Personal Computer Buyers Guide…

Well, since this is my first blog, I wanted to make my first entry a special one. I figured I should give the consumers advice on how to purchase a personal computer, seeing that I am the biggest nerd you will every find! So, let’s get down to business. Let’s assume that you don’t own a computer and wanted to purchase one for the first time; this might be kind of difficult because if you don’t have a computer how would you be reading my blog in the first place! Okay, moving right along; let’s assume that you want a new computer that’s better so you walk into your local mom and pop store such as: Best Buy, Circuit City, Dell, and Apple. The sales associate approaches you and says, “How may I help you today?” and you reply, “I’m looking to purchase a new computer not too expensive, but fast.” The sales associate, if trained correctly, will begin a big speech about the ram, gigs, processor speed, etc. Although that mumble jumble may be useful to someone who knows about computer, the average consumer has one goal in mind. The goal is to find a computer that is cheap and fast!

Here are some terms that will be useful in the event that you are purchasing your own computer. You will need to know what these terms mean prior to entering any computer stores.

  1. CPU - Abbreviation of central processing unit, and pronounced as separate letters. The CPU is the brains of the computer. Sometimes referred to simply as the processor or central processor, the CPU is where most calculations take place. In terms of computing power, the CPU is the most important element of a computer system. ~ http://www.webopedia.com/
  2. RAM - Pronounced ramm, acronym for random access memory, a type of computer memory that can be accessed randomly; that is, any byte of memory can be accessed without touching the preceding bytes. RAM is the most common type of memory found in computers and other devices, such as printers….In common usage, the term RAM is synonymous with main memory, the memory available to programs. For example, a computer with 8M RAM has approximately 8 million bytes of memory that programs can use. ~ http://www.webopedia.com/
  3. Cache - Pronounced cash, a special high-speed storage mechanism. It can be either a reserved section of main memory or an independent high-speed storage device. Two types of caching are commonly used in personal computers: memory caching and disk caching. ~ http://www.webopedia.com/
  4. Hard Drive - The mechanism that reads and writes data on a hard disk. Hard disk drives (HDDs) for PCs generally have seek times of about 12 milliseconds or less. Many disk drives improve their performance through a technique called caching. ~ http://www.webopedia.com/

Those are the four main components of your computer. There are several others; however these four will be most important while purchasing your computer. You can find these definitions and more on webopedia.com. This site serves as a great reference.

The processors that are available on the market are currently sufficient for a buyer that only wants to browse the internet and write a word documents. A computer with a Intel® Core(TM)2 Duo with a speed of 1.86GHz, with a bus speed of 1066MHz, and Cache Memory 2MB would be more than adequate. In this case 1 to 2GB of RAM will do just fine, however I would recommend a 2GB. If you are using multiple tabs or the browser Internet windows, it’ll use up your memory.

For the more experienced user looking to play mp3’s, stream live video, while surfing the web, and doing a little bit of online shopping all at the same time while running a media room should upgrade a little bit. I would recommend a Intel® Core(TM)2 Duo with a speed of 2.2GHz, with a bus speed of 1066MHz, and Cache Memory 2MB or higher would be more then enough. In this case I would have to go with 2GB of RAM or higher along with a monster size hard drive 500GB or more just because of the amount of data that will be stored on your computer images, videos, songs, and whatever else the case maybe.

Finally for the high end user that is a developer or a designer you might want to think about getting yourself a computer that has Intel® Core(TM)2 Quad with a processor speed of 2.4GHz, with a bus of 1066MHz, 4MB of cache. You should think about getting 3GB of RAM expandable to about 8GB just to think about for future upgrading purposes. A hard drive of about 250GB should do a great job of holding your data and design files perfectly.

So you’re probably wondering how much of dent will this put in my wallet! Well, for the average user you could spend an estimated amount of $600.00 - $750.00. For the more advanced user you would be spending roughly $750.00 - $900.00. On the more expensive end, an experienced user such as a coder or gamer, you can look to spend about $975.00 and up. Granted these are just estimated assumptions. On the brighter side, with new advances coming out daily these prices could change the same day. Maybe even after I publish this blog! Well, hopefully I helped some of you out and I hope that you will visit my blog again until next time happy shopping.