In this guide I cover what you need to look at for buying good monitors, sound cards, CPUs, video cards, hard drives ect. Basically everything you need to know when going out to buy a PC.
When you go out to buy a computer you should be aware of a few things first. Before you even start reading this, get one thing straight DO NOT buy a computer made by a friend. No, your friend is not out to get you, but you will have no warranty or assurance of any kind. If you choose not to heed my advice at the very least make sure that you have a copy of the software he loaded onto your PC.
#1 Decide first what you want to DO. Decide then what software and hardware is needed. If you are going for a business computer $1000 dollars will be more then enough. The PC will last you a very long time. If you are going to play games make sure its a $2000-$3000 dollar PC. If you get anything less it may work now, but wait about 12 months and you’ll find that your computer will have trouble playing any of the new games that have just come out. Another thing to keep in mind is that the more you pay for a PC the longer it will last you, so everything is relative. If you buy a cheap one it just means you’ll have to buy another one sooner in the end it all evens out.
#2 Buy from a place that actually knows about computers, understands the technical things about computers, and is willing to help when things don’t quite go right. It important to test the place by asking a lot of technical questions and see if they know what they are talking about, and also to ask for help to see if they are actually willing and helpful.
#3 Don’t buy computers where the sound card, video card and motherboard are all integrated (meaning it is all one piece of hardware). Because that means that all three will share memory among each other. You will probably end up buying your own video or sound card anyway so the integrated part on your PC will become a waste.
#4 Make sure the price looks right, if its too cheap your going to have problems on your hands. Maybe not now but defiantly in the future.
#5 MAKE SURE YOU GET COPIES OF ALL THE SOFTWARE AND DRIVERS THEY INSTALLED ON YOUR PC!
2nd Hand (Used) PCs
Make sure you know what a new PC of equivalent specification costs. Usually, the price of the second hand PC should be roughly 50% of what a new PC of equivalent specifications would cost. The price should reflect not just that the goods are used but also the fact that you do not have a full original manufacturer’s guarantee, and you are therefore taking a risk.
Stop paying for stuff you don’t need
The biggest “scams” are the advertisements of a “Free Printer”, “Free Scanner” and “Free Software”. The gullible believe that they are getting a lot of free stuff. Those with common sense suspect that the PC has already been priced with the cost of the scanner, printer and software built into the advertised figure. The only way a company can constantly sell for less than cost is if they’re planning on going bankrupt. And if they are, you certainly don’t want to give them your money.
The CPU
There are two main companies for CPUs and there is little to choose between Intel and AMD. Even professionals can’t tell a PC with AMD inside from one with Intel inside. Most salesmen will just try to sell you the most expensive solution they have, but don’t fall for it.
Random Access Memory (RAM)
There are two basic types of RAM:
Dynamic RAM has to have its memory constantly refreshed. Static RAM on the other hand, is faster and less volatile than dynamic RAM, but it requires more power and is more expensive.
The Hard Drive
When shopping for a hard drive, here are some of the numbers that are published by the manufacturers that you should look at:
Read seek is the average time it takes to move the head from one position on the drive to another to read data from the drive. Write seek is the average amount of time that it takes the drive to move to an empty space on the disk and begin writing the data. Track-to-track is the average amount of time the drive takes to move the drive head to each sequential track on the drive. Full stroke is the amount of time it takes the drive head to move from the outer to inner portion of the disk or the full length of the drive head’s motion. For all of these, a lower number means higher performance.
The final factor that impacts performance for a hard drive is the amount of buffer on the drive. A drive’s buffer is an amount of RAM on the drive to store frequently accessed data from the drive. The more buffer on the drive, the more data that can be stored in the cache to decrease the amount of physical drive operation. Most drives today come with a 8MB drive buffer. Some performance drives such come with a larger 16MB buffer. I think everything else pretty much explains itself.
The Video Card
For most office applications, a 32 or 64MB card is adequate. For gamers or those doing some sort of video production work, a minimum of 128MB is recommended, with a strong lean to 256. The more memory your video card has, the higher the resolution, and the larger the number of colors it can display.
Connectors and Interfaces of the Video Card
A standard SVGA card is going to have a single VGA connector. Higher end cards will have an S-Video and a DVI connector as well. What this means is that you have to pay attention to what type of monitor you have. DVI is all digital, like HDTV. The S-Video can be used to output to your TV for gaming on a larger screen.
Nowadays, you will have either a PCI or an AGP slot for your video card. AGP stands for Advanced Graphics Port and as you might have guessed, means there are enhancements in performance when using and AGP slot. If your current video card is built into the motherboard, it is likely robbing the system of valuable memory because the system RAM is shared with it.
