Good Entry-Level PC, Will Use Lightroom 4 & Photoshop CS2 (desktop, RAM, hd)

[shyguylh]

I had a Dell Zino HD PC which I bought in 2009 & was my everyday PC. I think it had AMD 1.5 G dual-core chips and 4G of RAM if I recall. It did most things fine.

That model, a nettop, has since given up the ghost & I'm trying to replace it. I got a Dell Optiplex 320 on the cheap as a replacement, it has a Pentium 4 3G CPU and 2G of RAM, but it is way slower. Anything more than 6 Firefox tabs on the PC & it starts locking up. The Dell Zino HD could easily play 720p 60 fps video clips at full-size via Windows Media Player, wheeras the Optiplex 320 can't do so to save its life without stuttering like crazy. Both models had Windows 7.

I'm looking at models like the Gateway model Best Buy sells for $270-300, it has a 1.5G dual-core and 4G of RAM. (The link: Gateway SX Series Desktop 4GB Memory 500GB Hard Drive SX2185-UB37 - Best Buy Model # SX2185-UB37.) I don't need the absolute fastest, but it needs to be able to play the 720p 60fps clips without stuttering and without acting flaky with more than 6 Firefox tabs. It also needs to do a respectable job, if not a blazing one, of running Adobe Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS. Would that model do a respectable job of that, especially if I also upped the memory to 8G from the start as I'm inclined to do?

I don't need a LOT of expansion room, so long as I can get 1 or 2 PCI-express or such slots, maybe a 2nd SATA hard drive, memory etc. I don't mind Windows 8 although the lack of the Start button worries me (I figure I'll use the 3rd party software to bring it back as mentioned in this article Windows 8 hatred explained: Lack of full Start menu still hurts | BGR.)

Tips?

[Jesse69]

Spend your money on a $1200+ desktop.

[archineer]

Get a Mac mini, or the specs to look for as a minimum: 4gb-8gb Ram, core i5 2Ghz+, 500gb HDD, HD4000/HD5000/Iris graphics (low end dedicated gpus are pointless these days.) Get a 21.5" 1080p monitor too.