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Dell XPS 420

81

Very Good

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Pros
Strong performance
Front panel video transcoder
Cons
Only one free bay

Performance: Superior: 96
Features: Good: 73
Design: Good: 79

Find out how these scores, and their relative weights, combine to produce the PC World Rating.

Performance
Adobe Photoshop CS2	308
Autodesk 3ds max 8.0 SP-3 DirectX	332
Autodesk 3ds max 8.0 SP-3 Rendering	300
Firefox 2	205
Microsoft Office 2003 with SP-1	344
Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9.0	188
Nero 7 Ultra Edition	269
Overall Graphics Score	Superior
Roxio VideoWave Movie Creator 1.5	191
Winzip Computing WinZip 10.0	182
WorldBench 6 Score	126
WorldBench 6 Word Score	Superior

WorldBench 6 Tests
Multitasking	231

What You Should Know about the XPS 420

Good Amount of RAM for Running Multiple Apps at Once

This computer includes between 1GB and 3GB of RAM, our recommended level for a new PC. This much memory lets you run any modern operating system and comfortably work with quite a few applications open. The more installed memory your PC has, the more programs you can run smoothly at once, and the better the system will perform. Upgrading memory in a desktop after you purchase the PC is a breeze, but usually it's worthwhile to buy the amount of memory you want preinstalled with the system.

To use more than 4GB of memory on your PC, you need the 64-bit version of Windows XP or Windows Vista. The PCs that you see equipped with 3GB of memory (instead of 4GB) tend to use the 32-bit versions of Windows that are limited to 4GB of addressable memory, the top portion of which is addressed by the various hardware devices on the system.