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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. |
