Dukes Dodgy PC Dealership *Updated* (Buyers Guide: Choosing a PC system)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Buyers Guide: Choosing a PC system
Date:	16/02/01 (338 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You get a PC tailored to your needs

Disadvantages: More work involved in shopping, Niovices need "honest" advice

OK, you’ve decided that it’s time to join the 21st century and get yourself a computer. Easy – just walk into a computer retailer and buy one, right? Right! If it was so easy, why are you reading this opinion? For the sake of this advice, I’m assuming that you know very little (if anything) about computers and if this gets patronising in any way, I apologise now. I’m also referring to PC compatibles, not Apples or any other type of computer.

I can only give basic advice, obviously if you want more detailed advice (it can get very detailed in places, especially if you start talking about motherboard sizes, expansion slots, RAID controllers etc. but you should only really be talking this detailed if you’re thinking about buying the components to build your own) I would suggest you find someone who you know and trust i.e. friend / work colleague who you could ask for specific information about components, prices, software etc. If you bribe them with food or beer then they’ll give you a hand. To be honest, I would suggest this option, you could buy separate components on the Internet and probably get the PC you want for lots less than what you would pay in a High Street store. So, on we go!

The two most important things to consider when buying a computer are:

How much can you afford?
What are you planning on using your computer for?

It may surprise you to know that computers these days aren’t all singing all dancing electronic Swiss army knives. Each PC is basically a modular system that you can customise to your own specific needs. Each of the things I list below are some of the things I would consider to be most important in those circumstances.

Things like keyboards and mice are fairly standard and cheap these days, so you should not have to spend much time thinking about these - the only thing to do is make sure that you buy ones with the right connectors - AT or P
S/2, although this is not a problem if you are buying from a large manufacturer like Dell, Tiny or Gateway. Semi-decent mice and keyboards start at around £15 these days.

Other peripherals such as scanners, printers or backup devices (Zip, CD-RW [Re-writeable CD's]) etc. are extra cost, and can be bought at a later date if you are short of cash, again making sure you get the right connectors (parallel, SCSI or USB).

It's also worth noting that DVD-ROM drives are becoming quite cheap, and I would suggest that you get one. ("But I don't want to watch movies!" I hear you cry!) Well, there's more to DVD ROMs than movies! They hold a lot more information than CD's and are becoming the standard in new systems today. (I think it's about 8 times the storage of a CD).

In the interests of eye health, I suggest aiming for a monitor which is at least 17” in size (that’s screen size). This is especially important if you’re going to be spending large amounts of time in front of your new PC. Some things might require larger monitors, but I’ll mention them at the right time.

PC 1: If you are looking to do a lot of professional graphics work, then I would suggest getting a system that has a large (19” and above) monitor, with a good graphics card, and an above average amount of memory (i.e. 256Mb and above).

PC 2: If you are looking for a good games machine, then I would suggest a fast processor, good graphics card and 128Mb at least of memory. You might want to look at an up to date sound card as well.

PC 3: For those of you looking to produce music on your PC, I would suggest a professional quality soundcard, and at least 128Mb of memory.

PC 4: A simple home set up for basic word processing or web design / internet browsing is very cost effective as you don’t need cutting edge technology for any task.

PC 5: If you are looking to buy a
PC system on which you want to watch DVD movies, then you have three choices:

a) Buy a good graphics card, fast-ish processor (Over 600Mhz) and a large (19” or bigger) monitor.
b) Buy a graphics card with a TV out (you can link it to your telly then) or an MPEG (pronounced Em PEG) decoder card which should take a lot of work away from your processor - I'm not sure if they can be linked to your telly or not.
c) A combination of both suggestions above.

=Note= In all cases where you want to surf the net, I heartily recommend you stay away from "Win modems" which use processor time to operate the modem as opposed to “hardware” modems which use onboard chips to operate, thus cutting down on the amount of work your processor does. Hardware modems, if bought from online retailers can be bought for as little as £30 – Win modems cost about £16, so the upgrade is not expensive.

Another thing to note is about processors (the brains of a computer). There are two basic manufacturers – Intel (of the TV adverts) and AMD. Generally, AMD processors are cheaper than Intel ones with very little difference in performance between them. Currently, the cutting edge processors (1.5GHz speeds) are very expensive – if you can do without the cutting edge, you can pick up a recent (i.e. 800Mhz) for well below less than half the price i.e. £80 instead of £200.

Final thing is memory and storage. Basically buy as much memory as you can afford (up to about 256MiB unless you work with graphical images) although it is cheap at the moment (approx. £30 for 256MiB). You shouldn’t really pay any more than £100 for a hard disk drive, which at today’s prices should get you upwards of 40GB worth of storage.

So, hopefully there is enough information there to give you a head start in buying a computer system that you will put to good use. For further information, see other opinions in the
Computer section of Dooyoo, and opinions on online retailers for more information on where to get computer components and systems cheaper than in the High Street.

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