Going to go with HP, one final question to ask

[wolfman]

After hearing what people here told me here, I've decided to go with an HP desktop. I'm sticking in the $500 range. Am I OK with the AMD Quadcore processor or go with the Intel Pentium, both 2.8 GHz. And I guess another question, the AMD has 4GB of DDR3 holds up to 8GB, and the Intel has 4GB also but it is DDR2 and thats the max it will hold. I thought everything now is going with DDR3? Is there that much of a drop off from DDR3 to DDR2, esp if I can't add more?

[Computer_Commando]

32-bit Operating System won't support more than about 3GB RAM, so 8GB does nothing for you unless you use 64-bit OS.

[BC_Programmer]

32-bit Windows Operating System won't support more than about 3GB RAM, so 8GB does nothing for you unless you use 64-bit OS.

FTFY. the limitation is an artificial one implemented for driver compatibility by MS; 32-bit versions of Linux/BSD/etc can see 8GB+ of RAM without problems.

As far as the original question, the AMD offers more upgradability, and the RAM is slightly faster. (I've not used a PC with DDR3, my 8GB is DDR2)