks for help.

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If he is really serious about PC gaming... you should get an AMD system. The benchmarks and performance speaks for itself. There are plenty of websites out there that will verify that AMD has the best performance at the present time, but that could change. Intel is ok... but it is not as good as an AMD dual core or single core processor.

If your heart is set on an Intel system... the Intel Pentium D 950 or 955 (both are 3.4 Ghz) dual core processor might be good enough for him. A good single core processor he might like would be the Intel Pentium 4 672 or 670 (both are 3.8 Ghz).

Getting a dual core system now would prepare him for any future software that supports multiple threads. Right now there are very few that do that, but it will probably be common some day.

-----------------------------------------------------------

 

My Dell XPS 600

Original CPU (12/7/2005 to 2/7/2006):
Pentium D 830 Dual Core 3.0 Ghz

New CPU (2/7/2006 to present):
Pentium D 950 Dual Core 3.4 Ghz


Nvidia nforce4 SLI X16 Intel mother board
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 533 Mhz
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Dual SLI Nvidia Ge Force 6800 256 MB
160 GB Hard Drive
19 inch flat panel monitor

 

Message Edited by jg1981 on 02-20-2006 04:59 PM

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@pdm01 wrote:

I am purchasing a new computer for my 17 year old. He is a serious gamer. Which XPS CPU would be better, the dual core or pentium 4?

Thanks for help.

---

Maybe you should ask him...

That's the beauty of Dell you can order a system that does exactly what you want.
Does he also do music? video?
Raid or 500 GB hard drive?
Creative Audigy 2, 4, or X-fi sound card?

A surprise may be nice but asking what would be his dream computer would be nicer especially if you're paying the bill (within limits)!

You would be better off waiting Till windows Vista Comes out ..Before getting a new PC ..By the end of the year The new graphics cards will be directx 10...And soon after that most of the games  coming out  well be As well . 

Right now a good gaming and general purpose system would have a Pentium D that's at least 2.8GHz, at least 1GB (but no more than 2GB) of RAM, at least a Geforce 6800 video card, and as large of a hard drive as is needed. (Depends mostly on how much media is going to be stored on the drive-for some people a 40 or 80GB drive is overkill, others might need a 250GB drive.)