Computer Hardware
There are so many options for PC's, and little coherent information
as to what is needed for any one particular purpose. Click on the links
below for answers.
What advantages
are there with AMD chips.
Is a Celeron a good bet.
Should I get a Pentium
When
is buying the cheapest system not the cheapest option.
Can I get all I need
from a laptop.
What
advantages are there with AMD chips.
Cost is the main factor, in that non-Intel chips tend to be cheaper. This
means that they are often put into cheaper systems. This should not mean
that the systems are less dependable, since the other components
should not be of a lesser quality, although they may have less
memory, smaller hard disks, etc. If you are buying a second-user system however, note
that they are a number of incompatible processor slots, so make sure you know
what you are getting, and whether you can upgrade if necessary before you part
with your money.
Is a Celeron
a good bet.
The original Celeron processor was a bit of a disaster. It was slow, and it's
only advantage was that it was cheaper than the Pentium II. With the
current generation Celeron, Intel has put it right. Typically it is
found at the cheaper end of the market, but will be quite fast enough
for most users.
Should
I get a Pentium
For most users, apart from extreme gamers and desktop video producers, a Celeron
1.7GHz processor should be more than adequate. For the real speed hogs
a P4 3GHz + would give more than adequate performance! For either processor,
the video card and memory are probably more important. For Windows XP
512Mb of memory should be the minimum to aim for, but since it doesn't
suffer from the memory limitations of Windows 9x, 1Gb wouldn't be excessive.
When
is buying the cheapest system not the cheapest option.
There are many very cheap deals around at the moment. They can
be by small companies that you may not have heard of. Unless you
have good reason to believe that the company is using good
quality, new components in their machines, it is best to exercise
extreme caution when considering a purchase. Although there is
normally nothing wrong in using generic components sourced from
places like China, the sum total of the components sometimes
doesn't work quite as well as hoped. If you are in any way
nervous, then specify known-brand components or take impartial
advice. It may cost more initially, but may well save time and
money in the long term, should things go wrong.
Can
I get all I need from a laptop.
This is one of those 'all depends' questions. It is possible
to get laptops equally as fast and powerful as many desktop
computers. Where they tend to be a little less ideal, is where
they are used for long periods at a time. The modern colour
screens can be very good, but at present are not the match for a
good monitor. They will be smaller, (because they have to fit the
laptop case), but many laptops have a monitor port to enable you
to plug in a regular monitor. This adds to the expense, as would
an external mouse and keyboard, to overcome the size and
usability problems there, but if you have to be mobile, it gives
you added comfort at your main workplace. The sorts of things to
look out for are external ports for monitor, mouse and keyboard,
the number of PCMCIA (or PC Card) slots, (typically these would
be used for modems and network cards), and whether the CD-ROM and
floppy disks are built in, external or removable.
