Planning Your PC Before You Buy

This article is for the home user and not an in depth discussion of the computer and how it functions. I just touch on points you need to know, and how to find them, before you buy a computer, nothing more.

When you are getting ready to buy a computer you should do a little research and know what it is you are buying. Everybody has a different opinion on what makes a good computer. These days, in my humble opinion, a computer is a computer. What I am looking for is support. If something goes wrong can I get help to get it resolved? Buy it from a reputable establishment, whether it be online, or at the store. If you buy a custom computer from somebody out of their garage they me be out of business in a few weeks, and you will not have the receipts for the parts that are in it so you can not even go to the manufacturers to get thing fixed. I build quite a few computers for people and make sure they get the receipts for the parts in case something happens to me. Make sure your computer is supported after you get it!

The next thing you want to think about is the "engine", or CPU (Central Processing Unit.) If you are not building the computer you don't need to go into detail about matching the motherboard and CPU with the proper sockets and architecture. That is done for you. What you need to be concerned about is how does the CPU perform? AMD and Intel are the two main contenders in this arena and they are two different creatures. Some people love AMD and other Intel. They can give you tons of geek speak about why one is better than the other. I agree that they both have their place and one is better than the other in certain situations. What you need to do is figure out which one is going to do the best job for you and the best way to do that is with a benchmark. You looked at a half a dozen computers that have the features you want. Each computer has a different CPU in it. What is the difference between the QX9650, Q9300, E8400, E2650, AMD Athlon, AMD Turion, amd AMD Phenom? Tons! I have two computer science degrees and it confuses me. You can go to Intel and AMD and look at the specs for these processors and you are going to see OPN Tray, OPNPIB, Core Speed, Clock Rates STOP! What the hell does that all mean? A lot, but not for the average computer user. What we need is a picture. Which one performs better? That is what I am going to provide. Go here and see the picture. By using a benchmark chart you don't need to be concerned about L2 cache and other things that don't make sense. When you are choosing the processor choose the one that performs the best, regardless of the manufacturer. You are after the best speed, period.

Now that you have picked out your CPU the next component that has to perform well in the computer is the memory. Memory is what helps your CPU process date. The processor itself does not have any memory. It needs memory to hold information while it is processing instructions give to it. I am just going to touch on this because it was addressed in picking out your processor, but it is memory. L2 cache is memory that is placed on the CPU. It is the first place the CPU goes for memory. Once it has depleted this memory it goes to RAM (Random Access Memory.) After this memory is depleted it goes to the HDD (Hard Disk Drive) in the form of a pagefile. The reason the L2 cache is important is because it is the fastest of the memory. The RAM is the next fastest component the processor uses and the pagefile is the slowest. We never want it to reach the pagefile if at all possible. The more RAM the better. That being said, there are limitations. There are 32-bit and 64-bit flavors of the operating system (Windows XP/Vista.) If they are not advertising the system as being sold with a 64-bit operating system, then you are getting the 32-bit flavor. Not to get technical, because I promised, you should get 4GB (4 Gigabytes) of RAM with the 32-bit version and up to 16GB with the 64-bit version. The 32-bit version can only use 3.09GB of the RAM but as cheap as it is you might as well just go with 4GB. That being said there is one more thing you need to look at when it comes to RAM. How much will the motherboard support? Be careful here and this is a MUST ask question. How much RAM will the motherboard support. There are tons of motherboards out there that will only support up to 2GB of RAM. Stay away from these if you are going to be running Vista. There is nowhere for you to go if you are not happy with the performance. The next flavor of Windows due out is Windows 7. Microsoft has a habit of needing more resources with each release of Windows and you need to be able to supply the resources. Make sure you motherboard will support a minimum of 4GB or RAM. I don't want to bore you into not reading this, but one last thing about memory. If you are going to do a lot with multimedia, like videos and heavy duty gaming, you need to make sure you get at least 256MB (Megabytes) of video RAM on the video card. If you want to know why go here. I did not touch on the different speeds of the RAM but the faster in MHz (Megahertz) the better. Again, it is what the motherboard can support. OK, enough said about RAM.

The next thing you need to know about when buying a new computer is the HDD (Hard Disk Drive / Hard Drive.) The faster the better. If possible get a SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) drive vs an EIDE (Enhanced IDE, a newer version of the IDE mass storage device interface standard.) You may see EIDE in different terms, such as Fast IDE, Fast ATA and Ultra ATA. None of these are as fast as SATA. The faster it can move data the better and SATA is the fastest. As I said, memory is much faster than the HDD itself. Most, but not all, HDDs have some memory on them in the form of cache for processing data. You will see it in the amounts of 2MB, 4MB, 8MB up to 32MB of cache on the drive. This is not a make it or break it deal, but the more the better for performance. You can be the only person that can decide on how big the drive needs to be. Drives come as large as 1.5TB (Terabytes) these days. If you are doing a lot of multimedia you may need this amount of space. If you are the casual computer user that does a document now and then, keeps your checkbook balanced and surfs the net you are wasting your money with purchasing tons of space.

The last, but not least important component on the computer may not, and should not, be built into it at all, but added on. This will be the final destination of your data. If your data is not important then the final destination should be the HDD. When it goes bad, and they do, your data is gone. Your next option is a writable CD (CD-RW) or DVD (DVD-RW.) These are vulnerable to scratches though. The next option is a USB (Universal Serial Bus) HDD. This is an add on and is just another HDD to store your data. These are drives and can go bad. The next option is a USB memory stick. These come in flavors these days from 1GB to 32GB. These can get lost, ran through the washer, or drug off by the cat. The final destination would be a tape drive. These are expensive. I'm not trying to be a gloomy Gus here but a realist. If you data is important, keep copies of it in more than one place. Make backup copies of you backup CDs. Keep a copy on a CD and a USB stick. The more copies the better.

You are now armed with the information you need to make sensible decisions when you are looking at new computers.

Happy Shopping,

Keith