Sims 3 system requirements and buying a new computer?

near the end of january beginning of february i will be buying a new computer (at least the tower for a home pc) and i want to be able to play the sims 3 when it comes out later in february. this computer i want strictly for playing games and such.

however, i am having a hard time trying to decide what to get. i know that i want a dell computer, this is what i prefer. i also know that with windows vista 64-bit, i will have/need to use an ATI Radeon (3650) series. which i don't mind.

what i am having trouble is this:



it is recommended that in order to play this game and any others that may come out that i need a 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent, with 1.5 GB RAM, and at least 6.5 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content.



i am not really sure what this means.

do i need to make sure that when i buy my computer from Dell that it has 6GB/8GB of memory?



when i look it up on dell.com, all that i get is that dell recommends (without spending a whole lot of more money on it): Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 (8MB L2, 2.4GHz, 1066FSB) for its processor.



or it also has a choice for Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q8200 (4MN L2, 2.33GHz, 1333FSB) for an extra $50 (at least right now it does).



can someone help me out?Sims 3 system requirements and buying a new computer?
6.5GB of hard drive space means that you need at least 6.5 GB on the hard drive, not memory, that's a different thing... With vista, and to be able to play that game, I'd say get a computer with at least 3GB of RAM... Now-a-days, hard drives are huge, so I wouldn't worry for the storage space.



Any of these 2 processors are fine... SIMS 3 requires a P4 running at 2.4, you'll be getting a quad core processor, which means that it's about 4 times faster than what you need... Although games do not require Quad cores.