Buying
the Perfect Computer
It's easy to make a mistake when buying
a new computer. Many people end up spending a ton of money on something
expensive that they'll never use to its full potential, while others buy
something so small that they have to do expensive upgrading in a matter of
months.
There's few things more disappointing than finding out your 6 month old computer
can't do what you want it to do, or that you don't really need that $400
graphics card to run Microsoft Word.
Don't just buy blindly. Hopefully this article will help you ask the right
questions and get the right hardware for your needs in return.
Power Supply:
Often overlooked as a component, your power supply is an important part of your computer
as it powers all the internal components. The power supply you need will
largely be determined by the components in your PC - in particular CPU type,
graphics card and number of internal devices.
For Pentium 4 and all AMD
CPUs, a minimum 300W power supply is recommended. If you want to run one of the
new ATI X8xx or GeForce 6xxx series 3D graphics cards, don't even try anything
weaker than a 400W power supply.
Never overlook the significance of a power supply - an underpowered system will
be prone not only to unreliable operation, but also to component damage.
CPU:
On the entry level side of things you have a choice between AMD's Sempron CPUs
and Intel's Celeron D. These CPUs are not for the hardcore gamer - they're for
the average user who only want to run office applications and use the Internet.
For the hardcore user/gamer there's the Pentium 4 and the AMD
Athlon 64 CPUs. There's little to choose between the two big guns in the CPU
business. The slowest Pentium 4 CPU readily available at present is the 3Ghz
version, while AMD's equivalent, the Athlon 64 3000+ will likewise satisfy most
users' demand for processing power.
Go faster than that and the increase in cost becomes quite significant, and
you'll have to weigh that up against your budget and your demands.
Motherboard:
The most important thing to keep in mind when picking a motherboard is to get
one that's fairly future proof.
For Pentium 4 that means a motherboard that supports socket 775 CPUs, and for
AMD a motherboard that supports socket 939 CPUs. Also, make sure your
motherboard has enough expansion slots (most commonly PCI slots) to support all
additional cards you may want to use in future - including sound cards, TV cards,
wireless network cards, etc.
If you're a gamer, also make sure that your motherboard supports either an AGP
8x (obsolete soon), but preferably a PCI-Express 16x slot for a 3D graphics card.
3D Graphics Card:
While most motherboards these days feature an onboard graphics card that is
suitable for the casual user, these aren't adequate for gamers.
With the old AGP 8x architecture almost obsolete, the way to go is a PCI-Express
graphics card if you have a motherboard that supports it.
For casual gamers who want to play a bit of Sims and Harry Potter, nVidia's
GeForce 6600 and ATI's X700 series of cards will do the trick.
For the hardcore gamer who wants to play cutting edge games like Doom 3 and
Battlefield 2 at rocking frame rates, don't get anything smaller than a GeForce
6600GT or ATI X800 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory on the card. 128MB is also
acceptable if you don't want to play at resolutions higher than 1152x864.
Before buying a graphics card, make sure that a) your motherboard has the
appropriate slot for it and b) that your power supply is strong enough to
support it.
RAM:
RAM is fast memory used by your computer to execute tasks. When your computer
runs out of RAM, it starts swapping data to the much slower hard drive, which
slows down your entire system.
With RAM being so cheap these days I'd recommend you get at least 512MB. If
you're going to run Windows XP, don't get less than 256MB or you'll slow even
the fastest CPU powered computer to a crawl.
For hardcore gamers, less than 1GB simply isn't an option anymore.
Hard drive:
The smallest hard drive you can buy at the time of writing is 80GB. That's more
than the average home/office user will ever fill, while it's not nearly enough
for music/video collectors or avid gamers.
At the moment the first big price jump in hard drives comes between 200GB and
250GB, so 200GB would be a great option if you need some serious space. Be sure
to make comparisons if you need more space - for example, two 200GB drives are
much cheaper than one 400GB, even though you get the same amount of space.
On the other hand again, two 80GB drives are more expensive than one 160GB drive.
It's also worth getting a SATA hard drive if your motherboard supports it. It's
much faster than IDE drives, which are still abundantly available.
Optical Drives:
Fortunately CD-ROM drives have quietly vanished off the market, so you can now
get more versatile DVD-ROM
and CD-ReWriter drives very cheaply.
If you want to be able to write DVDs, naturally go for a DVD-RW drive, and make
sure the drive you get supports double-layer writing so you can use the new
8.5GB double layer DVD discs in it, which is a whole lot of backup storage.
So, that's just a quick rundown of the things to keep in mind when buying a new
computer. Fortunately it's almost impossible to buy a slow computer these days -
only gamers and other users of high-demand software need to pay special
attention to what they get.
