My new Dell 6400- DO i need to upgrade something ?

i will buy a dell 6400. This is my Dell

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5600 (1.83GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Home
UPGRADE TO WINDOWS VISTA Upgrade to Windows Vista Home Basic from XP Home, $55 payable at redemption
LCD PANEL 15.4 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen WXGA+ Display with TrueLife™
MEMORY 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 2 DIMM
HARD DRIVE 80GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
OPTICAL DRIVE 8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
VIDEO CARD 256MB ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON® X1400 HyperMemory™
WI-FI WIRELESS CARD Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 Internal Wireless
SOUND OPTION Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy™ HD Software Edition
MEDIA DIRECT Media Direct 3.0
Accessories
BATTERIES 53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
WIRELESS CARDS Intel PRO/Wireless 3945a/g

Do i need to upgrade the wirelesscard, the hdd ?
Do you think it's enough for me to work , i will have to play with C++, MS visual , website design or play Pro evolution soccer.?
i wonder if Dell will discount the laptop with Windows WP when they sell the laptops with Windows Vista ? Should i have to wait until February or buy now because the discount of 6400 will expire at the end od January ?
thank in advance

 

I would get a T7200 processor, the 4Mb cache makes a big difference for more demanding applications.

And possibly a 9-cell battery if want more battery life.

And maybe the 160Gb HDD @5400rpm - harddisks can never be too big...

The wireless is fine, I think.

The Dell discounts are difficult to understand.... can't tell, really.

 

T7200 is better, but the extra 4MB wont make a big difference. Here is a comparison on how desktop 2MB and 4MB Core 2 Duos measure up against one another. It will hold true for the mobile counterpart as well. As you can see from the 25 application tests the average gain is only 3.5%. However when comparing a T5500 with a T7200 it is not only the cache that differs, but also the clock speed; T7200 (2GHz) is 25% faster than a T5500 (1.6GHz). Therefore in my opinion you will notice somewhere around 10% ~ 15% overall speedup. Is it worth the cost? That is something you have to decide.

Yes, get the 9 cell battery.
And a larger HDD is always nice to have

 

Hi!

I guess the difference between T5600 and T7200 is rather small, I wouldn't pay more than 50 bucks for the upgrade, but Dell takes over 100, I think? At lesást they do in Germany, it's 120€ here.

Greets
Tobi

 

i would go for Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5500 (1.66GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB) you may think of buying 4MB of cache if you do serious and demanding work. but i dont think so if you're going for a notebook
100GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive - the fastest possible because this is the weak and the slowest component in your system which slows down the other components.
also i would buy the lowest RAM possible and than upgrade from NEWEGG for 667 FSB, and selling the included dimms 533 FSB over internet, because RAM is too expensive on dell's website.