Dellauction.com: Precision vs. Optiplex

Hi guys, once again I need your vast computer knowledge.

I want to buy a computer on dellauction.com. The reason? Because I can buy one fairly cheap and it will come with XP. The computer, of course, will be "refurbished," which means it was used, and Dell fixed it back up to resell. Of course, I am looking to play Maplestory with the computer.

 Question One.

1. The computers come in two "models," Precision and Optiplex. There seem to be a lot more Optiplexes than Precisions. For someone dumb like me, can you simply explain the difference, or tell me which one I will be wanting?

 Question Two.

2. What "specifications" am I supposed to be looking for, to make my computer good. Not just average/will do the job for bosses. And not godly. But above average/good. Here is an example of what the chart looks like with specs for specific computers:

FAMILY	PRECISION
MODEL	WS390
CHASSIS/FORM FACTOR	TOWER
PROCESSOR	INTEL CORE 2
PROCESSOR SPEED	1.9 GHz
MEMORY	2048 MB
HARD DRIVE	80 GB
NETWORK INTERFACE CARD / ETHERNET PORT	10/100/1000
OPTICAL DRIVE 1	DVDRW /
OPTICAL DRIVE 2
ADD'L STORAGE (ZIP)
OPERATING SYSTEM	WINDOWS XP PRO+
INPUT DEVICE	Keyboard and Mouse
USB PORT	7 USB 2.0 PORTS / No Card Reader
INTEGRATED AUDIO	YES (Speakers not included)
VIDEO RAM	128 MB
CONDITION	Refurbished

If this is not enough information, this page is where I got the specifications, but since it's an auction the page will soon expire.

My friend said don't worry about hard drive because I can just install a TetraBite in it later which is like 1000 GBs, but how can he tell? (, because my 2002 computer now is XP, but only has 256 MB Ram, and "2 slots" for RAM. How do you know this one can fit so much?)

Thanks a lot for the help in advance guys.

Oh! Cool! The precision desktop is the one that my school uses in their tech labs. Granted... theirs have quad core processors and 8gbs of ram, but for maplestory those should be good o.o. maybe upgrade the ram later on...

Edit: I hate Dell.... but the ones I used in the tech lab were pretty...okay... I'd go for the precision one o.o

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_OptiPlex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Precision

From the looks of things, OptiPlex are intended to be general office workstations, while Precision is for CAD/graphics rendering and whatnot. Go with Precision.

Go with Precision and swap out the workstation card with a gaming video card and you'll be good to go.

You mean the Nvida? Is there any specific brand I should be looking for?

And how do I know if I can put a tetrabite of Ram using that information?

EditL I forgot to say thanks for the help so far guys. It is much appreciated.

Although it says you can put a terabyte of ram in there, in the current market there are no parts which will give you that amount of RAM. The most I believe you can get right now is something like 48 GB which isn't even close.

Workstation cards are terrible for gaming.

Really is immaterial with MapleStory. If you've got any dedicated videocard and you are only running MapleStory it should be fine (web browsers tend to be the big memory hog nowadays, you'd probably want 2GB + of RAM if you're gonna use it to surf the web while you play).

MS is easily playable on my netbook, which looks like
900MHz Celeron
1GB RAM
16GB hard drive
integrated graphics card <- weak point, framerate doesn't peg 60fps all the time.


You can get a geforce 240GT or Radeon 5350 for maybe 40 bucks though, and either will be easily sufficient to run MS once.

Ohhhhhhh I see. Okay I will see what I can do based on your response now. Thanks a lot.