The Sound Card
There are typically three kinds of sound card users. People who want to listen to music or watch DVDs. Those that want good sound when they play video games and folks that want to create music using their computers. Each has special needs and should look for specific features when shopping for sound cards.
Typically cards have an 8- or 16-bit rating, though newer high-end cards, like the Audigy line, feature 24-bit sound quality. This measurement provides an indication of the “detail” in the sound. For example, a 24-bit sound card gives you better sound than an 8-bit card because there is more sound information being pumped through it.
PC gamers should check to see that the sound card they are considering supports the latest DirectX software. That’s the sound technology built into Windows for games. Periodically Microsoft updates it. Ask the person selling the card if they know what version of DirectX the card supports.
If you’re keen on a high-end card and are interested in the SoundBlaster line of adapters, make sure the card supports EAX technology. That’s the ability to generate 3D environmental sounds during game play. Many games you can buy feature “EAX” support. EAX was introduced at version 1.0 then moved to 2.0. The latest version is called EAX Advanced HD, which is essentially version 3.0.
DVD watchers probably won’t care about most of that gamer stuff. If you’re buying a sound card to hear music, you’ll want to focus on Dolby Digital 5.1 support. That’s a surround sound technology that provides 3D sound in movie theaters and is used in DVD playback.
To take advantage of 3D surround sound features in a sound card, you’ll need to ensure that you have 5.1 compatible multi-channel speakers. Two and four speaker setups can emulate it.
Music lovers will also need to look at two more ratings. One is signal to noise ratio (S2N). The other is THD or total harmonic distortion. The higher the signal to noise ratio (measured in dB), the better the sound quality. This is measurement of garbage noise generated by electronic components and interference to pure sound produced by a piece of gear. Most sound cards will offer S2N ratings of 80 to 104 dB.
The lower the THD, the better the sound quality. You’ll see anywhere from 0.1 percent to 0.005 per cent THD. The lower you go percent-wise, the better the sound.
If you’re into music creation with your computer then you need to consider a card with Wave Table Synthesis support. It is a method of using sound samples to mimic instruments. Sound cards are using this to create more realistic instruments for music creation.
You’ll also want to check the amount of sound card memory. The more the card has the more efficient the card is in working with sound fonts. This allows musicians to create higher-quality music.
The Monitor
People who work mostly with text have always gone toward LCDs because pixels on an LCD have well-defined edges, resulting in sharply focused letters. Some gamers still prefer CRTs because LCDs redraw their screens more slowly, which can produce blurring and motion artifacts in moving images. However, response time continues to drop, modern LCDs can refresh quickly enough to make them game-worthy for most users.
Budget limitations may still drive some buyers to CRTs, which usually cost less than LCDs that have a comparably sized viewable screen area. As LCD prices fall, though, more users and companies are going for the slim form and low power usage of the LCD.
Physical adjustments: Almost all monitors come with tilt adjustment. If you spend a great deal of time in front of your monitor, you may want to find one that lets you adjust the height of the screen as well. You may find that it’s worth a few extra dollars to get a monitor that will keep the screen at a comfortable height instead of making your neck do all the work.
Native resolution: Images look best when displayed at an LCD’s native resolution. You can go lower (and in some cases higher), but the image may appear blurry. Some models are better than others at handling non-native resolutions. Remember that with LCDs the native resolution is the maximum resolution you can display and for CRT it is the minimum.
Panel size: Unlike CRT, which indicates both tube-size and viewable-screen diagonals, LCD panel size indicates viewable size as well. As with CRTs, the measurement is made diagonally from one corner of the screen to the opposite corner.
Contrast ratio: Contrast ratio can help you determine how rich the color will be in on-screen images. A higher ratio is better, but vendor specifications are not always accurate.
Viewing angle: Indicates how far you can move to the side of (or above and below) the center of the screen and still see what’s displayed. This is important when you use the LCD to make presentations, or when you work with another person. Vendors use different methods to measure viewing angles, so make the final judgment yourself by visual comparison.
Brightness: All LCDs generally provide more than enough brightness. In fact, most users find they have to turn the monitor’s brightness down after purchasing.
Response time: Rise-and-fall response time indicates the time required for a pixel to change from black to white (rise) and back to black (fall). A low figure in milliseconds means a faster refresh rate, which is what you want. Gray-to-gray response time does not have a standard definition, and is a less reliable indicator.
If I made a mistake don’t rant about it please. Just kindly point out how it needs to be fixed, I’m only human. If you think there are other areas I should cover don’t be afraid to tell me.
June 2, 2009 at 3:25 am |
This post is so outdated