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Just ordered a cheap refurbished dell optiplex 320 with a a Celeron (Prescott/Cedar Mills) 3.0 GHz processor, 2 GB Ram and a 80 GB SATA HD.

The question is:

Is this going to be powerful enough to run the latest Photoshop, Dreamweaver, several open browers, and an instant messenger program or two all at the same time with no super special video card?

Just curious. It's a second machine for a designer. Other machines are duo core dell optiplex 745s which fly, so I'm curious about what kind of performance decrease to expect.

Thanks in advance.

I think you might notice some performance decrease for sure.

A few browsers and IM is no real big deal in itself. That can be done with most computers, where you will notice the problem is probobly with Photoshop / Graphics packages. But to be honest i don't have a great answer on how much of a decrease you will get. Although 2gb of RAM is a good start to counter it.

It really depends on the size of the graphics you are working with as well. The higher the DPI the more you will notice problems.

Moving away from a dual core processor (correct me if i am wrong but celeron is single core? Apologies if ignorance kicks in) means that it will be less efficient in terms of multi-tasking as all tasks are sent to the one processor core, so it has to in essence wait until one task, eg graphics is done before another one can really start. Massive oversimplification but it is in essence true.

80GB is a pretty small hard drive these days. I'd consider getting a second one. You can get 500GB internal for around 100 dollars. You can get the same size external for not a whole lot more but performance won't be as good. Replacing a hard drive altogether is much tougher but still doable.

It is also important to note the HD RPMs. If it is 5400 you really should replace it or get a second drive.

What video card does it come with? I have been getting by with a 64MB card on one machine that runs photoshop and dreamweaver for a long time with no problems, but if you're going to do any gaming that won't be good enough.

2GB is good enough. It helps to look through your running processes, google them to see what they do, and disable the ones that waste resources.