With minimal included software, this Dell box lacks monitoring and performance software - the following free programs add a very nice suite of utility programs:

• MemSet 3.4: "MemSet is a tweaker which allows users to change memory timings under Windows. You can read principal and secondary timings, and eventually change these timing values."

• Rightmark CPU Utility: "A small GUI application designed for real-time CPU frequency, throttling and load level monitoring and on-the-fly adjustment of the CPU performance level on supported CPU models via processor's power management model-specific registers (MSRs). In automatic management mode it continuously monitors the CPU usage level and dynamically adjusts the CPU frequency, throttle and/or voltage level as needed, realizing the "Performance on Demand" concept."

• Core Temp 0.97: "Core Temp is a compact, no fuss, small footprint program to monitor CPU temperature."

These three free programs will tell you the essentials for tweaking any PC - CPU temps, speed and memory timings. Overall I have been impressed with how quiet this box is and how cool it runs - even when stress testing with Prime 95, temps never exceeded more than 52ºC with and ambient of about 22ºC - all this with the fans running at low speed.

To evaluate performance, I used both SiSandra and Passmark Performance Test v6.1 to get some performance benchmarks for comparison purposes. I first ran Passmark with only 1 GB RAM and it came in at 534.6 - this is the absolute stock system.

MemSet gives a nice picture of the RAM's settings:

Both slices are the same - for DDR II to function at its best, you really should use a matched pair. Dell charges $50 for an upgrade to 2 GB (costs Dell about $10) - while you can buy another GB for less, it will most likely not be exactly the same and as a result, any difference and the BIOS will run the RAM at the lowest setting. IMHO avoid any problems and pay the upgrade price.

SiSandra gives a comparison to some other systems - below is the stock Dell setup comparison:

No real surprises here - with only 1 MB CPU cache, the Core 2 CPU does lag behind CPUs with more cache. Now let's take a look at how the PC's components benchmark, first at stock settings:

You can change the video to 256 MB in BIOS with the following results:

Interesting - a slight degradation, but really negligible. I went back to 128 MB video setting and changed the RAM timings slightly using MemSet:

A slight gain - altering RAM timings is a tricky business, especially with budget RAM. The memory chips on the shipping RAM are Micron Technology - the issue you might have with aggressively altering RAM timing is data corruption. You may not see it but it is possible - you really have to stress test the RAM before you can assert that it's OK.

In general as a tweak for a budget box, I don't think aggressive RAM timing is all that attractive an option - small gains with possible data problems.